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“A fresh, arresting history of the American Revolution as people lived it: facing forward. Molly Beer recovers the suspense, perils, and dazzling possibilities of the era, and her lapidary prose and keen sense of character bring Angelica Schuyler Church, her family, and her world to vivid, unforgettable life, making a great global event into a family drama, and vice versa.” - Jane Kamensky, president of Monticello/The Thomas Jefferson Foundation and author of A Revolution in Color.
Embroidered coats of arms were among the most prolific and enduring forms of schoolgirl needlework in eighteenth-century Boston. Not only do these objects demonstrate the skill and dedication of their makers, but as examples of genealogical material culture, heraldic needlework makes clear that young colonial women were integral to the articulation and preservation of their family history.
This illustrated talk will focus on the stories told by objects in the Concord Museum collection about the lead-up to April 19, 1775, and the epochal day itself. In the aggregate, these stories contribute forcefully to an understanding that the Revolution, the great turn from a monarchy to a republic, was already over well before the day the Revolutionary War began.