Video Library

The Institute’s video library is a growing resource of recorded lectures, videos designed for the classroom, collections features and exhibition tours, ranging from just a few minutes to over an hour. Browse by category or use the search bar below to look for a specific topic or speaker across our website.

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Year in Revolution

Year in Revolution—1783: Newburgh, New York

Year in Revolution—1783: Newburgh, New York

June 28, 2026

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The Year in Revolution: 1783 Newburgh, New York video takes place in Newburgh, New York. With no formal articles of peace in place by March 1783, Continental officers could not yet formally disband. They…

Year in Revolution—1783: Veterans

Year in Revolution—1783: Veterans

June 28, 2026

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The Year in Revolution: 1783 Veterans video examines America’s first veterans. Over a quarter of a million Americans served in the armed forces that won our independence—80,000-90,000 in the…

Year in Revolution—1783: Civic Virtue

Year in Revolution—1783: Civic Virtue

June 28, 2026

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Our Year in Revolution: 1783 Civic Virtue video explores how and why 18th century Americans studied the democracies of classical Greece and Rome and celebrated the ancient Roman hero Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus as an…

Year in Revolution—1783: Treaty of Paris

Year in Revolution—1783: Treaty of Paris

June 28, 2026

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The Year in Revolution: 1783 Treaty of Paris video chronicles the peace talks between America and Britain that began in Paris in 1782. The British prime minister directed his home secretary, Wiliam Fitzmaurice, Earl…

Year in Revolution—1783: Sovereignty

Year in Revolution—1783: Sovereignty

June 28, 2026

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The Year in Revolution: 1783 Sovereignty video is about the United States’ presentation as a sovereign nation on the world’s stage in 1783. The Treaty of Paris states that: “Great Britain acknowledges the…

Lectures, Author's Talks & Panels

National Treasure: How the Declaration of Independence Made America

National Treasure: How the Declaration of Independence Made America

Michael Auslin
June 25, 2026

Award-winning historian Michael Auslin discusses his new book that demonstrates how Thomas Jefferson’s words in the Declaration of Independence have inspired implausibly varied causes, from suffragists and civil rights leaders to groups waging war on the United States…

 When the Declaration of Independence Was News

When the Declaration of Independence Was News

Emily Sneff
April 21, 2026

Historian Emily Sneff discusses her new book that reveals the stories of how the Declaration of Independence was communicated in the United States and around the Atlantic World. In 1776, people could hear the Declaration of Independence proclaimed in public…

Lunch Bite Object Talks

A 1773 British Army List and the Battle of Bunker Hill

A 1773 British Army List and the Battle of Bunker Hill

Andrew Outten
June 20, 2025

The Institute’s historical programs manager, Andrew Outten, discusses a 1773 register of British Army officers, annotated with casualties suffered during the first battles of the Revolution—most notably at the Battle of Bunker Hill.
Beginning in 1740, the British…

A Minute Man’s Hanger Sword and the Battles of Lexington and Concord

A Minute Man’s Hanger Sword and the Battles of Lexington and Concord

Emily Parsons
April 18, 2025

To commemorate the 250th anniversary of the beginning of the American Revolution, the Institute’s deputy director and curator, Emily Parsons, discusses an American-made hanger sword carried during the early months of the Revolutionary War by James Taylor, a…

The 1775 Orderly Book of a Massachusetts Officer

The 1775 Orderly Book of a Massachusetts Officer

Thomas Lannon
February 21, 2025

The Institute’s library director, Thomas Lannon, discusses the orderly book of Edmund Bancroft. Initially a non-commissioned officer in Col. William Prescott’s Regiment from May-December 1775, Edmund Bancroft was likely a participant at the Battle of Bunker…

A 1780s Chinese Porcelain Punch Bowl Depicting the Battle of the Saintes

A 1780s Chinese Porcelain Punch Bowl Depicting the Battle of the Saintes

Paul Newman
November 8, 2024

The Institute’s museum collections and operations manager, Paul Newman, for a Lunch Bite object talk highlighting a recent acquisition for our museum collections: a Chinese porcelain punch bowl depicting the Battle of the Saintes. Produced around 1783, the punch…

Conversations and Lectures for the Classroom

Global Migration of American Loyalists

Global Migration of American Loyalists

Maya Jasanoff
November 5, 2015

At the end of the American Revolution, sixty thousand Americans loyal to the British cause fled the United States and became refugees throughout the British Empire. Loyalists traveled to Canada, sailed for Britain, and journeyed to the Bahamas and the…

Benedict Arnold

Benedict Arnold

James Kirby Martin
July 24, 2015

American general Benedict Arnold secretly conspired with the enemy to surrender West Point and George Washington. Disaster for the Americans was thwarted only when Arnold’s co-conspirator, John André, was captured with plans of the West Point fortifications in…

Oneida and Six Nations

Oneida and Six Nations

James Kirby Martin
July 24, 2015

The Oneida nation was the only one of the Iroquois Confederacy to ally with the Americans during the Revolutionary War. Congress formally honored the Oneida in 1794 for their service to the American cause, yet over time the Oneida sacrifice…

A Well-Regulated Militia: History of the Second Amendment

A Well-Regulated Militia: History of the Second Amendment

Saul Cornell
June 16, 2015

Professor Cornell delves into the complicated history and interpretation of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. He argues that the amendment neither guarantees the right to own guns nor simply protects the rights of states to maintain militias…

An Empire Divided: Revolution and the British Caribbean

An Empire Divided: Revolution and the British Caribbean

Andrew O’Shaughnessy
September 26, 2014

There were twenty-six colonies, not thirteen, in British America in 1776, and the majority of the colonies outside the mainland were in the Caribbean. Even though they shared many important similarities and connections with the mainland colonies, they did…

Collections Corner

The First French Map of the United States

The First French Map of the United States

Rachel Nellis
May 2, 2024

In this segment of Collections Corner, the Institute’s research services librarian, Rachel Nellis, highlights a rare map from our Robert Charles Lawrence Fergusson Collection, Carte des Etats-Unis de l’Amerique suivant le Traité de Paix de 1783, engraved…

An Allegorical Portrait of a French Naval Officer

An Allegorical Portrait of a French Naval Officer

Emily Parsons
October 31, 2023

Deputy Director and Curator Emily Parsons discusses an allegorical portrait from our museum collections. Completed in 1783 by Parisian artist Nicolas René Jollain, the painting depicts Thomas François Lenormand de Victot, a fallen French naval officer from the Revolutionary…

 The Patriot’s Monitor

The Patriot’s Monitor

Stacia Smith
August 28, 2023

It’s back to school season! To celebrate, this month’s Collections Corner features the Institute’s director of education, Stacia Smith, discussing The Patriot’s Monitor, an 1810 American primer written by Rev. Ignatius Thomson of Pomfret, Vermont. As…

French Military Treatises of the Eighteenth Century

French Military Treatises of the Eighteenth Century

Joe Stoltz
June 26, 2023

Coping with the sunset that followed Louis XIV’s death, battered by a string of costly military defeats, and influenced by the intellectual currents of the Enlightenment, the French army was primed for reform in the mid-eighteenth century. Scholar…

Early French Eagle Insignias of the Society of the Cincinnati

Early French Eagle Insignias of the Society of the Cincinnati

Emily Parsons
May 13, 2023

The Society of the Cincinnati’s Eagle insignia has been the most recognizable symbol of the organization and its members for more than two hundred years. Designed in 1783 by Pierre-Charles L’Enfant, the double-sided gold insignia bears…

Exhibition Videos

Fete Lafayette: A French Hero’s Tour of the American Republic

Fete Lafayette: A French Hero’s Tour of the American Republic

June 27, 2024

On the eve of the fiftieth anniversary of the American Revolution, the marquis de Lafayette embarked on a tour of the United States, returning for a final time to the country he helped established and whose republican form of government…

Saving Soldiers: Medical Practice in the Revolutionary War

Saving Soldiers: Medical Practice in the Revolutionary War

March 1, 2022

Explore our exhibition Saving Soldiers: Medical Practice in the Revolutionary War in this short video tour featuring a few highlight objects. Drawn principally from the Institute’s collections of rare books, manuscripts, portraits and artifacts, Saving Soldiers examined medical practice…