American Revolution Institute

American Revolution Institute Promoting knowledge and appreciation of the achievement of American independence.
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This past weekend the Institute teamed with members of the Society of the Cincinnati and more than 20,000 living history...
08/24/2026

This past weekend the Institute teamed with members of the Society of the Cincinnati and more than 20,000 living history reenactors and spectators to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Battle of Brooklyn, the largest battle of the American War for Independence—in Prospect Park, at the [Old Stone House], and at the [the Green-Wood Cemetery]. Contents from our classroom traveling trunks—now poised to begin their journeys to schools nationwide—were a special draw in our effort to perpetuate the memory of the American Revolution!

#250

Join us next Wednesday, August 26 at 6:30 p.m. for a lecture commemorating the 250th anniversary of the Battle of Long I...
08/19/2026

Join us next Wednesday, August 26 at 6:30 p.m. for a lecture commemorating the 250th anniversary of the Battle of Long Island. Award-winning author and historian Patrick K. O’Donnell the battle that occurred on August 27, 1776, where Gen. George Washington found his troops outmanned and outmaneuvered. Thanks to a series of desperate charges by a single heroic regiment, the First Maryland Regiment—famously known as the Maryland 400—Washington was able to evacuate his men and the nascent Continental Army lived to fight another day. In this talk, O’Donnell brings to life the Battle of Long Island, along with and the remarkable men of the elite First Maryland Regiment.

Learn more and register: https://bit.ly/4cQpawa

08/18/2026

, August 18, 1920, the 19th amendment granting women the right to vote was ratified. This milestone was the product of generations of women’s suffrage efforts dating back to debates over the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence.

In the spring of 1776, while John Adams was serving in the Continental Congress contemplating the subject of American independence, Abigail Adams wrote a letter to her husband, dated 31 March:

“I long to hear that you have declared an independency—and by the way in the new Code of Laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make I desire you would Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors... If perticuliar care and attention is not paid to the Ladies we are determined to foment a Rebelion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or Representation.”

In 1848, the Seneca Falls “Declaration of Sentiments” claimed “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men and women are created equal.” The same year, author Elizabeth Ellett wrote extensively about the women of the 18th century who fought to secure the Revolution’s high ideals for all Americans, “to which…we are not less indebted for national freedom, than to the swords of our patriots who poured out their blood.”

Learn more about the role of women in the American Revolution, like Abigail Adams, with our new classroom video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0TBVAWXZ_o&t=2s

Synonymous with the notion of the Scottish Highland soldier is the basket-hilted sword. During the American Revolutionar...
08/17/2026

Synonymous with the notion of the Scottish Highland soldier is the basket-hilted sword. During the American Revolutionary War, the British Army included specific regiments raised in the Scottish Highlands, such as the 42nd (Royal Highland) Regiment and the 71st Regiment, sometimes referred to as Fraser’s Highlanders. In addition to carrying such swords, the men of these regiments wore distinctive Highland dress that at times included a kilt and a bonnet.

Newly added to our online museum collections database is this ca. 1771-1785 British basket-hilted sword, which we acquired earlier this year. Click here to view the entry for more images and information about this evocative artifact: https://bit.ly/4x4xu3F

Ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence 250 years ago directly influenced the actions of the citizens and so...
08/15/2026

Ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence 250 years ago directly influenced the actions of the citizens and soldiers of colonial America.

Witness to this is a remarkable series of surviving letters in our library’s Robert Charles Lawrence Fergussson Collection written from New York in the summer and fall of 1776 by Capt. Jonathan Birge of Bolton, CT, to his wife Priscilla. The letters detail Birge’s company’s activities, including descriptions of their supplies, sickness, and casualties. Modern readers experience the emotional toll of war through Birge’s love for his family and the loss of his friends.

, August 15, 1776, Cpt. Birge penned the first of these letters, writing:

“on Wednesday we arrived at Newyork about 3 oclock in the after noon, and when we had arrived the news in the camp was that we was to be attacked that night it was conjectured from several circumstances as Dunmore’s fleet arriving & the winds being
strong at South & troops from the fleets landing on Long &c but it being very Rainey Night we lay very still without Being Alarmed… it is Generally beleved that the enemy will make an attack on Newyork very soon… I Subscribe my selfe desiering an intrest in your prayers att the throne of grace for me and the army & the Cause of Liberty. Your loyal husband Jonathan Birge”

Over the coming weeks, and through his personal letters, we'll continue to follow Captain Birge's experiences 250 years ago.

It’s the last few weeks of summer, so beat the heat and explore Anderson House! Our headquarters is a Gilded Age mansion...
08/10/2026

It’s the last few weeks of summer, so beat the heat and explore Anderson House! Our headquarters is a Gilded Age mansion in the heart of Washington, D.C., that combines palatial interiors with stories and artifacts of the American Revolution. Book tickets to tour the museum and our current exhibition, Voices of Revolution, at: https://bit.ly/45T0e3g

The most treasured object in our museum collections has been called the most important piece of jewelry in American hist...
08/08/2026

The most treasured object in our museum collections has been called the most important piece of jewelry in American history.

The Diamond Eagle of the Society of the Cincinnati was made in Paris, France, in 1784 as a gift from French naval officers to George Washington, the Society’s first president general. It’s been worn by every president general since, from Alexander Hamilton to the Society’s current leader. But it’s because of two extraordinary women that the Diamond Eagle became passed down as the insignia of the Society’s president general.

When George Washington died in 1799, the Diamond Eagle was the most valuable object he had. It was treated as his personal possession, not the Society’s property—and, as with all things Washington, there was no precedent for what would become of it after him. His widow, Martha, made sure that the Diamond Eagle was sent to Washington’s successor as president general, Alexander Hamilton.

Eliza Hamilton played a similar role after her husband’s untimely death in 1804. She sent the Eagle to the next president general, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney—although it took seven years to do it. It was on this day, August 8, 1811, that Pinckney reported having received the Diamond Eagle to the Society’s leaders, who resolved that it become the Society’s property and the official badge of the office of the president general.

Read more about the Diamond Eagle: https://bit.ly/4wM5qSh

Images:
1. Diamond Eagle of the Society of the Cincinnati. Made by Nicolas Jean Francastel and Claude Jean Autran Duval, Paris, France, 1784. Gold, silver, enamel, diamonds, emeralds, and rubies.
2. Charles Cotesworth Pinckney to Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton, September 10, 1811, thanking her for returning the Diamond Eagle.

Join us next Thursday, August 13 at 6:30 p.m. for a lecture featuring historian Ronald A. Johnson of Baylor University b...
08/06/2026

Join us next Thursday, August 13 at 6:30 p.m. for a lecture featuring historian Ronald A. Johnson of Baylor University bringing to light the fascinating story of American patriots and rebels from Saint-Domingue (later Haiti) allying against European tyranny.
While modern understandings of freedom are often linked to the U.S. Declaration of Independence, Johnson argues that the desire of Black Atlantic inhabitants for liberty and their will to resist slavery predated the fateful standoff between minutemen and redcoats at Lexington and Concord.

Drawing from original multilingual sources to offer a fresh perspective, this lecture fuses the search for freedom by Black and white founders in the United States and Saint-Domingue into a coherent story of collective resistance during the most explosive twenty-year period of the eighteenth century. This program accompanies our current exhibition, Voices of Revolution, on view through January 10, 2027.

Learn more and register: https://bit.ly/4hnRzgt

2026 Master Teachers Seminar participant Brandon West teaches seventh and eighth grade U.S. history at Altamont Lutheran...
08/04/2026

2026 Master Teachers Seminar participant Brandon West teaches seventh and eighth grade U.S. history at Altamont Lutheran Interparish School in Altamont, Illinois. Brandon chose two items from our library’s collection to share with his students for a lesson analyzing whether George Washington’s words at Newburgh, NY, in 1783, helped save the Revolution.

First, he explored a heliotype of primary sources related to the Newburgh Crisis of March 15, 1783, issued by the Massachusetts Historical Society in 1876 during the centennial celebration of the American Revolution. Brandon also examined a letter from George Washington to David Rittenhouse, dated February 16, 1783, in which the general thanked Rittenhouse for sending him a pair of spectacles or glasses. Washington used the spectacles to great effect in quelling a brewing mutiny of officers at Newburgh when he pulled them from his pocket and parenthetically remarked, ‘Gentlemen, you will permit me to put on my spectacles, for I have not only grown gray, but almost blind, in the service of my country.’ The men were surprised to see the general in glasses and were deeply moved when realizing Washington had sacrificed as much as any of them.

For a two-minute lesson about the events at Newburgh, watch this short video from our new Year in Revolution series: https://bit.ly/4wCrL4K

To read Washington’s letter to Rittenhouse visit: https://bit.ly/4bXxbiu

250 years ago today, August 2, 1776, the Declaration of Independence as we know it—a large piece of parchment with handw...
08/02/2026

250 years ago today, August 2, 1776, the Declaration of Independence as we know it—a large piece of parchment with handwritten text and signatures at the bottom—came to be.

Through the month of July 1776, Congress decided to make a more permanent copy of the Declaration. They ordered a large piece of parchment, or treated animal skin, and asked Timothy Matlack, clerk to the secretary of the Second Continental Congress, to write the text of the document on it. The engrossed copy of the Declaration (an official document written in a large hand) was ready to be signed on August 2. The delegates who were still in Philadelphia assembled at the State House—now called Independence Hall—and signed the parchment. Several added their signatures later.

Ultimately, 56 men signed the engrossed copy, which was then rolled and stored with the papers of Congress. Their names would not be known publicly until January 1777, when Mary Katherine Goddard printed a broadside of the Declaration listing the names of almost all the signers (except for Thomas McKean of Delaware, who hadn’t signed yet).

Today the engrossed copy of the Declaration is preserved at the National Archives.

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