Advisories Versus Executive Orders

Collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society By Liz Covart In late March and early April, state and municipal governments across the United States issued orders for residents to “stay at home” to combat the covid-19 pandemic. As of April 16, 2020, forty-two states, three counties, nine cities, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia… Read More

The OI and the NEL

Today the OI joins with its publishing partner for books, the University of North Carolina Press, in a limited agreement for our books to appear in the Internet Archive’s National Emergency Library.  We do this as a good faith effort to engage with the… Read More

We remain committed to our central mission of supporting scholars and scholarship of early America. During the pandemic, we are pivoting to focus on and increase our digital offerings. Please stay in touch and let us know how we might serve you during this difficult time. —The Omohundro Institute… Read More

Using Colonial Virginia Portraits

Exploring a Visual Archive with Students by Janine Yorimoto Boldt While we are all in quarantine mode, many of us adjusting to online teaching and turning to digital resources like never before, it is a good time to explore Colonial Virginia Portraits, especially if you haven’t already. If you’re looking for a digital resource to share with students,… Read More

Women Also Know Washington

“Life of George Washington — The Farmer,” painted by Junius Brutus Stearns ; lith. by Régnier, imp. Lemercier, Paris, 1853. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. By Lindsay Chervinsky In the preface to You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George… Read More

Researching and Teaching VastEarlyAmerica

The following is a loosely (and necessarily imperfectly) organized set of online resources for researching and teaching about VastEarlyAmerica. We invite you to add suggestions to the list by leaving your comments via the form below or by contacting martha.howard@wm.edu directly. Resources Slavery Studies Freedom on the Move A database of… Read More

The New York Times 1619 Project and the Omohundro Institute

By Karin Wulf The 1619 Project continues to attract a lot of readers and responses.  On March 6 the editor of the New York Times Magazine, Jake Silverstein, and the principal author of the New York Times 1619 Project, Nikole Hannah-Jones, convened scholars at the Times Center for a conversation centered on one of the issues that has been most provocative:  slavery and American Revolution.  I… Read More

Caring for the OI Community

An update from Karin Wulf, Executive Director of the OI, regarding COVID-19. Read More

Curious Taste: The Transatlantic Appeal of Satire

By Nancy SiegelProfessor of Art History and Culinary HistoryTowson University Queen Charlotte frying sprats, George III toasting muffins or placing a fleet of ships in an oven about to be baked like gingerbread, the Prince of Wales gorging himself on the fortunes of Empire, William Pitt carving plum pudding with Napoleon, the American colonies represented as a… Read More

From Hallway Conversation to the WMQ

By Gautham Rao This article was the result of a moment of enormous luck.  I can remember exactly where I was when it happened: Saturday, April 11, 2015, in the lobby of the Massachusetts Historical Society, somewhere between 10:30 and 10:45 in the morning, in between sessions at the wonderful… Read More

Refugees of the American Revolution … and George Orwell

By Matthew Dziennik “New York’s Refugees and Political Authority in Revolutionary America,” WMQ (Jan. 2020) began with an intellectual humbling.  It came at a brown bag at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation where I was presenting on… Read More

You Just Had to Be There? Thoughts on Transcription, Inventories, and Materiality in Understanding Carlton House

By Ali MacDonald Last month I took a day out of my research trip to visit George IV: Art & Spectacle, currently on display at The Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace (Nov 15, 2019 – May 3, 2020). In a sense this exhibition seeks to rehabilitate our long-standing conception of George as a bad son, bad father, bad… Read More