In 1775, on the green of Lexington, Massachusetts, 2,200 British minutemen fired upon the local militia -- seventy colonial farmers and village artisans in total. The British suffered staggering losses: half of their troops died. And so began the American Revolution. In Landmarks of the American Revolution, fourteen key sites and numerous secondary locales show with rich detail and fascinating anecdotes where the War of Independence took place. In addition to the Lexington-Concord Battle Site, historian Gary Nash features Independence Hall in Philadelphia where the Declaration of Independence was signed; John Paul Jones House in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where the out-of-work, 28-year-old immigrant who went on to become one of the new nation's naval heroes lived; Peyton Randolph House in Williamsburg, Virginia, a place emblematic of African Americans' role in the war; and many other significant places of the American Revolution. A dynamic journey through history that reveals all sides in the war -- loyalists, patriots, African American, Native American, women, British -- Landmarks of the American Revolution brings to life how a new nation came to be.

Depicts the outbreak of the American Revolution at Lexington in 1775 through stories and illustrations.

Americans tend to think of the Revolution as a Massachusetts-based event orchestrated by Virginians, but in fact the war took place mostly in the Middle Colonies—in New York and New Jersey and the parts of Pennsylvania that on a clear day you can almost see from the Empire State Building. In My American Revolution, Robert Sullivan delves into this first Middle America, digging for a glorious, heroic part of the past in the urban, suburban, and sometimes even rural landscape of today. And there are great adventures along the way: Sullivan investigates the true history of the crossing of the Delaware, its down-home reenactment each year for the past half a century, and—toward the end of a personal odyssey that involves camping in New Jersey backyards, hiking through lost "mountains," and eventually some physical therapy—he evacuates illegally from Brooklyn to Manhattan by handmade boat. He recounts a Brooklyn historian's failed attempt to memorialize a colonial Maryland regiment; a tattoo artist's more successful use of a colonial submarine, which resulted in his 2007 arrest by the New York City police and the FBI; and the life of Philip Freneau, the first (and not great) poet of American independence, who died in a swamp in the snow. Last but not least, along New York harbor, Sullivan re-creates an ancient signal beacon. Like an almanac, My American Revolution moves through the calendar of American independence, considering the weather and the tides, the harbor and the estuary and the yearly return of the stars as salient factors in the war for independence. In this fiercely individual and often hilarious journey to make our revolution his, he shows us how alive our own history is, right under our noses.

In April 1782, Gen. George Washington rode into Newburgh and found a sprawling town. At the end of what is now Library Street was the fieldstone house of the late Col. Jonathan Hasbrouck. From April 1782 to August 1783, Hasbrouck's house became Washington's home and his longest-occupied military headquarters. At the end of the American Revolution, Washington left "headquarters," as it came to be known, and the Hasbrouck family reclaimed the house. A period of extended decline followed, until the Hasbrouck family could no longer maintain the property, and it was ultimately purchased by the State of New York. On July 4, 1850, Washington's Headquarters was named a state historic site and became the first of its kind in the nation.

A tour through the original thirteen colonies in search of historical sites and their stories in America's founding. Obscure, well-known, off-the-beaten path, and on busy city streets, here are taverns, meeting houses, battlefields, forts, monuments, homes which all combine to define our country--the places where daring people forged a revolution. There is always something new to be found in America's past that also brings greater clarity to our present and the future we choose to make as a nation. Author-artist Adam Van Doren traveled from Maine to Georgia in that spirit. There are thirty-seven landmarks included, with fifteen additional locations noted in brief. From the Bunker Hill monument in Massachusetts to the Camden Battlefield Site in South Carolina, this is a tour of an American cultural landscape with a curious, perceptive, and insightful guide. The reader steps inside cabins at Valley Forge where nearly two thousand soldiers perished during a cruel winter, meets the chef at Philadelphia's City Tavern where the menu is based on 18th century fare, seeks out the Swamp Fox in Georgia, visits the homes of Alexander Hamilton, John and Abigail Adams, the Joseph Webb House on the Connecticut River where French general Rochambeau made plans with Washington, and much more. An unvarnished view, we also see Philipsburg Manor, in Sleepy Hollow, New York, where Blacks were once held as slaves to work in the Hudson River Valley. For armchair travelers and anyone fascinated by Americana, Van Doren (The House Tells the Story: Homes of the American Presidents) has created an unforgettable journey through history. We see the Founders--both their stunning achievements and chilling moral failures--where they lived, fought, and agreed on a common purpose, to create a nation whose future--and it's legacy--is continually evolving.

2020 Philip S. Klein Book Prize Winner, Pennsylvania Historical Association Known as America’s most historic neighborhood, the Germantown section of Philadelphia (established in 1683) has distinguished itself by using public history initiatives to forge community. Progressive programs about ethnic history, postwar urban planning, and civil rights have helped make historic preservation and public history meaningful. The Battles of Germantown considers what these efforts can tell us about public history’s practice and purpose in the United States. Author David Young, a neighborhood resident who worked at Germantown historic sites for decades, uses his practitioner’s perspective to give examples of what he calls “effective public history.” The Battles of Germantown shows how the region celebrated “Negro Achievement Week” in 1928 and, for example, how social history research proved that the neighborhood’s Johnson House was a station on the Underground Railroad. These encounters have useful implications for addressing questions of race, history, and memory, as well as issues of urban planning and economic revitalization. Germantown’s historic sites use public history and provide leadership to motivate residents in an area challenged by job loss, population change, and institutional inertia. The Battles of Germantown illustrates how understanding and engaging with the past can benefit communities today.