Year in Revolution Series - Our American Story

The Year in Revolution Series was produced with classroom use in mind. Beginning with 1775 and ending with 1783, students and lifelong learners alike will learn about each year of the Revolution through a comprehensive overview video and five “who, what, where, when, and how” videos. The animated series draws heavily from the American Revolution Institute of the Society of the Cincinnati’s library and museum collections.

Year in Revolution 1781: Spanish Louisiana and British West Florida

This video explores how Spain used its alliance with France and its territories in North America and the Caribbean to champion the American cause—threatening Britain's stronghold in North America by ...capturing the British fortification at Pensacola, securing the Gulf Coast, and supporting the campaign that ended at Yorktown, the last major battle of the Revolutionary War.

The Year in Revolution Series was produced with classroom use in mind. Beginning with 1775 and ending with 1783, students and lifelong learners alike will learn about each year of the Revolution through a comprehensive overview video and five “who, what, where, when, and how” videos. The animated series draws heavily from the American Revolution Institute of the Society of the Cincinnati’s library and museum collections.

Funding for this video was made possible by a grant from the George S. Rich Family Foundation. The creative team for this series was assembled by the American Revolution Institute and the talented educational production leads at Makematic Limited/ClickView.

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Year in Revolution 1781: Spanish Louisiana and British West Florida

This video explores how Spain used its alliance with France and its ...

Year in Revolution 1783: Sovereignty

This video is about the United States’ presentation as a sovereign ...

This video is about the United States’ presentation as a sovereign nation on the world’s stage in 1783. The Treaty of Paris states that: “Great Britain acknowledges the Sovereignty and ...Independence of the of the Thirteen United States of America.” Seven years before it was signed, in Common Sense, Thomas Paine called on Americans to recognize that the future of the world depended on America’s success as a sovereign and independent nation–“‘Tis not the affair of a City, a County, a Province or a Kingdom; but of a Continent–of at least one eight part of the habitable Globe. ‘Tis not the concern of a day, a year, or an age; posterity are virtually involved in the contest, and will be more or less affected even to the end of time, by the proceedings now.” The achievement of American sovereignty ultimately fulfilled the promise put forward by the Declaration of Independence. An independent America could trade with the whole world, avoid the endless wars of Europe, and provide a better life for its people. The most important parts of the Declaration included the idea that Americans constituted “one people,” that this new nation would assume a “separate and equal station” among “the Powers of the Earth,” and that the nation would be dedicated to the ideals of universal equality and natural rights. The fulfillment of those aims remains our national purpose today.

The Year in Revolution Series was produced with classroom use in mind. Beginning with 1775 and ending with 1783, students and lifelong learners alike will learn about each year of the Revolution through a comprehensive overview video and five “who, what, where, when, and how” videos. The animated series draws heavily from the American Revolution Institute of the Society of the Cincinnati’s library and museum collections.

Funding for this video was made possible by a grant from the George S. Rich Family Foundation. The creative team for this series was assembled by the American Revolution Institute and the talented educational production leads at Makematic Limited/ClickView.

SUBSCRIBE to our channel: https://bit.ly/3DxZnrJ

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Year in Revolution 1783: Treaty of Paris

This video chronicles the peace talks between America and Britain that ...

This video chronicles the peace talks between America and Britain that began in Paris in 1782. The British prime minister directed his home secretary, Wiliam Fitzmaurice, Earl of Shelburne, to ...oversee negotiations on behalf of Britain, who in turn instructed Richard Oswald to conduct day-to-day negotiations. By November 30, more than a year after Yorktown, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, John Jay, and Henry Laurens signed a preliminary order of peace. In it, Britain formally acknowledged American independence, and the boundaries of the new nation were defined. The British agreed to withdraw their forces "with all convenient speed," and agreed that Americans could fish in the waters off Canada as they had always done. America agreed not to interfere with loyalists who chose to leave and pledged not to interfere with the collection of pre-war debts still owed to British merchants. France and Spain agreed to separate peace terms with Britain a few weeks later. Congress approved the terms and sent word back to the commissioners to sign the final Treaty of Paris on September 3, 1783.

The Year in Revolution Series was produced with classroom use in mind. Beginning with 1775 and ending with 1783, students and lifelong learners alike will learn about each year of the Revolution through a comprehensive overview video and five “who, what, where, when, and how” videos. The animated series draws heavily from the American Revolution Institute of the Society of the Cincinnati’s library and museum collections.

Funding for this video was made possible by a grant from the George S. Rich Family Foundation. The creative team for this series was assembled by the American Revolution Institute and the talented educational production leads at Makematic Limited/ClickView.

SUBSCRIBE to our channel: https://bit.ly/3DxZnrJ

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Year in Revolution 1783: Veterans

This video examines America’s first veterans. Over a quarter of a ...

This video examines America’s first veterans. Over a quarter of a million Americans served in the armed forces that won our independence—80,000-90,000 in the Continental Army, an all-volunteer army of ...ordinary citizens. Congress and the states offered a wide range of inducements to secure volunteers, including cash bounties at enlistment and promises of land warrants and one-time bonuses at discharge, but Congress had no land to give, no hard money to spend, and no power to tax under the Articles of Confederation. Those who survived the war became America's first veterans, but most returned from their service with nothing more than a sense of duty performed. Most soldiers received debt certificates instead of pay when they were discharged. George Washington wrote: "Veterans who have patiently endured hunger, nakedness and cold, who have suffered and bled without a murmur, and who with perfect good order have retired to their homes, without the settlement of their Accounts or a farthing of Money in their pockets." Ordinary soldiers were rarely honored in the first decades after the war—until 1818 when Congress decided to award pensions to those in financial need. By the fiftieth anniversary of independence on July 4, 1826, when most Rev War vets were in their sixties and early seventies, they were finally widely celebrated in cities and towns across the country as living links to the nation's founding. In 1832, Congress voted to extend pension benefits to nearly all surviving soldiers and sailors without regard to rank, financial distress, or physical disability.

The Year in Revolution Series was produced with classroom use in mind. Beginning with 1775 and ending with 1783, students and lifelong learners alike will learn about each year of the Revolution through a comprehensive overview video and five “who, what, where, when, and how” videos. The animated series draws heavily from the American Revolution Institute of the Society of the Cincinnati’s library and museum collections.

Funding for this video was made possible by a grant from the George S. Rich Family Foundation. The creative team for this series was assembled by the American Revolution Institute and the talented educational production leads at Makematic Limited/ClickView.

SUBSCRIBE to our channel: https://bit.ly/3DxZnrJ

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Year in Revolution 1783: Civic Virtue

This video explores how and why 18th century Americans studied the ...

This video explores how and why 18th century Americans studied the democracies of classical Greece and Rome and celebrated the ancient Roman hero Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus as an embodiment of ...civic virtue. Cincinnatus was a general who defended the Roman Republic from invaders and then returned to his family and farm without accepting rewards for his service—giving back the dictatorial power afforded to him by Rome's elected officials. The Revolutionaries believed that the most essential virtue in a republic was the willingness of citizens to take up arms in its defense, either as volunteers or in a response that fell broadly without regard to social status, thus sacrificing selfish interests to support the public good. Successful republics, they learned, also call on their citizens to subordinate themselves to the rule of law and participate in public life—accepting the outcome of elections and obeying laws made by their elected representatives that might be contrary to their personal wishes. When citizens fail to do so, republics are torn by internal disputes and collapse in disorder. This enthusiasm led Americans to represent their ideas with classical symbols like Libertus and the fasces, etc. They celebrated George Washington, who unselfishly refused to accept pay for serving as commander in chief of the Continental Army, as a modern "American Cincinnatus." After the war's end, many Europeans expected Washington would assume control of the government as victorious generals had done since ancient time—claiming the authoritarian role of a king. King George III is said to have remarked that if Washington instead retired to a private situation following the war, "he would be the greatest man in the world." On December 23, 1783, Washington appeared before Congress in Annapolis to do that very thing, remarking "I retire from the great theatre of action; and bidding an affectionate farewell...here offer my commission, and take my leave of all the employments of public life."

The Year in Revolution Series was produced with classroom use in mind. Beginning with 1775 and ending with 1783, students and lifelong learners alike will learn about each year of the Revolution through a comprehensive overview video and five “who, what, where, when, and how” videos. The animated series draws heavily from the American Revolution Institute of the Society of the Cincinnati’s library and museum collections.

Funding for this video was made possible by a grant from the George S. Rich Family Foundation. The creative team for this series was assembled by the American Revolution Institute and the talented educational production leads at Makematic Limited/ClickView.

SUBSCRIBE to our channel: https://bit.ly/3DxZnrJ

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Year in Revolution 1783: Newburgh, New York

This video takes place in Newburgh, New York. With no formal articles ...

This video takes place in Newburgh, New York. With no formal articles of peace in place by March 1783, Continental officers could not yet formally disband. They were encamped at ...Newburgh, on the Hudson River, to keep watch over the British army in New York City. Like their soldiers, the officers had gone without pay. In 1780, Congress had promised them half of their yearly pay every year for the rest of their lives if they would serve until the end of the war. By early 1783, Congress changed their mind and instead promised five years for full pay instead--much less than half-pay for life--but Congress still had no money, lacking the authority to tax under the Articles of Confederation. Some of Washington's officers discussed using the army to take control of the government, hoping Washington would lead them, but Washington heard enough about their plans to be alarmed, calling a meeting on March 15 and appealing to the men he had led for so long not "to overturn the liberties of our Country" and "deluge our rising Empire in Blood." He asked them to instead put their faith in the justice of Congress. While he was speaking, Washington pulled a pair of new reading glasses from his pocket. "Gentlemen," he said "you will permit me to put on my spectacles, for I have not only grown gray, but almost blind, in the service of my country." The men were surprised to see the general in glasses and deeply moved when realizing Washington had sacrificed as much as any of them. The meeting ended with the officers pledging their loyalty to Congress. Later that spring, as they prepared to go home, on May 13, they formed the Society of the Cincinnati, named after Cincinnatus--a hero of the ancient Roman Republic who served his country in wartime with honor and then returned to his farm. In its formal Institution, the Society pledged “To perpetuate therefore, as well the remembrance of this vast event," the Revolution, and "the mutual friendships which have been formed under the pressure of common danger, and in many instances cemented by the blood of the parties.”

The Year in Revolution Series was produced with classroom use in mind. Beginning with 1775 and ending with 1783, students and lifelong learners alike will learn about each year of the Revolution through a comprehensive overview video and five “who, what, where, when, and how” videos. The animated series draws heavily from the American Revolution Institute of the Society of the Cincinnati’s library and museum collections.

Funding for this video was made possible by a grant from the George S. Rich Family Foundation. The creative team for this series was assembled by the American Revolution Institute and the talented educational production leads at Makematic Limited/ClickView.

SUBSCRIBE to our channel: https://bit.ly/3DxZnrJ

Follow us on social media:
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