The David Center Seminar is a forum for works-in-progress that explore topics in the era of the American Revolution (1750-1820), which meets roughly once a month on Wednesdays from 3:00-4:30 p.m. ET during the Fall and Spring semesters. All meetings in 2024-2025 will be held on Zoom. The seminar strives to create a collegial environment that will bring together scholars of the era from throughout the world to support fellow colleagues' work, share knowledge, and advance scholarship.
Inspired by the work of the David Library of the American Revolution at Washington Crossing, Pennsylvania and its new incarnation as the David Center for the American Revolution at the American Philosophical Society (DCAR; https://www.amphilsoc.org/david-center-american-revolution), we welcome proposals from individuals focusing on any aspect of the American Revolution and its era, especially the cause, course, consequence, and experiences of the event (1750-1820). The seminar is open to graduate students, faculty members, independent scholars, public historians, and others engaged in scholarly endeavors that relate to the era of the American Revolution. To maximize time for discussion, papers are circulated electronically in advance.
Questions about upcoming seminars or opportunities to present works-in-progress can be directed to Brenna Holland, Assistant Director of Library & Museum Programs at [email protected]
October 15, 2025: Mark L. Thompson, "Solving the American Paradox: Contested Conceptions of Slavery, 1763-1776"
November 05, 2025: Eran Zelnik, "A Nation of Minutemen: How The American Militia Became a Metaphor for the People"
February 25, 2026: Emilee N.K. Robbins, "Memoir of Elizabeth Munro Fisher: A Loyalist Mother"
May 06, 2026: John William Nelson, “A Renegades’ History of the Revolutionary Frontier: Contesting Race and Nation in the early American West"
September 25, 2024: Justin Clark, "The Post-Revolutionary Credit Crisis and the Triumph of Market Time"
October 30, 2024: Susan Branson, "Sheep Too Good To Eat: Merino Influenza and the Promotion of Economic Development in the Early Republic"
December 4, 2024: Chloe Chapin, "'The Simple Dress of an American Citizen': Fashioning the American Revolution"
February 12, 2025: C. David Carlson, “Transatlantic Finance Networks and American Development in the Early Republic"
March 12, 2025: Ben Remillard, "Men at War and the Ties that Bind: Northeastern Revolutionary War Patriots of Color and their Concerns Along the Homefront"
May 7, 2025: Ross Nedervelt, "British Security and American Sovereignty in Revolutionary Border-sea Spaces, 1783-1815"
2023-2024 David Center for the American Revolution Seminars
September 13, 2023: Rebecca Brannon, "'The Vale of Years into which I am very fast descending': Ideas and Realities of Aging in Revolutionary Times"
October 11, 2023: Grant Stanton, "The Tory and the Patriot: Ezekiel Russell, Isaiah Thomas, and the Problem of Antislavery in the American Revolution"
November 8, 2023: Evan Turiano, "Somerset, the State, and Reciprocal Rights in American Abolitionism"
December 6, 2023: Blake McGready, "'All Nature's Face, is dug, pitch'd up & tore': The Loyalist Environmental Imagination from Occupied New York City"
January 24, 2024: Jennifer Egloff, "Revelation and the American Revolution: Understanding and Justifying War with Britain through Personal Prophecy and Biblical Exegesis"
March 6, 2024: Dillon Streifeneder, "From Jamaica with Reform: Sir Henry Moore’s “Reformation” and the Coming of the Revolution in New York, 1765-1775"
April 10, 2024: Kieran O'Keefe, "Suffering for the Crown: The Hudson Valley Loyalists, Violence, and Forced Migration in Revolutionary North America"
2023-2024 David Center for the American Revolution Seminars
October 5, 2022: James Mackay (University of Edinburgh), "'Refuge in the English Army': Black Refugees and the Yorktown Campaign."
December 7, 2022: Christian Koot (Towson University), "Fashioning an Ornament to the Colony: Imperial Belonging and Crisis in the Governor’s Palace at New Bern."
January 25, 2023: Wayne Bodle (University of Pennsylvania), "To Husband a Better Liberty" The Constructive Widowhood of Jane Martin Bartram, c. 1790-1815."
April 12, 2023: Emily Sneff (William and Mary) "In the Eye of Enmity”: Censoring and Celebrating the Declaration of Independence in London"
May 24, 2023: Kevin Murphy (Stony Brook University) "Dueling Oaths in Colonial America, 1765-1773"
2021-2022 David Center for the American Revolution Seminars
October 27, 2021: Bryan Rindfleisch (Marquette University), “Metawney of Coweta, Muscogee Women, & Historical Erasure in the Eighteenth-Century Past and Our Present."
November 16, 2021: Matthew Mason (Brigham Young University), “Slavery and the Politics of Honor in the American Revolutionary Era."
December 15, 2021: Sarah Naramore (Northwest Missouri State University), “Finding American Medicine on the Battlefield: Doctors in Uniform and in the Classroom."
February 23, 2022: James M. Banner, Jr. (Independent Scholar), “The Election of 1801 and Marbury v. Madison."
March 16, 2022: Wolfgang Hochbruck (Albert-Ludwigs-University), "A Colonial Gentleman's Pastimes on the Brink of a Revolution."
April 13, 2022: Annette Joseph-Gabriel (Michigan), "The Pursuit of Happiness: Enslaved Children's Notions of Freedom in the Age of Revolution."
May 25, 2022: Samuel Wells (Southern Utah University & Dixie State University), "Dr. Miner's Heresy: Freedom of Conscience, Polygamy, and the American Revolution."
June 8, 2022: Grant Kleiser (Columbia University), "'To Have America a Free Port:' Revolutionary Responses to British Caribbean Free Ports, 1766-1784."