Chris Mackowski kicked off our series of events on the 250th anniversary of American independence. We had a nice crowd to hear Chris discuss his new book, Atlas of Independence: John Adams and the American Revolution. The link will take you to his book.
If you missed the presentation, the video is below. As Chris notes in the first minute or so, we're still working on the tech.
If you cannot make to our events in person, join us via Zoom with the links below. We will also record the events to post on YouTube, which will be linked here. You can find more details here.
Chris Mackowski, "Atlas of Independence: John Adams and the American Revolution"
When the Continental Congress approved the Declaration of Independence, no one doubted who was responsible. “The man to whom the country is most indebted for the great measure of independence is Mr. John Adams,” said one delegate. “I call him the Atlas of American independence.” Born of humble means outside Boston, Massachusetts, Adams’s work ethic led him to become one of the colony’s most successful attorneys. Yet he burned with a powerful ambition and yearned for more. “I never shall shine, till some animating Occasion calls forth all my Powers,” he fretted. Festering tensions with Great Britain provided the occasion Adam longed for, and soon he found himself at the center of the storm, thrust onto the national stage where all his “Powers” transformed him into the intellectual architect of American independence. Perhaps more than any other American, he rose to the historical moment, urging his contemporaries into the unknown future.
Mackowski is a writing professor in St. Bonaventure’s Jandoli School of Communication and
the author of the new book Atlas of Independence: John Adams and the American Revolution."
Chris Dalton (moderator), Alex Payne (student), Kayla Krupski (student), "Everyday Voices and Revolution"
Description:
Everyday voices of the American Revolution come to St. Bonaventure University next week as part of a series of programs to commemorate the 250th anniversary of America’s founding.
On Monday, March 23, Prof. Christopher Dalton will moderate a student research panel, “Everyday Voices and Revolution,” at 7:00 p.m. in Walsh Auditorium. The event is free and open to the public, and light refreshments will be served.
This student research panel turns to the Revolution as it was actually lived. What did resistance sound like? How did politics enter the home? One student explores the world of sailors’ and commoners’ poetry and popular songs, showing how music at sea helped shape identity, protest, and revolutionary feeling. Another examines the daily realities faced by Loyalist and Patriot women, revealing how domestic labor, family loyalty, and survival became deeply political. By bringing together sound and household life, this panel invites us to reconsider the American Revolution not simply as a political rupture, but as a transformation of ordinary experience.
The panel will feature presenter Alex Payne speaking on “The Record of Thought of Oppressed People During the Age of Revolution” and Kayla Krupski, speaking on “Maintaining the Chaos: The Complexities of Domestic Life for Loyalist and Patriot Women Amidst the American Revolution – 1752-1789.”
Dalton, a senior lecturer in St. Bonaventure’s history department, supervises student work in the Historical Methods and Historiography class.
Krupski is a junior history major from Hamburg, NY, with a minor in classics.
Payne is a junior Theology and Franciscan Studies and History double-major from Shinglehouse, PA, with a minor in classics.
Phillip Payne, "George Washington’s Shadow Remembering and Contesting the Revolution"
Link: https://sbu.zoom.us/j/92317570726?pwd=JWdevviXvnYZpLw53OQ0NaJ5gTO8fn.1
Few figures in American history have cast a shadow as long as George Washington’s. As the so-called “Father of our Country,” he is universally recognized. But how well do people actually know Washington?
Those are questions Dr. Phillip Payne will touch on in a public lecture at St. Bonaventure University later this month.
Payne will discuss “George Washington’s Shadow: Remembering and Contesting the Revolution” on Monday, March 30 at 7:00 p.m. in Walsh Auditorium. The event, part of St. Bonaventure University’s “America’s 250 Series,” is free and open to the public, and light refreshments will be served.
Payne is a professor of history and the chair of St. Bonaventure’s History Department. One of his primary areas of interest is in the ways in which Americans remember their own history.
“As we approach the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, we are reminded that there are political stakes beyond the simple pleasures of the Fourth of July with its emphasis on picnics, fireworks, and hot dogs,” Payne says. “From such ideological distant perspectives as Constitutional originalism and the 1619 Project, Americans live in the shadow of the founding moment. For a generation (if not more), George Washington stood as an exemplar of republican virtue, but our recent culture wars have fractured the meaning and legacy of the Revolution. This, as we will learn, is nothing new.”
Emerging Revolutionary War Panel, "Winning the War: Why American Victory was so Remarkable (pane discussion)
Description:
Two Hundred and Fifty years ago this July, Americans declared independence from Great Britain. Before that could take effect, though, Americans still had to earn that independence on the battlefield against the strongest military power in the world. Success hardly seemed likely—and, yet, America succeeded.
St. Bonaventure University’s “America’s 250 Series” continues later this month with a program that looks at that unlikely victory.
On Monday, April 13, historians from the nationally acclaimed digital history platform Emerging Revolutionary War will present an interactive panel discussion titled “Winning the War: Why American Victory was So Remarkable” at 7:00 p.m. in 201 Plassmann Hall. (Please note the different location from other programs in the series.) The event is free and open to the public, and light refreshments will be served.
American victory in the Revolution seems inevitable to us now, but at the time and on the battlefields, victory seemed anything but assured. How did America overcome the odds, particularly after several decisive defeats? Historians from Emerging Revolutionary War (ERW) will examine key military moments that kept the dream of independence alive.
Panelist include:
Phill Greenwalt, author of The Winter that Won the War: The Winter Encampment at Valley Forge, co-author of A Single Blow: The Battles of Lexington and Concord, and co-author of the forthcoming A Hard-Bought Victory: The Battle of Bunker Hill
Mark Maloy, author of Victory or Death: The Battles of Trenton and Princeton, To the Last Extremity: The Battles for Charleston, and a forthcoming book on the battles for New York City
Rob Orrison, co-author of All That Can Be Expected: The Battle of Camden and A Single Blow: The Battles of Lexington and Concord
Greenwalt and Maloy are both historians with the National Park Service, and Orrison serves as ERW’s chief historian.
Steven Pitt, "Why Boston? A New Economic Interpretation of the American Revolution,"
What sparked the American Revolution, anyway? And what made it flair up in Boston, of all places? Those questions sit at the heart of a presentation later this month by St. Bonaventure University’s Dr. Stephen Pitt.
Description:
Pitt will present “Why Boston? A New Economic Interpretation of the American Revolution” on Monday, April 20 at 7:00 p.m. as part of St. Bonaventure’s “America’s 250 Series.” The event, which will be held in Walsh Auditorium, is free and open to the public, and light refreshments will be served
“The sparks of revolution swirled in Boston, and the language of liberty coursed through its streets in the decade leading up to the Declaration of Independence,” explains Pitt, an associate professor of history who focuses on colonial and Revolution-era America.
According to Pitt, the Stamp Act Crisis, Townshend Acts boycotts and riots, the Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party, and the Intolerable Acts reinforced and compounded grievances over economic decline, taxation, Navigations Acts enforcement, impressment, and imperial overreach. The port became the epicenter of resistance with the rise of the Sons of Liberty and eventual converts like John Adams.
“But why Boston? Why not Philadelphia, New York, or Charleston, SC?” Pitt asks. “The answer lies in Boston’s unique and complex religious, political, military, and economic trajectory that promised opportunity but led to frequent disillusionment.”
At every turn, Pitt explains, Bostonians from all classes tried to escape rigged economic systems (sometimes even systems they created), but conflicting internal desires and external forces thwarted their plans and shifted economic power to neighboring ports. By 1775, economic self-preservation propelled Bostonians onto the revolutionary path.
Description:
As America looks ahead to the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence this summer, St. Bonaventure University would like to invite members of the public and the campus community to come together to discuss what “independence” means.
Since mid-March, St. Bonaventure’s “America’s 250 Series” has explored various facets of the American Revolution. To conclude the series, our historians will gather for a final panel discussion and open Q&A with the audience.
The program, “The Revolution Today,” will be held on Monday, April 27 at 7:00 p.m. in Walsh Auditorium. The event is free and open to the public, and light refreshments will be served.
What themes have emerged from our series? What questions have the Founders raised for us? What does the American Revolution mean to us today? What is our own role in remembering America’s 250th birthday?
