American Revolution Institute

Among the most important objects surviving from the American Revolution is the original Great Seal of the United States, adopted , June 20, 1782.

In the summer of 1776, the Continental Congress appointed a committee consisting of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams to devise a national seal symbolizing the independent United States. Congress rejected the committee’s proposal and rejected the proposals of a second committee in 1780, and a third one’s in 1782. Finally, Congress turned the challenge over to its secretary, Charles Thomson, who combined ideas from each committee with his own ideas to create the Great Seal of the United States. The Great Seal remains unchanged to this day.

One of our newest Year in Revolution videos explores the early iconography of the United States and its official Great Seal. In the 18th century, each of British America’s thirteen colonies had a unique history and individual identity, but as the American Revolution brought them together—first in resistance to new imperial regulations and taxes, then in rebellion, and finally in a shared struggle for independence—their shared experience created a common narrative and new symbols to represent national ideals and aspirations. Heroes, villains, and events referring heavily to the ideas and ideals of the Revolution gradually built a shared national identity—most evidently embodied in the Great Seal of the United States.

https://youtu.be/lkKJef7F2tE?is=_0IwJ2_riedfYt3m

Year in Revolution 1782: National Identity This video explores the early iconography of the United States and ...

Join us next Thursday, June 25 at 6:30 p.m. for a lecture featuring award-winning historian Michael Auslin discussing his new book, National Treasure: How the Declaration of Independence Made America, that demonstrates how Thomas Jefferson’s words in the Declaration of Independence have inspired implausibly varied causes, from suffragists and civil rights leaders to groups waging war on the United States government.

Drawing from the book, Austin will address the lessons that should be taken from the document today and how the Declaration’s ideals can bring a disparate nation together. As we gather to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the founders’ bold experiment in democracy, the talk will also remind us that the enduring document was not just a call for freedom and equality but an eloquent statement of the principles that bind us together.

Learn more and register for the program: https://bit.ly/43KtW9F

It’s September 10, 1781, and you are a one of a team of soldiers manning a 6-pounder firing on the British earthworks at Yorktown, Virginia. To load the gun successfully you need to pick the right size cannon ball, at the same time as the British are firing their own cannons back at you, so you need to be quick about it. You need a set of artillery calipers.

By simply adjusting the blades or arms of the tool and reading the measurements on the calipers, a soldier could quickly measure the diameter of cannon balls as well as the diameter of the cannon’s muzzle. Artillery or gunner’s calipers could also contain other useful information, like this example from our collections does, including the amount of black powder that was needed for specific sizes of mortars or howitzers.

For more information about this set of artillery calipers and additional images, check out its online museum database entry, here: https://bit.ly/4xx5lmk

This past week the Institute participated in the Commonwealth of Kentucky’s 2026 Summer Education Conference for 400 K-12 teachers at Tates Creek High School in Lexington, Kentucky. We were grateful to have been joined by Master Teachers Seminar alum Anne Walker, who presented the lesson she developed for us in 2023 about the alliance between the American revolutionaries and the Oneida people—featured in the classroom resources section of our Voices of Revolution exhibition: https://www.americanrevolutioninstitute.org/voices-of-revolution-classroom-resources/

Happy birthday to the U.S. Army!

in 1775, the Second Continental Congress authorized the creation of the Continental Army, marking a decisive step toward organized resistance against British rule. Formed only a few months after the Revolutionary War broke out at Lexington and Concord on April 19, the Continental Army unified colonial militias under a central command. On June 15, George Washington was appointed as its commander-in-chief. Despite limited resources, inconsistent training, and formidable opposition, the Continental Army would go on to eventually secure American independence and lay the foundation for the modern U.S. Army.

Learn more about the founding of the Continental Army from historian Holly Mayer, who recently joined our lecture series.

The Founding of the Continental Army In 1775, the rebellious Americans had to form a standing army to pr...

250 years ago, the Second Continental Congress took another decisive step toward independence by appointing a five-man committee to draft a formal declaration separating the American colonies from Great Britain. The committee, made up of delegates Thomas Jefferson (VA), John Adams (MA), Benjamin Franklin (PA), Roger Sherman (CT), and Robert Livingston (NY), was tasked with putting into words the colonies’ growing resolve for self-governance.

Though independence had been debated for months, this formal action signaled that Congress was now preparing to justify the break from British rule both to its own citizens and the world. Thomas Jefferson would take the lead in drafting the document, drawing on Enlightenment ideals and colonial grievances. This moment set in motion the creation of one of the most influential documents in history that would be adopted less than a month later.

Join us next Wednesday, June 17 at 6:30 p.m. for a lecture featuring historian Friederike Baer focusing our attention on the varied experiences of the German auxiliaries in the American Revolution.
Between 1776 and 1783, Great Britain hired more than 30,000 German soldiers to fight in its war against the American rebels. Collectively known as Hessians and accompanied by many civilians, including hundreds of women and children, they spent extended periods in locations as far-flung and varied as Canada and West Florida.

Drawing on extensive research in German-authored private papers and official records, this talk examines the Hessians not merely as a fighting force but as a military community sustained through domestic labor, familial ties, and collective identity far from home. This program accompanies our current exhibition, Voices of Revolution, on view through January 10, 2027.

Learn more and register for the program: https://bit.ly/441lfI4

Happy Birthday to the artist John Trumbull, born this week in 1756 in Lebanon, Connecticut. This ca. 1834 portrait by Trumbull from our collections depicts Continental Army officer Ebenezer Huntington and was recently put on display in the Original Library of Anderson House.

Huntington, who was born on December 26, 1754, in Norwich, Connecticut, was a senior at Yale College when he learned of the Battles of Lexington and Concord. Just three days after those battles on April 22, 1775, Huntington left his studies and volunteered to serve with the American Patriots participating in the siege of British-occupied Boston. Huntington was commissioned into the Connecticut Line and served at the Battles of Long Island, White Plains, and Rhode Island and the Siege of Yorktown, in which he commanded a battalion of light infantry. At war’s end, Huntington became an original member of the Society of the Cincinnati in the State of Connecticut.

Today marks the 250th anniversary of the “Lee Resolution”—the first formal step towards the Continental Congress declaring American independence.

On June 7, 1776, Richard Henry Lee, a delegate from Virginia, presented a resolution to the Second Continental Congress that declared the thirteen American colonies “free and independent States.”

Lee’s resolution was tabled until July 2, when Congress voted to adopt it and declare independence from Britain. Two days later, on July 4, Congress approved the official document that declared independence. This text was printed for the first time that evening as a broadside and disseminated across the thirteen American states announcing the news of what had transpired—news that echoes 250 years later.

There is something uniquely beautiful about 18th-century broadsides.

Printed quickly, handled often, and rarely meant to survive, these single-sheet publications carried news, debate, politics, and public life into the streets of Revolutionary America. Every crease, stain, impression, and irregularity tells part of that story.

This rare 1777 broadside from the press of John Dunlap, later famous for printing the Declaration of Independence, was made to be used: signed, recorded, and preserved as proof of loyalty during the Revolution.

Its survival reminds us that even administrative print can be extraordinary.

Through the American Revolution Institute’s digital collections, rare printed materials like this can be digitally preserved, studied, and shared with audiences far beyond the reading room.

Explore it in ARI’s digital collections: https://bit.ly/4uhURVd