Calendar of Historical Programs

Library intern Kris Stinson presents an eighteenth-century set of Edward Gibbon’s The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and discusses the influence of classical ideas and literature on Revolutionary War participants. First published in 1776, Gibbon’s revolutionary work wove a provocative narrative on the causes of the decay and collapse of the late Roman empire, a society with which early Americans felt a peculiar affinity. Delving into Rome’s complex imperial structure and the characters upon whose fate it rested, Gibbon presented readers…

Library Director Ellen Clark presents highlights of a recently acquired collection of early newspapers and other periodicals featuring articles on Alexander Hamilton. From the first official reports of his valor at Yorktown through his political career and personal trials to his death as the result of the duel with Aaron Burr, Hamilton was a figure of intense public interest who received wide coverage in the press. The collection also includes detailed accounts of his funeral and subsequent memorial tributes, as…

Library Assistant Kieran O’Keefe discusses the loyalist prisoner experience during the Revolutionary War featuring an engraving of the notorious underground prison at Simsbury Mines in Connecticut, published in 1781 in a London periodical. While revolutionaries in New York contended with British forces based in New York City and Canada, they also faced an internal threat from the state's loyalist inhabitants. Fearing that loyalists might undermine the Revolution through insurrection or by aiding the British army, patriot leaders chose to arrest…