OUR REVOLUTIONARY FATHERS AND
THE DOCUMENTS THAT SHAPED THEM

Stephen Engle

DESCRIPTION: Live free or Die/Liberty or Death: these were the mottos of the American Revolution. Leaders of the revolutionary movement were a well-read group, owning large libraries and documents of earlier and contemporary periods. These documents greatly influenced their thinking about how a new nation should be constructed. Revolutionary leaders studied the religious documents of the Reformation, the Counter Reformation, and the political and social reform movements in Europe. They collected these documents for their own libraries, and drew upon them to shape what was to become the American Republic. Thanks to the Weiner Family of Boca Raton, FAU’s Wimberly Library houses thousands of these rare documents. This onetime lecture will draw upon many of these important pamphlets, manuscripts, and books to narrate the story of the American Revolution. The Weiner Family and the FAU History Department will host a reception in the Library following the lecture. An invitation is extended to all LLS attendees to view the collection, and to learn what the Library and the History Department are doing to make the documents visible and more accessible to a wider audience.

BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION: The History Department at Florida Atlantic University (FAU) consists of a distinguished group of scholars who specialize in the areas pertinent to the Weiner American History Collection.

Dr. Stephen Engle teaches 19th-Century America, including the Age of Jefferson and Jackson, and has completed a new book on Federalism during the American Civil War. He holds a Ph.D. in American History and has been at FAU since 1990, serving for five years as History Department chair. He is Executive Secretary and Book Review Editor for the Society of Civil War Historians.