Looking Ahead with the Omohundro Institute

The Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture launched the Across America, 1776 website to help plan and inform the country’s Sestercentennial commemorations.

The Omohundro Institute is based at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, but it takes a “vast” rather than narrow approach to the field, publishing the leading scholarly journal on early American history, the William & Mary Quarterly, and organizing international conferences.

New England will be well represented in the Across America, 1776 initiative because the Project Coordinator will be Prof. Joseph M. Adelman of Framingham State University. In this just-announced role, Joe Adelman will:

• serve as the institute’s representative on the 250th project committee of the American Association of State and Local Historians.
• write posts on the theme of the American Revolution and current commemorations of it for the institute’s Uncommon Sense blog.
• chair a regular online meeting of journalists and academics looking to write public-facing pieces on the history of the American Revolution.
• develop programming for a podcast series on the topic.
• be a liaison with regional historical associations.

Adelman is the author of Revolutionary Networks: The Business and Politics of Printing the News, 1763–1789, and for the past seven years has been the Omohundro Institute’s Assistant Editor for Digital Initiatives, meaning he has deep knowledge of media networks then and now.