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Winter/Spring 2012 Lecture Series: “Revolutionary Implications: Social and Cultural Change During the Struggle for American Independence”
This series will explore key moments in the Revolutionary era where seemingly minor developments impacted the future course of the struggle, and the fate of the new nation.
Sunday, February 12, 3PM: The Hamiltonian Moment and the Specter of Democracy; Andrew Shankman, Associate Professor of History, Rutgers Camden. The lecture will explore Hamilton’s role in the shaping of American government in the 1790s, and his ultimate defeat by what Hamilton viewed as a “terrifying specter of democracy” that embodied social mobility and fluidity. Andrew Shankman is the author of Crucible of American Democracy: The Struggle to Fuse Egalitarianism and Capitalism in Jeffersonian Pennsylvania.
Sunday, March 4, 3PM: A Family in Fragments: The Life and times of Alice, A Bucks County Slave; Susan Klepp, Professor of Colonial America and American Women’s History at Temple University. March is Women’s History Month, and in observation, noted Women’s historian Susan Klepp will tell the story of Alice, a slave who ran Dunk’s Ferry on the Delaware River just south of Bristol, Pennsylvania. Building on a short biography of Alice published in 1802, Professor Klepp will put Alice’s life in context, and will examine how Alice’s experiences in slavery and her anti-slavery beliefs inform our knowledge of race and slavery in Early America.
Thursday, March 22, 7:30 PM: Manners and the Making of the American Revolution: Dr. Alexander Hamilton’s Itinerarium; Michael W. Zuckerman, Emeritus Professor of History, University of Pennsylvania. The lecture will examine the travel narrative of the Scottish-born physician who settled in Annapolis and journeyed to Maine and back in 1744. Dr. Hamilton’s detailed descriptions of local people illustrate cultural shifts occurring in the run-up to the Revolution. Michael W. Zuckerman is the author of Friends and Neighbors: Group Life in America's First Plural Societies, and Almost Chosen People: Oblique Biographies in the American Grain.
Wednesday, April 25, 7:30 PM: Anti-Popery and the Fall of Royal America; Brendan J. McConville, Professor of History at Boston University. This lecture on anti-Catholicism will draw from on Brendan J. McConville’s research for his next book, The American Revolution. His previous books are The King’s Three Faces: The Rise and Fall of Royal America, 1688-1776 and These Daring Disturbers of the Public Peace.
Sunday, April 29, 3PM: Blasted: Pontiac’s War and the Collapse of the Indian Play-Off System; David J. Silverman, Professor of History, George Washington University. Through an examination of Pontiac’s Rebellion, David J. Silverman will demonstrate that the impact of muskets and rifles went far beyond the military dimension, changing key aspects of Native American society and culture. Professor Silverman is the author of Red Brethren: The Brothertown and Stockbridge Indians and the Problem of Race in Early America.
Lectures are admission-free, but reservations are required. To make a reservation, call (215)493-2233 ext. 100, or email rsvp@dlar.org
Staff Ride: Saturday, April 28, 2012
The David Library will offer a staff ride tour of local sites that figured prominently in the Ten Crucial Days campaign of the Revolutionary War on April 28. Cost of participating in the all-day event is $75, and includes lunch.
A “staff ride” is a technique traditionally used in military training on battlefield sites, allowing participants to examine the role of terrain in the unfolding of battles and the more general movements of armies. The David Library’s Ten Crucial Days Staff Ride, designed and led by military historian William P. Tatum III, focuses on the events that began with General Washington’s crossing of the Delaware River on December 25, 1776, through the subsequent Battles of Trenton and Princeton. The David Library has offered this same tour five times previously to great acclaim by its participants. Enrollment is limited, so those interested should certainly book space quickly before the bus is filled.
The Staff Ride program will commence at 8AM at the David Library. Following a classroom session, there will be a bus tour with stops at Washington Crossing Historic Park in Pennsylvania, the Johnson Ferry House in Washington Crossing State Park in New Jersey, Trenton Battlefield Monument, Assunpink Creek, Princeton Battlefield and Nassau Hall. A pub lunch will be provided between Trenton and Princeton. The bus will return to the David Library between 5 and 6PM.
It’s an intense and invigorating day requiring physical and mental stamina. “The reward for all the walking and standing the tour entails will be great,” promises Will Tatum. “There is no better way to grasp the realities and significance of battles and campaigns than to be on the actual ground and to imagine each scene as it actually occurred.”
To reserve a space, call or email Brian Graziano at 215-493-2233 ext. 100 or graziano@dlar.org. Payment of $75 per participant may be paid by check made out to David Library. Mail payment with participants’ contact information (mailing address, phone number, email address) to Staff Ride, DLAR, P. O. Box 748, Washington Crossing, PA 18977. The staff ride will take place rain or shine.
Loyalism Expert Todd W. Braisted to Speak June 7
Todd W. Braisted, an independent researcher specializing in the Loyalist Military, will give at talk at the David Library on Thursday, June 7 at 7:30 titled, The American Vicars of Bray: Washington’s Army and the raising of the Loyalist Provincial Corps at Philadelphia, 1777-1778. The talk will examine the correlation between desertion in Washington’s Army and the raising of new recruits for the British during the crucial months of September 1777 through June 1778 when the British Army occupied Philadelphia. Mr. Braisted has appeared as an on camera expert on the PBS Series History Detectives and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's Who Do You Think You Are? He served as a coordinator for the recent New Jersey Network documentary Ten Crucial Days. He is the co-author of Moving On: Black Loyalists in the Afro-Atlantic World; The Revolutionary War in Bergen County; Revolutionary Bergen County, and The Loyalist Corps, and is an Editorial Board member and columnist for American Revolution magazine.
Reservations will be required for this lecture. Please call (215)493-2233 ext. 100, or email rsvp@dlar.org