Schoolhouse Rock for a New Generation

The animated children’s television series Schoolhouse Rock has been teaching children about math, grammar, science, and history since the 1970s. Middle-aged women and men can still quote the program’s lyrics about conjunctions (“Conjunction junction, what’s your function? Hooking up words and phrases and clauses”), the nervous system (“there’s a telegraph line, you got yours and I got mine, It’s… Read More

Read More
Schoolhouse-Rock-for-a-New-Generation[1]

"From New Cultures to a New Regime: Washington and Cuzco in the 1810s"

OI Colloquium with Nathan Perl-Rosenthal This paper comes from a chapter of a book-in-progress, a wide-angle cultural history of the age of revolutions, ca. 1760-1825. Interweaving the stories of cities in North and South America, it argues that a synchronous and inter-related set of cultural changes took place in multiple Atlantic regions around 1800–spanning sociability, urban space, and family… Read More

Read More
NPR-portrait-small-scaled[1]

Making History through Handwriting: An Introduction to Manuscript Transcription

Are you interested in archival transcription and the mysteries it can unlock? Join us on January 13th as Julie Fisher and Sara Powell discuss transcription, its importance today, and tips you can use when transcribing manuscripts. Learn about transcription projects taking place across the United States and how to join them. About our speakers Julie A. Fisher holds a… Read More

Read More
Transcription-event-public-piece[1]

“The Evolution of Freedom: Free People of Color in the Revolutionary South”

OI Colloquium with Warren Milteer This paper explores the changes in the social and political situation of free people of color in the U.S. South as well as the colonies of Louisiana and Florida during the age of Revolutions. It investigates the explosion in manumissions across the U.S. South as well as the backlash to the growing numbers of… Read More

Read More
Milteer_Warren_Jr-reduced-e1597937546991[1]

“Preemptive Property: Native Power, Unceded Land, and Speculation in the Early Republic.”

OI Colloquium with Michael Blaakman U.S. governments began selling future rights to huge swaths of unceded and unconquered Indian country in the 1780s and 90s, creating a form of property claim that shaped the land business. Situating public finance, land policy, and speculation within transnational debates about sovereignty and territoriality, Professor Blaakman will trace how white Americans of the… Read More

Read More
Michael-Blaakman-2020-180×235-1[1]

“Asserting Pregnancy in a Colonial Prison: Resounding Silences in Cecilia’s Record”

In 1784, Cecilia Conway—a maroon woman arrested in New Orleans—asserted that she was pregnant, thereby altering the trajectory of the state-sanctioned sexual violence and capital punishment inflicted upon her in response to her marronage. Cecilia was imprisoned at the height of a Spanish campaign against communities of cimarrones living outside New Orleans. The exchanges between officials and Cecilia noted by the men… Read More

Read More
Sarah_Johnson_5-scaled[1]

“A Curious List and a Trip to Sierra Leone:' Or, Why Obour Tanner Bought Rev. Hopkins' The System of Doctrines in 1793?”

OI Colloquium with Tara Bynum “‘A Curious List and a Trip to Sierra Leone:’ Or, Why Obour Tanner Bought Rev. Hopkins’ The System of Doctrines in 1793” takes a look at an oddly placed list of subscribers. It’s among the subscribers to Hopkins’s System of Doctrines, and its title is “Free Blacks.”  While it might be easy to ignore the curious… Read More

Read More
Image_Placeholder_OI_Colloq[1]

Slavery and Freedom in the Era of Revolution: The Patriots' Common Cause

OI Virtual Conversation with Annette Gordon-Reed (Harvard University) and Robert Parkinson (Binghamton University). Annette Gordon-Reed is the Charles Warren Professor of American Legal History at Harvard Law School and a Professor of History in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University. Gordon-Reed won sixteen book prizes, including the Pulitzer Prize in… Read More

Read More
Virtual_Conversations_Graphic_1a[1]

Slavery and Freedom in the Era of Revolution: Freedom, Critical Caribbean Perspectives

OI Virtual Conversations with Laurent Dubois (Duke University) and Natasha Lightfoot (Columbia University) Additional resources on this topic recommended by Professors Dubois and Lightfoot Laurent Dubois (Duke University) specializes in the history and culture of the Atlantic world, with a focus on the Caribbean and particularly Haiti. Professor Dubois… Read More

Read More
Virtual_Conversations_Graphic_1a[1]

Slavery and Freedom in the Era of Revolution: Black Radicalism

OI Virtual Conversation with Manisha Sinha (University of Connecticut) and Michael McDonnell (University of Sydney) Michael McDonnell (University of Sydney) specializes in the era of revolution in the Atlantic world. He is the author of Masters of Empire: Great Lakes Indians and the Making of America (Hill and Wang) and The Politics of… Read More

Read More
Virtual_Conversations_Graphic_1a[1]

Slavery and Freedom in the Era of Revolution: Abolitionism

OI Virtual Conversation with Christopher Brown (Columbia University) and Paul Polgar (University of Mississippi). Christopher L. Brown (Columbia University) specializes in the history of eighteenth century Britain, the early modern British Empire, and the comparative history of slavery and abolition, with secondary interests in the age of revolutions and the history of the Atlantic world. Read More

Read More
Virtual_Conversations_Graphic_1a[1]

Subscribe to the Blog