Philip Gura, William S. Newman Distinguished Professor of American Literature and Culture at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is the author of The American Antiquarian Society, 1812-2012: A Bicentennial History. He will tell the story of the Society and its directors and librarians who have shaped and nurtured it into the twenty-first century. Gura, a long-time friend of the American Antiquarian Society, considers his election to membership in 1988 one of his highest honors.

David Hildebrand will perform in costume and on period instruments music that was heard in homes, on the streets and in taverns and theaters two hundred years ago. The popular music of this time reflected a wide range of events and themes from the early stirrings of party politics under President Adams, the traumatic effect of Jefferson's Embargo in 1807, through the triumph at Fort McHenry and the last battle in New Orleans in 1814. This program tells the true story of the birth of the Star-Spangled Banner.

For most of us the American Revolution is about the Founding Fathers, the Declaration of Independence, and how George Washington led the colonies through the decade-long struggle that ultimately led to the formation of the United States. Lost in this account toward liberty is the truly cataclysmic nature of how the revolution began: the interplay of ideologies and personalities that provoked a group of merchants, farmers, artisans, and sailors to take up arms against their own country.

Amy Brill’s debut novel The Movement of Stars was researched at the American Antiquarian Society and is inspired by the work of Maria Mitchell, the first professional female astronomer in America.

This lecture will examine two of the most important texts in American history both of which are 150 years old this year: The Emancipation Proclamation and the Gettysburg Address. In its own time, the Emancipation Proclamation was considered a politically risky, even revolutionary act. In more recent years, many Americans have been taught that it was cautious, insincere, and ineffective. What was the true impact and intent of Lincoln's most famous executive order? And what did he do to prepare the public for its announcement--sometimes to the detriment of his own reputation?