Welcome to the American Revolution!
Within this site, you can enter into the world of the American Revolution by meeting the people who founded, witnessed, or opposed the birth of the United States. The site is built upon the rich library and museum collections of the New-York Historical Society, including newspapers from nearly all of the thirteen colonies, broadsides, diaries, letters, maps, and family papers.
Walk with George Washington on the hills of Brooklyn Heights as he plans the escape of his army across the East River in 1776, and celebrate with him seven years later at the Battle of Yorktown.
Read the poems of loyalist Myles Cooper, who escaped New York in 1776 on a British warship, or letters of Bahamas slave Caesar Brown as he attempted to gain his freedom.
You can also view a sampler stitched by a seven year old girl, a portrait of the Seneca chief Cornplanter, and many more paintings, archaeological objects, ceramics, and household objects.
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Independence & its Enemies in New YorkThe exhibit was created to commemorate the 225th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, which was first read in New York City on July 9, 1776, on George Washington's orders. Additionally, it offers insight into the lives of eighteenth-century New Yorkers, diverse economically, politically, ethnically and socially, and the difficult situations and choices they confronted during this tumultuous period in American history. |
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Student Exhibition: Road to the American RevolutionThere are fifteen causes for the American Revolution. This exhibit highlights the problems Britain caused by enforcing new tax acts. Colonists' anger over these tax acts forced them to break away from Great Britain, leading to the American Revolution. |
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Student Exhibition: Revolutionary Period DressIf fashion is what you are looking for, then look at the many examples of the Revolutionary dresscode! |
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Student Exhibition: Women During the American Revolutionary WarIf you are looking for an exhibit about interesting things women did in the war and during the war, then this is the exhibit for you. Women were not only helping on the homefront, but they also fought in the war. Some women enlisted as men, and other women were camp followers. Others helped out as nurses, cleaned, cooked and did a number of other chores. |
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Student Exhibition: Medicine and Medical Equipment In the American RevolutionPeople in the American Revolution had less medical knowledge than today, but also had many techniques to cure diseases such as Rattlesnake bites. |
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Student Exhibition: Art & Literature During the American Revolution
From paintings to letters, sketches to poems, sculpture to crafts: these are the many things created by many American artists during the American Revolution. Famous painters such as Charles Wilson Peale and John Trumbull are said to have documented the most important people, places and events during the Revolutionary period. Different types of documents like poetry or newspapers were like food for the souls of the colonists and others. Art and literature are very important because they now tell contemporary generations stories about what happened back then. It's just like the saying: a picture tells one thousand different stories. A painting can explain many things like what were the lives of the people like or what happened in a battle in the eighteenth century. |
