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.
April 2023
Lecture – All the World’s a Stage: The Role of Architecture and Interior Decor in Entertaining at Anderson House, 1905-1929
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…
Find out more »Lecture – The Surveyor’s Eyes: Mapping Empire in the Era of the American Revolution
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…
Find out more »May 2023
Virtual Event – The 2022 Society of the Cincinnati Book Prize Lecture
The 2022 Society of the Cincinnati Prize honors Col. Kevin J. Weddle and his book A Compleat Victory: Saratoga and the American Revolution. Following the successful expulsion of American forces from Canada in 1776, the British were determined to end the rebellion and devised what they believed to be a war-winning strategy. They sent Gen. John Burgoyne south, expecting to rout the Americans and take Albany. When British forces captured Fort Ticonderoga with unexpected ease in July of 1777, it…
Find out more »January 2025
Virtual Seminar—“The American Cause…is the Cause of Liberty”
Join the American Revolution Institute and the Georgetown County SC250 Commission for a special virtual seminar discussing various topics highlighting the marquis de Lafayette and the American Revolution in South Carolina. This virtual seminar features the Institute’s director of education, Stacia Smith, discussing Lafayette’s farewell tour in 1824 and 1825, as celebrated by the Institute’s exhibition, Fete Lafayette: A French Hero’s Tour of the American Republic; the Institute’s research services librarian, Rachel Nellis, highlighting the surprising and exciting stories of…
Find out more »December 2025
Virtual Lunch Bite—The Revolution’s First Winter: Loyalist Thomas Ainslie’s Account of the 1775 American Assault of Quebec
The Institute’s library director, Thomas Lannon, discusses the American invasion of Canada during the first winter of the Revolution and the failed attempt to capture Quebec to rally support against Britain and bring Canada into the rebellion as the hoped-for “fourteenth colony.” With unrest spreading in the southern colonies, British leaders worried rebellion might cross into Canada. That fear was justified and Canada figured prominently in the American strategy for an opening campaign in the Revolution. Congress authorized the invasion in…
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