Supporting scholarship and promoting popular understanding of the American Revolution is central to the work of the American Revolution Institute. The Institute welcomes distinguished scholars and authors to share their insights and discuss their latest research with the public at Anderson House through lectures, author's talks and panel discussions. The Institute also hosts a variety of other historical programs throughout the year, including our Lunch Bite object talks, battlefield tours, special Anderson House tour programs and other events. Many of the events we offer are free.
March 2021
Virtual Author’s Talk – The Boston Massacre: A Family History
Serena Zabin, professor of history and director of the American studies program at Carleton College, discusses her book on the personal and political conflicts that erupted in the Boston Massacre. Following the British troops dispatched from Ireland to Boston in 1768 to suppress colonial unrest, Dr. Zabin has uncovered the forgotten stories of the many regimental wives and children who accompanied these armies and who became neighbors to the colonists in Boston. When soldiers shot unarmed citizens in the street,…
Find out more »April 2021
Virtual Author’s Talk – George Washington’s Final Battle: The Epic Struggle to Build a Capital City and a Nation
Robert P. Watson, professor of American history at Lynn University, discusses his book on the role of George Washington in the creation of the District of Columbia. The first president is remembered for leading the Continental Army to victory, presiding over the Constitutional Convention and forging a new nation, but less well known is the story of his involvement in the establishment of a capital city and how it nearly tore the United States apart. In George Washington's Final Battle, Watson…
Find out more »May 2021
Virtual Author’s Talk – The Compleat Victory: Saratoga and the American Revolution
Following the successful expulsion of American forces from Canada in 1776, the British forces were determined to end the rebellion and devised what they believed a war-winning strategy. They were to send General John Burgoyne south to rout the Americans and take Albany. When British forces captured Fort Ticonderoga with unexpected ease in July of 1777, it looked as if it was a matter of time before they would break the rebellion in the North. Less than three and a…
Find out more »July 2021
Virtual Concert – A Second of July Celebration
John Adams—the father of American independence if ever there was one—predicted that “the Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival.” The second of July is the day the Continental Congress adopted Richard Henry Lee’s resolution “that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States . . . and…
Find out more »Virtual Panel Discussion – French Memoir and Memories of the War for American Independence
The American Revolution marked the beginning of an age of democratic revolutions that swept over France and challenged the old order throughout the Atlantic world. The French officers who served in the American War of Independence, whether as idealistic volunteers or resolute soldiers of their king, remembered the experience for the rest of their lives. Many preserved their reflections on the revolution in America in daily diaries, private journals and carefully composed memoirs, leaving us with a remarkable array of…
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