In her new book, 1774: The Long Year of Revolution, Cornell historian Mary Beth Norton chronicles the revolutionary change that occurred from December 1773 to April 1775 – from the Boston Tea Party and the first Continental Congress to the Battles of Lexington and Concord.  During those sixteen months, the term “Loyalist” was first coined signaling the presence of the opposite phenomenon: individuals who were openly disloyal to the King. For revolution to occur the identification of the majority of colonists as loyal Britons had to change.  How and why they did so is the focus of her groundbreaking and original new research which she will discuss with Concord Museum’s Edward W. Kane Executive Director, Tom Putnam.

At the conclusion of the hour-long forum, the Concord Museum will unveil a new interactive Shot Heard Round the World microsite that uses the Museum’s artifacts and multimedia animations to bring the story of the iconic events of April 19, 1775 to life.

Mary Beth Norton is the author of five books, among them Founding Mothers & Fathers: Gendered Power and the Forming of American Society (1996), Separated by Their Sex: Women in Public and Private in the Colonial Atlantic World, and In the Devil’s Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692, and is coauthor of A People and a Nation, a survey of U.S. history.  Norton is the Mary Donlon Alger Professor Emerita of American History at Cornell University.  She lives in Ithaca, New York, and on Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts.

Professor Norton’s new book 1774: The Long Year of Revolution can be ordered through the Concord Bookshop.

Please note that this forum is virtual.

This program is supported in part by the Sally Lanagan Fund.

Photo by Daniel Waters.

Please register for the program on the National Archives & Records Administration’s website.

Thank you to our partners, Revolution 250 and National Archives & Records Administration.