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.
August 2023
Lunch Bite – Catharine Macaulay’s An Address to the people of England, Scotland, and Ireland, on the Present Important Crisis of Affairs
Research Services Librarian Rachel Nellis discusses Catharine Macaulay, a radical English writer and historian sympathetic to the American cause, and her 1775 pamphlet, An Address to the people of England, Scotland, and Ireland, on the Present Important Crisis of Affairs. Using events such as Parliament’s passing of the Stamp Act and the Boston Massacre, Macaulay’s pamphlet was written as an appeal to Great Britain to change its policies towards the colonies. This Lunch Bite will not only examine the contents within…
Find out more »Virtual Lecture – A View From Abroad: The Story of John and Abigail Adams in Europe
From 1778 to 1788, future president John Adams lived in Europe as an American diplomat. Joined by his wife, Abigail, in 1784, the two shared rich encounters with famous heads of the European royal courts. Jeanne E. Abrams, professor of history at the University of Denver, shows that the Adams’ journey not only changed the course of their intellectual, political and cultural development, but served to strengthen their loyalty to America, and highlights how the Adamses and their American contemporaries…
Find out more »September 2023
Author’s Talk – Unfriendly to Liberty: Loyalist Networks and the Coming of the American Revolution in New York City
Drawing from his recent book, historian Christopher Minty, Ph.D., explores the origins of loyalism in New York City between 1766 and 1776, and adds to our understanding of the coming of the American Revolution. Focusing on political culture, organization, and patterns of allegiance, Dr. Minty demonstrates how the contending allegiances of loyalists and patriots were all but locked in place by the outset of war in 1775, and that the political alignments formed during the imperial crisis of the 1760s and…
Find out more »Special Program – The 2023 Society of the Cincinnati Prize Presentation & Reception
The 2023 Society of the Cincinnati Prize honors historian Friederike Baer, Ph.D., and her ground-breaking book Hessians: German Soldiers in the American Revolutionary War (Oxford University Press, 2022). Between 1776 and 1783, Great Britain hired an estimated thirty thousand German soldiers to fight in its war against the American rebels. Collectively known as Hessians, the soldiers and accompanying civilians, including hundreds of women and children, spent extended periods of time in locations as dispersed and varied as Canada, West Florida…
Find out more »Dinner and Lecture – The Prelude to Monmouth
This dinner and lecture at the Hyatt Regency Morristown kicks off the Institute’s next two-day battlefield tour experience exploring a significant turning point of the American Revolution: the Battle of Monmouth. The evening begins at 5 p.m. with cocktails will be available through a cash bar, followed by a buffet style dinner. Following dinner, a lecture featuring award-winning historian Ricardo A. Herrera, Ph.D., of the U.S. Army War College discussing the events that led to the Battle of Monmouth. The…
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