events events

FOR 2026: REVOLUTIONARY LEGACIES

Part of

FOR 2026:  A FIVE-YEAR CONFERENCE SERIES
MARKING THE 250TH ANNIVERSARY OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE

Colonial Williamsburg, the Omohundro Institute, and William & Mary are joining together to host a series of five annual conferences to spotlight emerging research, connect a diverse public to scholars and research, and convene significant conversations about how and why understanding the early American past is especially meaningful today. You can read the CFP here.


Questions? Email us at oieahc@wm.edu.


OCTOBER 28-29, 2022: REVOLUTIONARY LEGACIES

The American Revolution had political, social, and economic implications that reverberated well beyond the thirteen British colonies that came to form the United States. This conference—the first of five in the “For 2026” conference series—will feature scholarship on the immediate and longer-term legacies of those years. 


PROGRAM OF EVENTS

Friday, October 28, 2022

AT THE W&M SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
301 MONTICELLO AVENUE

8:30 am

Packet pick-up opens for Omohundro Institute registrants.

Matoaka Room

AT THE HENNAGE AUDITORIUM
301 S. NASSAU STREET

Friday, October 28

9:00 am -10:00 am


“Research, Revise, Reinterpret: Legacies of African American History”

Part of the Slate Seminar series*

Moderated by Cathy Hellier (Colonial Williamsburg) and featuring Matthew Webster (Colonial Williamsburg), Robert Watson (Colonial Williamsburg), Nicole Brown (William & Mary), and Maureen Elgersman Lee (William & Mary, Bray School Lab)

*The Slate Seminar, made possible by the generous support of the Mellon Foundation, is a conference within a conference and is open to all. REGISTER HERE. Slate Seminar sessions illuminate or align with the history and legacies of the Williamsburg Bray School (1760-1774) and the mission of the Bray School Lab to study, preserve, and disseminate broadly the Williamsburg Bray School story.  Learn more about more the Bray School Lab here.

AT THE W&M SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
301 MONTICELLO AVENUE

Friday, October 28

9:00 am -10:30 am

Session 1

“Indigenous Revolution”

Dogwood Room

Chaired and with a comment by Alyssa Mt. Pleasant (ATW Research + Consulting) and featuring

Matthew R. Bahar (Oberlin College), “From Pirates to Patriots: Constructing the Oppositional Indian on the Road to Revolution”

Jeffers Lennox (Wesleyan University), “North of America: Canada and the Creation of the United States”

Session 2

“Imperial Schemes: Negotiating Crown Ambitions over the Long Eighteenth Century”
Holly Room

Chaired and with a comment by Daniel J. Hulsebosch (New York University) and featuring Adrian Chastain Weimer (Providence College), Fidel Tavárez (Queens College, CUNY), and James Hrdlicka (Arizona State University) 

Session 3

“Regional Connections, Geographic Disconnects: Policy Making in the Long Eighteenth Century”
Classroom 1056

With Jay Donis (Thiel College),  “’Let us know to whom we belong’: Stateless Americans on a Revolutionary Frontier”

Sam Slattery (William & Mary), “To Defend or Abandon the Cities? Early Republican Urbanism, Anti-Urbanism and the Revolutionary Military Legacy”

AT THE HENNAGE AUDITORIUM
301 S. NASSAU STREET

Friday, October 28

11:00 am – 12:00 pm

“Research, Revise, Reinterpret: Legacies of the History of Indigenous People”

Moderated by Mariruth Leftwich (Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation) and featuring Joshua Piker (Omohundro Institute), Fallon Burner (Colonial Williamsburg), Martin Saniga (Colonial Williamsburg), and Buck Woodard (American University)

AT THE W&M SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
301 MONTICELLO AVENUE

Friday, October 28

11:00 am – 1:00 pm

Session 4

“Global Legacies of the Revolution”

Dogwood Room

Chaired by Eliga Gould (University of New Hampshire) and featuring Anthony E. Guidone (George Mason University), Rachel Tamar Van (California State Polytechnic University, Pomona), Heesoo Cho (Washington University in St. Louis), Tyson Reeder (University of Virginia), with a comment provided by Dael A. Norwood (University of Delaware)

Session 5

Roundtable: “Historians on the Constitution: The Past Faces the Present”

Holly Room

Moderated by Rosemarie Zagarri (George Mason University) and featuring

Kevin Arlyck (Georgetown University), “On the federal courts”

Holly Brewer (University of Maryland), “On the Constitution and empire”

Andrew M. Schocket (Bowling Green State University), “On the census”

Sarah L. H. Gronningsater (University of Pennsylvania), “On slavery”

Session 6

“Revolutionary Environments: New Approaches to Military History”
Classroom 1056

Moderated and with a comment by Lauren Duval (University of Oklahoma) and featuring

Woody Holton (University of South Carolina), “Infected Founders”

David C. Hsiung (Juniata College), “Environmental Legacies: How the War of Independence Affected the Natural World in Predictable and Surprising Ways”

Session 7

Roundtable: “Governing the Revolution”

Classroom 2060

Moderated by John A. Ragosta (University of Virginia) and featuring Jane E. Calvert (University of Kentucky), Liz Covart (Omohundro Institute), Sarah Beth Gable (Brandeis University), Donald F. Johnson (North Dakota State University), and Terrance Evans Rucker (U.S. House of Representatives)

IN COLONIAL WILLIAMSBURG, HISTORIC AREA

Friday, October 28

1:30 pm -2:45 pm

Tour of the Bray School and First Baptist Church digs

Part of the Slate Seminar Series

With Matthew Webster (Colonial Williamsburg) and Maureen Elgersman Lee (William & Mary, Bray School Lab)

Starting Location: Bray School (524 Prince George Street)

Ending Location: FBC Dig

“Legacies of the History of Indigenous People” Walking Tour

With Fallon Burner (Colonial Williamsburg), Martin Saniga (Colonial Williamsburg), and Sacha Grant (Colonial Williamsburg)

Starting Location: Courthouse at Colonial Williamsburg, Duke of Gloucester Street

Ending Location: TBD

AT THE W&M SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
301 MONTICELLO AVENUE

Friday, October 28

3:15 pm – 4:45 pm

Session 8

“Legacies of the American Founding in the Light of Revolutionary France: Politics, Culture, and Religion”

Dogwood Room

Chaired by Doina Pasca Harsanyi (Central Michigan University) and featuring

Matthew Rainbow Hale (Goucher College), “Constitutionalism’s Fallout: Popular Sovereignty, Representation, Absolutism, and Democracy in Franco-American Context”

Nicole Mahoney (New York Historical Society), “Dangerous (Social) Liaisons: The Creation of American Political Culture During the French Revolution”

Mitchell E. Oxford (William & Mary), “‘The American Revolution was not like the French’: Catholic Americans, the French Revolution, and the Tradition of Ordered Liberty in the United States”

Comment by François Furstenberg (Johns Hopkins University)

Session 9

“Temporalities of Anti-colonial Resistance in the Literary and Visual Archives of Early America”
Holly Room

Chaired and with a comment by Sophie Hess (University of Maryland) and featuring

Alexander Mazzaferro (University of California, Los Angeles), “Ancient Planters”

Savannah L. Esquivel (University of California, Riverside), “Captive Images”

Elizabeth L. Polcha (Drexel University), “Bloodroot Ties”

AT THE HENNAGE AUDITORIUM
301 S. NASSAU STREET

Friday, October 28

5:00 pm – 6:30 pm

Session 10

“The Test of Time: How We Commemorate Historical Monuments”

Introduction by Cliff Fleet, President and CEO of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation

Moderated by Barbara Hamm Lee (Host of “Another View” on WHRO) and featuring Christy Coleman (Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation), Tommy Norment (State Senate of Virginia), and Ed Ayers (University of Richmond)

This session will be simulcast. A recording will be available as well.

This session will be followed by a reception in the Café upstairs from the Hennage Auditorium.

Saturday, October 29, 2022

AT THE W&M SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
301 MONTICELLO AVENUE

8:30 am

Packet pick-up opens for Omohundro Institute registrants.

Matoaka Room

AT THE HENNAGE AUDITORIUM
301 S. NASSAU STREET

Saturday, October 29

9:00 am – 10:00 am


“Research, Revise, Reinterpret: Legacies of African American History”

Part of the Slate Seminar series

Moderated by Cathy Hellier (Colonial Williamsburg) and featuring Jack Gary (Colonial Williamsburg), Janice Canaday (Colonial Williamsburg), James Ingram (Colonial Williamsburg), and Julie Richter (National Institute of American History & Democracy, William & Mary)

AT THE W&M SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
301 MONTICELLO AVENUE

Saturday, October 29

9:00 am – 10:30 am

Session 11

“Workers of War: Mobilizing Non-Combatant Labor during the American Revolution”

Dogwood Room

Featuring Jennifer L. Anderson (Stony Brook University), Richard H. Tomczak (Stony Brook University), T. Cole Jones (Purdue University), and Sean Gallagher (American Philosophical Society)

Session 12

Roundtable: “The Place of History: Scholarship, Interpretation, and Audience at Historic Sites”
Holly Room

With Maureen Elgersman Lee (William & Mary, Bray School Lab), Sara Bon-Harper (William & Mary, James Monroe’s Highland), Brian Miller (Historic Odessa), and Jennifer Wilkoski (Colonial Williamsburg)

Session 13

Roundtable: “New Perspectives on Resistance and Rebellion in the Long Durée”

Classroom 1056

Chaired and with a comment by Richard L. Turits (William & Mary), and featuring Alycia Hall (Yale University), C.M. Mertens (Roosevelt Institute for American Studies, the Netherlands), Adriana Chira (Emory University), Frances Bell (William & Mary), and Shavagne Scott (New York University)

Saturday, October 29

11:00 am – 12:00 pm

AT THE HENNAGE AUDITORIUM
301 S. NASSAU STREET

“Frameworks for Understanding the Eighteenth Century”

Moderated by Peter Inker (Colonial Williamsburg) and featuring Kelly Brennan (Colonial Williamsburg), Cathy Hellier (Colonial Williamsburg), Julie Richter (NIAHD William & Mary), and Ayinde Martin (Colonial Williamsburg)

AT THE W&M SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
301 MONTICELLO AVENUE

Saturday, October 29

11:00 am – 1:00 pm

Session 14

Roundtable: “Move Over, Bacon, Now There’s Something Meatier! New Perspectives on ‘Bacon’s Rebellion’ and Its Legacies”
Dogwood Room

Moderated by James D. Rice (Tufts University) and featuring Matthew Kruer (University of Chicago), Bradley J. Dixon (University of Memphis), Allison Madar (The Webb Schools), and Hayley Negrin (University of Illinois at Chicago)

Session 15

Roundtable: “The Full Legacy: William & Mary Confronts Its Complex Past”

Holly Room

Moderated by Hannah Rosen (William & Mary) and featuring Jody Allen (William & Mary, The Lemon Project), Maureen Elgersman Lee (William & Mary, Bray School Lab), and Sara Bon-Harper (William & Mary, James Monroe’s Highland)

Session 16

Roundtable: “Benjamin Quarles’s The Negro in the American Revolution at 50”

Classroom 1056

With Rebecca Brannon (James Madison University), Adam McNeil (Rutgers University), Stephen Hall (Independent Scholar), and Derrick Spires (Cornell University)

Editorial Board Meeting

Boardroom

IN COLONIAL WILLIAMSBURG, HISTORIC AREA

Saturday, October 29

1:30 pm – 2:45 pm

Tour of the Bray School and First Baptist Church digs

Part of the Slate Seminar

With Jack Gary (Colonial Williamsburg) and Maureen Elgersman Lee (William & Mary, Bray School Lab)

Starting Location: Bray School

Ending Location: FBC Dig

“Voices of Their Hands” Walking Tour

Part of the Slate Seminar

With Ayinde Martin (Colonial Williamsburg)

Starting Location: Courthouse

Ending Location: TBD

AT THE HENNAGE AUDITORIUM
301 S. NASSAU STREET

Saturday, October 29

3:00 pm – 4:00 pm

“Research, Revise, Reinterpret: Legacies of LGBTQ+ History”

Featuring Kelly Brennan (Colonial Williamsburg), Ren Tolson (Colonial Williamsburg), Mic Felter (Columbia University), Megan Victor (Queens College), and Marvin-Alonzo Greer (Maryland-National Capital Parks & Planning Commission)

AT THE W&M SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
301 MONTICELLO AVENUE

Saturday, October 29

3:15 pm – 4:45 pm

Session 17

Roundtable: “New Perspectives on the Political Legacies of the American Revolution”
Dogwood Room

Moderated and with a comment by William Allen (Michigan State University), and featuring Jonathan Den Hartog (Samford University), Craig Bruce Smith (US Army School of Advanced Military Studies), Lindsay M. Chervinsky (George Washington University), and Kelsa Pellettiere (University of Mississippi)

Session 18

Roundtable: “Tracing the Antebellum Lives of George Washington”

Holly Room

Featuring Cassandra A. Good (Marymount University), Janine Yorimoto Boldt (University of Wisconsin–Madison), Derek Kane O’Leary (University of South Carolina), Steven C. Bullock (Worcester Polytechnic Institute), Jill Vaum Rothschild (Smithsonian American Art Museum), and John C. Winters (Westminster College)

AT THE HENNAGE AUDITORIUM
301 S. NASSAU STREET

Saturday, October 29

5:00 pm – 6:30 pm

Session 19

“Juneteenth’s Revolutionary Roots”

Introduction by Katherine A. Rowe, President of William & Mary

Featuring Annette Gordon-Reed (Harvard University)

Part of the Slate Seminar

This session will be simulcast. A recording will be available as well.

This session will be followed by a reception in the Café upstairs from the Hennage Auditorium.