Calendar of Historical Programs

In 1774, Gen. Henry Clinton embarked on a "martial grand tour," visiting the battlefields of Europe with his friend, the military theorist Henry Lloyd. What the two observed on their travels would change the British approach to the war that broke out in North America the following year. From his practical and theoretical study of military history Clinton concluded that battles should only be fought when decisive political objectives could be achieved, but he instead realized that armies should be…

Anderson House, the winter home of Larz and Isabel Anderson between 1905 and 1937, stands as a testament to all that was gracious and in good taste in entertaining during the waning decades of America’s Gilded Age. An architectural masterpiece based on the English late Baroque period, with elements from the French Beaux-Arts tradition, the house was designed as both a splendid stage upon which the social status and careers of the couple could be promoted and advanced, and as…

In the second half of the eighteenth century, British surveyors came to North America and the West Indies in unprecedented numbers. Their images of coastlines, forts and frontiers helped win the French and Indian War and pictured a triumphant British Atlantic world. The American Revolution shattered this vision of peace, commerce and settlement. Once tasked to promote an expansive American empire, wartime mapmakers applied their knowledge to make war on American colonists. Max Edelson, professor of history at the University…