The immersive exhibit features some innovative tech that museum goers can use to interact with primary sources to get glimpses into the lives of people that were central to (but not always centered in) the Revolutionary War efforts. Horowitz’s talk emphasized how individuals’ various roles and actions led to things like the creation of the Connecticut Compromise, or enslaved people paving new paths to freedom for themselves, and how the ways in which we define important places, circumstances, and people are vital to examine as we explore the voices of these stories.

You can read more about the opening gala talk and the exhibit here in the New Haven Independent article covering this event.

“The Minutemen and Their World” celebrated 50 years as America celebrated its 250th this year.  The book is a Bancroft Prize winner and has remained integral to understanding what the American Revolution was like for the people of Concord, Massachusetts as they navigated day to day life leading up to and in the midst of a war against the British. Gross himself lives in Concord and this connection to the first battleground of the revolution and other iconic moments in early American history was one of the factors that led to his book taking shape the way it did. By focusing on people and stories it was an early and unshakable example of writing history for more general audiences and making history accessible to a wide audience without watering it down.

The 50th anniversary of the book’s release was also featured on July 21st in UConn Today. Read the UConn Today article here.

In this article for the Made by History series, Manisha Sinha argues that the new Florida history standards for schools serve up a biased and sanitized version of the past. She argues that on the 250^th anniversary of the founding of the American republic, we should be able to tell the full, inspiring, as well as complicated history of the United States.

Full article Here

The project features images and stories from the American Revolution on four by three foot signs in 38 locations at rest areas, service plazas, bus stations, and train stations around the state of Connecticut. These signs detail local history that became American history.

Read the full UConn Today article about this project here

Dr. Jeffrey Ogbar is a Professor of History with the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and Founding Director of the Center for the Study of Popular Music. He joined the UConn History Department in 1997.  Dr. Ogbar is a scholar of African American history and Black social movements, and his teaching and graduate advising have supported numerous students in developing their understanding and research of social movements, race, and music in American history and the present. He has authored four monographs, the latest of which, Land of Our Own: Malcolm X and the Evolution of Black Nationalism, is being released later this year.

Read more about the 2025-2026 Board of Trustees Distinguished Professors here.

Professor Sinha will give a talk on the exhibit and her work as a Reconstruction Historian on June 4th at a special preview of “The Second American Revolution”. The exhibit will be open from June 5 through January 17 and explores the Reconstruction era’s early efforts to give newly freed and free Black Americans full citizenship and rights, and the ways in which this mission was largely eroded leaving America with consequences that have followed the nation into the 21st century. 

You can read more about this exhibit on the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum website here:

New exhibit on Civil War’s aftermath coming to ALPLM

The article is entitled “The Civil Rights Era is Collapsing Before Our Eyes,” By Nikole Hannah-Jones, and appeared in both the print and online versions of The New York Times May 22, 2026.

You can read the full article here.