No Battles Fought Here: Planning Revolutionary Commemoration in Your Town
March 10, 2023, 12:00 – 1:30 p.m.
A conversation with Jonathan Lane of Rev250 and Dr. Matthew Keagle of Fort Ticonderoga, moderated by Gavin Kleespies, Director of Programs, Exhibitions, & Community Partnerships at the Massachusetts Historical Society.
Commemorations of the Revolutionary War are kicking into high gear as we approach the conflict’s 250th anniversary. Many communities have a revolutionary history and are interested in talking about it but are not among the iconic sites associated with the Revolution. How should historical organizations recognize their connections to a Revolutionary past? How can they mark these anniversaries if they don’t have many objects from the period in their collections? From “witness structures,” to archival materials, to burial sites of Revolutionaries, there are many outside-the-box ways organizations can acknowledge their site’s role in a larger history outside the traditional commemoration event. Join us on March 10 for a conversation with Jonathan Lane of Rev250 and Dr. Matthew Keagle of Fort Ticonderoga moderated by the Massachusetts Historical Society’s Gavin Kleespies.
Registration is free. REGISTER HERE!
This Conversation will be livestreamed. We will do our best to monitor your questions and comments during the livestream. A recording will be publicly available in the Conversations on the Commons Archive.
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- Dr. Matthew Keagle has been involved in curation, exhibitions, research, historical interpretation, and program development for historic sites and museums in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Delaware, Virginia, North and South Carolina. He holds a Bachelor’s degree from Cornell University, a Masters in American Material Culture from the Winterthur Museum, and a Ph.D. from the Bard Graduate Center in New York City. He joined Fort Ticonderoga in 2014 and has been involved developing exhibits, conducting research, delivering programs, and advancing our understanding of the 18th-century military experience. He has researched and lectured at archives and collections across the US, Canada, and Europe, with a particular research focus on military dress in the 18th century.
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- Jonathan Lane has more than 30 years’ experience in public history, tourism and cultural programming. While his employment has led him to many leading institutions, including Plimoth Plantation, the American Antiquarian Society, Berklee College of Music and now, the Massachusetts Historical Society, his historical studies has taken him to libraries and archives throughout the U.S. and United Kingdom. He is the author of numerous small monographs, and the editor of From the Potomac to the Etowah, the Civil War Correspondence of Alonzo Hall Quint. He is currently the Coordinator of Revolution 250, a consortium of more than 70 organizations across the Commonwealth, working together on the commemoration of the 250th Anniversary of the American Revolution.
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- Gavin Kleespies is the Director of Programs, Exhibitions, and Community Partnerships for the Massachusetts Historical Society and has been with MHS since 2014. He has worked in public history for over twenty-five years including being the executive director of two historical societies, most recently in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He has been appointed to the Massachusetts 250th Commission, the Massachusetts Historical Commission and the Cambridge Historical Commission and serves as a board member for the Massachusetts History Alliance and the Fenway Alliance. He is a regional representative for the American Association for State and Local History Leadership in History Awards and serves on the AASLH 250th Task Force. He did his undergraduate work at Bard College, where he majored in economics and then received a master’s degree from the University of Chicago with a concentration in American History.
Questions? Email commons@masshistoryalliance.org
Conversations on the Commons
Where people from Massachusetts history organizations get to vent, empathize, laugh, complain, think, collaborate, brainstorm, plan, and in general be up to no good.