The American Revolution at 250: Historians Discuss the Many Worlds of 1776

In conjunction with The Declaration of Independence Display we invite you to join us for a special event!

Famously, in December 1773, over a hundred colonists snuck onto ships in Boston Harbor after nightfall, destroying chests of tea worth nearly $2 million today.  Often portrayed as a local tax protest that helped spark a Revolution, this event raises all kinds of questions: How did others elsewhere in America and across the world see such an affair? Why were the protesters dressed as Native Americans? Where did all that tea come from in the first place? 

 The “Boston Tea Party” was just one example of the many ways in which the American Revolution was a global phenomenon, whose causes and consequences reached from India and China to Indigenous nations across the North American continent. Join us as Duke historians Adriane Lentz-Smith and Philip Stern launch a year of discussions on these many different “Worlds of 1776,” in conversation with UNC historian Kathleen DuVal, Pulitzer Prize winning author of Native Nations: A Millennium in North America.

Brought to you by Duke We the People: A Duke & Durham Initiative; the John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute; and the Duke University Department of History’s 2026-2027 program on the “Worlds of 1776.”

Sponsored by the Triangle Early American History Seminar

Speaker bios alphabetically by last name:

Kathleen DuVal

Kathleen DuVal is the Carl W. Ernst Distinguished Professor of History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, specializing in early America and cross-cultural interactions among Native American, European, and African populations. She is the author of several acclaimed books, including Native Nations: A Millennium in North America, winner of the 2025 Pulitzer Prize in History, and Independence Lost: Lives on the Edge of the American Revolution. A frequent contributor to national publications like The Atlantic and the New York Times, she also appeared in the Ken Burns documentary The American Revolution.

Adriane Lentz-Smith

Adriane Lentz-Smith is an Associate Professor of History and Senior Fellow at the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University. Her research focuses on African American history, twentieth-century U.S. history, and the history of the United States in a global context. She is the author of Freedom Struggles: African Americans and World War I and is currently working on Afterlives: Sagon Penn, State Violence, and the Twilight of Civil Rights, an exploration of state power, civil rights, and white supremacy following the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Philip Stern

Philip Stern is a Professor of History at Duke University, where he teaches and writes on the intellectual, political, economic, and legal history of the British Empire. He is the author or editor of four books, including The Company-State, awarded the American Historical Association's Morris D. Forkosch Prize, and Empire, Incorporated: The Corporations that Built British Colonialism, winner of the 2024 Stansky Prize. His research has been supported by major fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Read With Us

US Constitution/Declaration of Independence Childrens' Booklist 

US Constitution/Declaration of Independence Adult Booklist 

Full Durham Schedule

To maximize access across the region, the documents are hosted in two Durham spaces:

• Durham County Main Library: September 8 – September 20, 2026
• Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University: September 24, 2026 – January 3, 2027 - click here for more information

The Declaration of Independence is organized in collaboration with Duke Arts and the Nasher Museum of Art and is part of We the People: A Duke & Durham Initiative that marks the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence through a series of public events examining the nation’s evolving identity. Three historic copies of the Declaration of Independence are on loan from the David M. Rubenstein Americana Collection. Leadership support for We the People has been generously provided by David M. Rubenstein. 

Information on Entering Main Library

Parking is available in the library parking lot or at the North Queen Street Garage located at 115 North Queen Street which is behind the apartments directly across the street from the library.