American Antiquarian Society
185 Salisbury Street
Worcester, MA 01609
United States
Everyone knows that the American Revolution started at Lexington Green with the "shot heard 'round the world." Or did it? In his latest book, The First American Revolution: Before Lexington and Concord, researched at AAS, Ray Raphael makes the claim that the American Revolution actually began seven months earlier in rural towns such as Worcester, when thousands of farmers and artisans overthrew the established government by forcing resignations and recantations from all Crown-appointed officials in rural Massachsetts. When the British staffed a counter-revolutionary attack on Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775, they were actually trying to reclaim a countryside they had lost the previous summer. Join us for a provocative new look at the birth of our country and the spirit of democracy.
Ray Raphael, is the author of The First American Revolution: Before Lexington and Concord, which will be published on April 1, 2002, by the New Press. His other books include: A People's History of the American Revolution, An Everyday History of Somewhere, Men From the Boys: Rites of Passage in Male America, and Tree Talk: The People and Politics of Timber. He lives in northern California.