Mary Beth Norton discusses her book, 1774: The Long Year of Revolution, analyzing the revolutionary change that took place between December 1773 and April 1775—from the Boston Tea Party to the Battles of Lexington and Concord. In those months, Britain’s American colonists were finally and irrevocably alienated from the British government by a series of parliamentary acts designed to bring colonial resistance to taxation and regulation to an end. Those acts, and the imposition of military government to enforce them, drove the colonists from resistance to revolution. By the spring of 1775, armed rebellion and ultimately a war for independence were inevitable. This lecture was presented on March 5, 2020—the 250th anniversary of the Boston Massacre—and is the first in a series of special Institute events commemorating the 250thanniversary of the American Revolution.
About the Speaker
Mary Beth Norton is a professor of American history at Cornell University and served as the president of the American Historical Association in 2018. Dr. Norton is the author of Liberty’s Daughters: The Revolutionary Experience of American Women, 1750–1800 (1996), Founding Mothers & Fathers: Gendered Power and the Forming of American Society (1997), In the Devil’s Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692 (2003) and 1774: The Long Year of Revolution (2020).