This month we will be talking to Dr Andrew O’Shaughnessy about his book “The Illimitable Freedom of the Human Mind,” Thomas Jefferson’s Idea of a University’ which tells story of how Thomas Jefferson developed his ideas for education in early America and how these ideas continue to have relevance to public education in the United States to this very day. 

Thomas Jefferson was directly involved in every aspect in the creation of the University of Virginia. From the physical space to the legislation and curriculum, Jefferson stood firm in his belief in a modern 18th century education system. Although his ideas were opposed at first by his fellow politicians, Jefferson proved that he had a unique and progressive vision that can still be felt today.  

Andrew O’Shaughnessy is Vice President of Monticello, the Saunders Director of the Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies at the Thomas Jefferson Foundation and Professor of History at the University of Virginia.  He is the author of An Empire Divided: The American Revolution and the British Caribbean (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000).  His most recent book The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership, the American Revolution and the Fate of the Empire (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013) received eight national awards including the New York Historical Society American History Book Prize, the George Washington Book Prize, and the Society of Military History Book Prize. 

You can pre-order a hardcopy or e-book here (UK) or here (US).   

Watch the full talk below:

To celebrate the launch of our virtual exhibition, Franklin in Portraits, join us for a series of talks about Benjamin Franklin’s most famous portraits. We continue our series with a discussion on this Charles Willson Peale portrait painted in 1785. It was ultimately made for his collection of portraits of Famous Americans for his museum in Independence Hall. Karie Diethorn, Senior Curator and Chief of Museum Branch of the Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia, will discuss with Dr George Boudreau the significance of this portrait and the Peale Museum. Franklin and Peale first met in London in 1767 and formed a friendship over their shared interest in natural sciences.

Watch here:

Karie Diethorn has a Bachelor of Arts degree in history and medieval studies from Penn State University and a Masters degree in American history and a certificate in museum studies from the University of Delaware.

Since 1994, she has managed Independence National Historical Park’s museum operation as chief curator.  She has taught historic site management as an Associate Professor in the University of Delaware graduate museum studies program and museum collections management as a Visiting Lecturer in Philadelphia’s University of the Arts graduate museum studies program.  She is co-author of the catalog History of the Portrait Collection, Independence National Historical Park (2001) and a contributor to the anthology of essays in Quaker Aesthetics, Reflections on a Quaker Ethic in American Design and Consumption (2003).  Her most recent exhibit project is “People of Independence 1750 to 1840”, the permanent fine arts at Independence National Historical Park.

Dr George Boudreau is a cultural historian of early Anglo-America, specializing in the history of Philadelphia, the work of Benjamin Franklin, material culture, and public history. Boudreau was the founding editor of the journal Early American Studies, and has won six major grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities. He was a fellow at Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington in 2019-20 and has previously completed fellowships at the Jamestown Rediscovery and the Omohundro Institute for Early American History and Culture at Williamsburg, the International Center for Jefferson Studies at Monticello, the Library Company of Philadelphia, Winterthur Museum and Library, the American Philosophical Society, and the David Library of the American Revolution. A 1998 Ph.D. from Indiana University, he is currently senior research associate at the McNeil Center for Early American Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and is a member of the Academic Advisory Panel for Benjamin Franklin House.

To celebrate the launch of our virtual exhibition, Franklin in Portraits, join us for a series of talks about Benjamin Franklin’s most famous portraits. We continue our series with a discussion on the differences between two versions of the same portrait: Benjamin Franklin by David Martin and the copy made by Charles Willson Peale in 1785, given to the American Philosophical Society. The original portrait by Martin was commissioned by Robert Alexander of the firm of William Alexander & Sons, in Edinburgh. It is meant to represent Benjamin Franklin as an Enlightenment figure and English gentleman. It is also one of the rare portraits done during his time in London while he was living at 36 Craven Street (Benjamin Franklin House). Join Dr. Janine Yorimoto Boldt and Dr George Boudreau for a discussion on the differences between the two paintings and what these differences symbolize for Early American portraiture.

Dr George Boudreau is a cultural historian of early Anglo-America, specializing in the history of Philadelphia, the work of Benjamin Franklin, material culture, and public history. Boudreau was the founding editor of the journal Early American Studies, and has won six major grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities. He was a fellow at Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington in 2019-20 and has previously completed fellowships at the Jamestown Rediscovery and the Omohundro Institute for Early American History and Culture at Williamsburg, the International Center for Jefferson Studies at Monticello, the Library Company of Philadelphia, Winterthur Museum and Library, the American Philosophical Society, and the David Library of the American Revolution. A 1998 Ph.D. from Indiana University, he is currently senior research associate at the McNeil Center for Early American Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and is a member of the Academic Advisory Panel for Benjamin Franklin House.

Dr. Janine Yorimoto Boldt is art historian and cultural historian specializing in early American visual culture. She is currently the Associate Curator of American Art at the Chazen Museum of Art at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. From 2018-2020 she was the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Postdoctoral Curatorial Fellow at the American Philosophical Society where she was the lead curator for the exhibition Dr. Franklin, Citizen Scientist and co-curator for the 2019 exhibition Mapping a Nation: Shaping the Early American Republic. Boldt received her PhD in American Studies from William & Mary and her scholarship focuses on the social and political functions of colonial portraiture. She is the researcher behind ColonialVirginiaPortraits.org, a digital project produced in collaboration with the Omohundro Institute of Early American History & Culture. Her research has been supported by fellowships from Colonial Williamsburg, the Virginia Museum of History & Culture, Winterthur Museum and Library, the Decorative Arts Trust, and the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts.

Thursday 15 July, 12pm ET/5pm BST. Register here.

Polly Stevenson Hewson was the daughter of Benjamin Franklin’s landlady at 36 Craven Street. A surrogate daughter to Franklin, they had an enduring friendship that remained even after he left London in 1775.  In fact, all Polly’s descendants became American thanks to Franklin as House Operations Manager, Caitlin Hoffman, will reveal.  Discover how this little-known, yet important figure in Franklin’s life, is central to our Historical Experience.