During a 1793 outbreak of yellow fever in Philadelphia 5,000 of the city’s 50,000 residents died making it the worst epidemic in American history, with a death rate of 10%. As disease spread, the national government was slow to react but citizens soon donned protective masks and the authorities ordered quarantines. The streets emptied. Doubters questioned the science and disobeyed. [Read more…] about America’s First Plague: The Deadly 1793 Yellow Fever Epidemic
Fraunces Tavern Museum
Washington’s Marines: The Origins of the Corps in the American Revolution
Major General Jason Bohm will explore the origins of the United States Marines at a virtual talk hosted by Fraunces Tavern Museum based on his book Washington’s Marines: The Origins of the Corps and the American Revolution, 1775-1777 (Savas Beatie, 2023). [Read more…] about Washington’s Marines: The Origins of the Corps in the American Revolution
4th of July in New York City: Recent History and 2023 Plans
From the end of the Revolution until the 1960s, Fourth of July celebrations in the city of New York were a major annual events. (You can read about that history here.)
During the 1970s, the most important July 4th event in New York City became the previously established Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest at Coney Island. The highly publicized event proved to be a huge success, but lacked historical context or political meaning. [Read more…] about 4th of July in New York City: Recent History and 2023 Plans
Black Loyalists & New York’s Birch Trials
In 1783, at the end of the Revolutionary War, a joint British and American commission met at Fraunces Tavern in Manhattan to evaluate claims that called into question the eligibility of some Black loyalists to evacuate with the British Army. [Read more…] about Black Loyalists & New York’s Birch Trials
New York City Loyalists Lecture June 12th
The Fraunces Tavern Museum has announced “Unfriendly to Liberty: Loyalist Networks and the Coming of the American Revolution in New York City,” a lecture by Christopher Minty set for Monday, June 12th. [Read more…] about New York City Loyalists Lecture June 12th
Who Started The Great New York Fire of 1776?
The book The Great New York Fire of 1776: A Lost Story of the American Revolution (Yale University Press, 2023) by Benjamin Carp explores the Great Fire of 1776 and why its origins remained a mystery even after the British investigated it in 1776 and 1783. [Read more…] about Who Started The Great New York Fire of 1776?
Rebels at Sea: Privateering in the American Revolution
Rebels at Sea: Privateering in the American Revolution (Liveright, 2022) by Eric Jay Dolin is the story of the founding of the U.S. Navy during the American Revolution. The story has been told before, yet missing from most maritime histories of America’s first war is the ragtag fleet of private vessels, from 20-foot whaleboats to 40-cannon men-of-war. [Read more…] about Rebels at Sea: Privateering in the American Revolution
Hessians: German Soldiers in the American Revolutionary War
The book Hessians: German Soldiers in the American Revolutionary War (Oxford University Press, 2022) by Friederike Baer takes a look at the thirty thousand German soldiers that Great Britain hired to fight in its war against the American rebels between 1776 and 1783.
Collectively known as Hessians, the soldiers and accompanying civilians, including hundreds of women and children, spent extended periods of time in locations as dispersed and varied as Canada in the North and West Florida in the South. [Read more…] about Hessians: German Soldiers in the American Revolutionary War
The Defeat of the British Southern Strategy
The Fraunces Tavern Museum in New York City will host “The Defeat of the British Southern Strategy to Conquer America,” a virtual lecture with Kenneth Scarlett set for Thursday, March 16th. [Read more…] about The Defeat of the British Southern Strategy
The Rise and Fall of Charles Willson Peale’s Museum
Charles Willson Peale was an American painter, soldier, scientist, inventor, politician and naturalist. He is best remembered for his portrait paintings of leading figures of the American Revolution, and for establishing one of the first museums in the United States.
In 1786, Charles Willson Peale created what is considered the most important — and most famous — museum in Revolutionary era America. A fusion of natural history and art, Peale’s Philadelphia Museum was meant to be an embodiment of the Enlightenment. [Read more…] about The Rise and Fall of Charles Willson Peale’s Museum