Calendar of Historical Programs

Join Executive Director Jack Warren for a discussion of a treasure from our library — the 1786 published edition of the marquis de Chastellux’s account of his travels in America, which offers remarkable insights into how European intellectuals imagined the natural world at the end of the eighteenth century and how they related those ideas to the American Revolution. Chastellux was a major general in the French army and the liaison between George Washington and General Rochambeau.   The presentation…

Bénédicte Miyamoto, associate professor at Université Sorbonne Nouvelle and a fellow in the Institute's library, will present highlights of manuscript maps, fortification drawings and artillery diagrams in the Institute's collections that illustrate the art of the war in the eighteenth century. Military engineers, draftsmen and topographers received artistic training that was used to produce these documents, which were vital tools in eighteenth-century warfare. Artistic skills were not only needed for in-situ sketching, but were also required to produce a wealth of…

Sabine Fisher, museum collections manager, presents a scrapbook and medals from Isabel Anderson's overseas service with the American Red Cross during World War I. Isabel—already an active Red Cross member when the Great War broke out—was one of nearly thirty thousand American women who volunteered to serve with the organization on the Western Front. Her work in canteens and military hospitals in France and Belgium earned her honors from both nations, including the Croix de Guerre and Médaille de la…