The Declaration of Independence is 250 years old, and still unfinished. Its famous assertion “that all men are created equal” and endowed with unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness has never been a settled...
What happens when the most important document in American history leaves the room where it was written, with no plan for how to tell the world? The Second Continental Congress voted for independence on July 2, 1776, and produced one of the most...
What happens after the revolution? Thomas Paine’s Common Sense made the case for independence, but Paine himself understood that breaking free from a king was only the beginning. The harder work was figuring out how to govern without one. 250...
On January 10, 1776, Thomas Paine published Common Sense, a fiery pamphlet that transformed colonial protest into a call for American Independence. With clear language and bold ideas, Paine challenged monarchy, championed republican government, and...
What if the key to understanding American politics in the Founding Era wasn’t just in the halls of Congress, but in the human body? Discover the life and work of Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, pioneering physician, and...
Think the Boston Tea Party made America a coffee-drinking nation? Historian Michelle McDonald reveals the truth: colonists were already choosing coffee over tea because it was cheaper. Michelle Craig McDonald, the Librarian/Director of the Library...
In the 1820s, American entrepreneurs, engineers, and politicians dared to dream big. They believed they could cut a canal, not through Panama, but through the wild, rain-soaked terrain of Nicaragua. Their goal? To link the Atlantic and Pacific...
As we look ahead to the 250th anniversary—the semiquincentennial—of the Declaration of Independence in 2026, communities and commissions across the United States are asking big questions: How should we commemorate this historic milestone? What’s the...
Have you ever noticed how conversations about the American Revolution often center on great battles, founding documents, and famous statesmen? What if, instead, we explored that world through the eyes—and the hands—of everyday people who shaped it...
When we talk about slavery in Early America, we often focus on plantations: their large, fertile fields, their cash crops, and the people who labored on those fields to produce those cash crops under conditions of enslavement. But what about the...