Revolutionary Stories: Philadelphians and the American Revolution

Catalog description

As the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence approaches in 2026, the question of how we commemorate it seems a whole lot more complex than it did in 1976, when the nation celebrated its 200th birthday. Partly, this complexity lies in the very different views of the American Revolution held by academic historians and the wider public. While most scholars have spent the last forty years researching the Revolution through the eyes of ordinary people, the public’s appetite is often for stories about America’s great heroes and Founding Fathers. This research seminar will introduce you to these competing viewpoints, giving you the opportunity to conduct original research into Revolutionary-era Philadelphians, whose lives are documented in the rich collections of manuscripts held at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. At the end of semester you will have written an original research paper, grounded in primary sources you have unearthed at the Historical Society. In doing so you will confront some of the most important questions preoccupying Revolutionary historians today: What can these individual stories tell us about the American Revolution? How can we reconcile their very different narratives? And how can we interpret them for those Americans who haven’t had the opportunity to read them first-hand?