Adams Speaker Series:
American Revolution
The Adams Presidential Center recently hosted distinguished historians, Friederike Baer and Gordon S. Wood, for an insightful and fascinating discussion about Ken Burn’s THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, a new six-part, 12-hour documentary series that explores the country’s founding struggle and its eight-year War for Independence. Friederike Baer and Gordon S. Wood are two of dozens of scholars and writers who appear in the film or advised the production.
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Event Speakers
Gordon S. Wood
Gordon S. Wood is the world’s foremost authority on the historical origins of the United States Constitution. His writings have influenced generations of scholars and shaped debate on a range of issues, from the foundations of American constitutional governance to the character of the American Revolution. His prize-winning first book, The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787 (1969), was awarded both the Bancroft Prize (Columbia University) and the John H. Dunning Prize from the American Historical Association. His Radicalism of the American Revolution (1991) was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. Wood is the author of a number of other influential books including Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815 (2009) and Friends Divided: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson (2017).
Wood spent most of his academic career at Brown University, where he is currently the Alva O. Way Professor of History, Emeritus.
Friederike Baer
Friederike Baer is an award-winning author and Professor of History at Pennsylvania State University. Originally from Germany, she holds a Ph.D. in early American history from Brown University. She is the author of The Trial of Frederick Eberle: Language, Patriotism and Citizenship in Philadelphia’s German Community, 1790-1830, which was awarded the St. Paul, Biglerville Prize in American Lutheran History, and Hessians: German Soldiers in the American Revolutionary War, which was honored with the American Roundtable of Philadelphia Annual Book Award, Inaugural American Battlefield Trust Prize for History Honorable Mention, and Society of the Cincinnati Prize. Dr. Baer served as a historical advisor and interviewee for The American Revolution, a documentary film by Ken Burns, Sarah Botstein, and David Schmidt.
Moderator:
Kurt Graham, President, Adams Presidential Center
Kurt Graham is the inaugural president of the Adams Presidential Center in Quincy, Massachusetts. Previously, he served as the director of the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum in Independence, Missouri. As director, he oversaw a $30M renovation of the principal museum exhibits and dramatically expanded the Library’s educational and public programming. He has also directed the McCracken Research Library at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody, Wyoming, and the Church History Museum in Salt Lake City.