Dublin Seminar for New England Folklife: Recalling the Revolution in New England
June 27, 2025, 12:00 am - June 28, 2025, 11:59 pm
Deerfield Community Center 16 Memorial Street Deerfield, MA 01342 + Google Map
Category: Seminars Virtual & Hybrid
Image: “Paul Revere’s ride.” c. 1930. Boston Public Library.
Virtual Registration can be purchased here. In-person Registration can be purchased here. Thanks to the generosity of our donors, we have a limited number of free student registrations available on a first-come, first-served basis.
The Dublin Seminar for New England Folklife’s 2025 gathering, Recalling the Revolution in New England, will be held June 27–28 at Historic Deerfield. The conference keynote will be provided by Dr. Zara Anishanslin of the University of Delaware, author of the forthcoming book The Painter’s Fire: A Forgotten History of the Artists who Championed the American Revolution. Learn about the broad range of ways the people of New England have looked back on the nation’s founding —and what they forgot, or chose to forget, in the process. We will explore how the peoples of the region have commemorated, memorialized, documented, invoked, fictionalized, and even forgotten the American Revolution through the Bicentennial period.
Program Schedule
Read a PDF of the program schedule here.
Friday, June 27
Optional Morning Activities Each option is repeated. Each group is limited to 15 people.
10–10:45 am — Walking Tour Group A meets at Historic Deerfield’s Visitor Center for “A Town Divided: Deerfield in the American Revolution.” Join James Golden, Director of Interpretation, on a special
guided tour along Old Main Street that explores the lives of ordinary people, Patriot and Loyalist, enslaved and free, male and female, when the small town of Deerfield was divided by the American Revolution. As one Deerfielder lamented, “all nature seems to be in confusion; every person in fear of what his neighbor will do to him. Such times were never
seen in New England.”
10–10:45 am — Library Group A meets at the Memorial Libraries for “Deerfield In and After the Revolution.” Join librarian Jeanne Solensky for an exploration of materials that illuminate life in Deerfield and neighboring towns during the Revolution. Primary sources such as diaries and account books detail daily activities while muster rolls, letters, and supply lists show the military response of local residents. Histories written by Deerfield citizens in the nineteenth century then reveal how they remembered the Revolution.
11–11:45 am — Walking Tour Group B meets at Historic Deerfield’s Visitor Center for “A Town Divided: Deerfield in the American Revolution” with Director of Interpretation James Golden
11–11:45 am — Library Group B meets at the Memorial Libraries for “Deerfield In and After the Revolution” with librarian Jeanne Solensky
12–1:00 pm — Lunch on your own
12:30 pm — Registration opens for in-person attendees to pick up their name badges and information packets at the Deerfield Community Center. Refreshments available.
1:10 pm — Virtual sign-in opens for online attendees
1:15–1:30 pm — Conference Welcome: Marla Miller, Associate Dean for Strategic Initiatives, UMass Amherst, and President of Dublin Seminar for New England Folklife
1:30–3 pm — Panel 1: “Institutions of Memory” David Wood, Concord Museum: “Misremembering April 19th”
Elizabeth Pangburn, Ph.D. Candidate, UMass Amherst: “Past-keeping and the Revolutionary Era at the Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum”
Beth Folsom, History Cambridge: “Remembering the Revolution in Cambridge: Commemoration and the Creation of Historical Narratives”
3–3:15 pm — Break
3:15–4:45 pm — Panel 2: “Gender and Memory” Mariah Kupfner, Assistant Professor, Penn State Harrisburg: “Piecing the Past: Tactility, Fragmentation, and Remembrance of the Revolutionary Era”
Sarah J. Purcell, Professor, Grinnell College: “‘Personable and Dignified Ladies’: Women, Gender, and the Material Culture of Memory at the Bunker Hill Monument”
4:45–7 pm — Dinner on your own
7–8 pm — Keynote Address: “The Painter’s Fire: A Forgotten History of the Artists who Championed the American Revolution” by Zara Anishanslin, Professor, University of Delaware
Saturday, June 28
8:30 am — Deerfield Community Center opens. In-person attendees may pick up name badges and information packets. Refreshments available.
8:55 pm — Virtual sign-in for online attendees
9–10:30 am — Panel 3: “Memories Reconsidered” Gerald W.R. Ward, Portsmouth Historical Society: “Captain, Celebrity, Cliché: The Birth, Death, and Resurrection of John Paul Jones” Ben Haley, Massachusetts Historical Commission: “The ‘Real’ Knox Trail”
10:30–10:45 am — Break
10:45 am–12:15 pm — Panel 4: “Performances of Memory” Kate Criscitiello, Lexington Historical Society: “Recalling the Revolution: Lexington’s Two Pageants”
James Bennett, Public Historian, Revolutionary Spaces: “To Become as American as the Fourth of July: Boston School Children and the Public Reading of the Declaration of Independence at the Old State House, 1910-1976”
Alexandra Cade, Ph.D. Candidate, University of Delaware: “Redowa at the Relic: Sensory Performance of Revolutionary Memory in Nineteenth-Century American Tourism”
12:15–1:45 pm — Lunch (buffet provided at the Deerfield Inn)
1:45–3:15pm — Panel 5: “Recovering Memories” Timothy Hastings, Ph.D. Candidate, UMass Amherst: “The Spirit of ’75: Slavery, Freedom, and the Meaning of the Revolution in Early New Hampshire”
David Naumec, Research Fellow, Historic New England: “Recovering New England’s Voices: Revolutionary War Veterans of Color”
Barbara Rimkunas, Exeter Historical Society: “Reviving Exeter’s Black Revolutionary War Veterans and Their Families”
3:15–3:30 pm — Break
3:30–5 pm — Panel 6: “Objects of Memory” Cynthia Falk, Cooperstown Graduate Program, SUNY Oneonta, “Memories of Massacres in New York’s Mohawk Valley” Stephen O’Neill, Hanover Historical Society and Dyer Memorial Library, “Drums in the Revolution and Early Republic: Sounds and Symbols of Patriotism” Philip Zea, President Emeritus, Historic Deerfield, “When Bows and Weighty Spears: The Messages of Putnam’s Horn”
5–5:05 pm — Closing Remarks John Davis, President & CEO, Historic Deerfield
Virtual Registration can be purchased here. In-person Registration can be purchased here. Thanks to the generosity of our donors, we have a limited number of free student registrations available on a first-come, first-served basis.