Virtual Programs

Eighteenth-century Philadelphia was a complex place where global trade brought new goods and new ideas to the people who became revolutionaries. Follow one artifact — a punchbowl uncovered in an archaeological dig on site of the Museum of the American Revolution — on a virtual tour of the city, and find yourself in market stalls, coffeehouses, illegal taverns, churches, and the halls of government.

The Revolutionary War offered new opportunities for women from all backgrounds. Thousands of women chose sides and contributed to the American Revolution. They made supplies for the armies, managed and defended their households, and challenged the old political order. What do their individual experiences, documented in travel diaries, memoirs, court records, and commonplace objects tell us about their experiences, the War, and its legacy?

A fun, interactive, cameras-on experience! Museum curators use objects, documents, and contextual knowledge to build an understanding of the past. Step into the shoes of our museum staff with your group as you encounter reproduction objects and work together to answer the same questions we ask: What is this object? Who might have used it? And what does it mean?

Join us for an exploration of life on the home front and on campaign with the armies of the Revolutionary War. In the eighteenth century, military families sent soldiers to fight, raised children, made military supplies, and even traveled with the armies in the field. Explore the stories of the civilians who supported the military on and off the battlefield and what their work tells us about the American Revolution.

The Museum of the American Revolution opened in 2017, but it has a history that reaches back over a century. Where did our collection come from? How did an Episcopal minister in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, acquire Washington’s war tent, and what did that acquisition have to do with the American Civil War? How did our Museum end up in downtown Philadelphia? What new discoveries have we made from recent acquisitions? This presentation highlights key artifacts and reveals how things work behind-the-scenes at the Museum.

Learn the little-known history of the nation’s first women voters and examine the political conflicts that led to their voting rights being stripped away in 1807. This experience includes a virtual peek at the Museum’s online exhibition.

American Revolutionaries struggled with a key question: would the words of the Declaration of Independence, that “all men are created equal,” apply to all people?” From the outbreak of the Revolution, people of African descent asked and answered this question through their words and actions. In this talk, hear the stories and explore the objects that we use at the Museum to help imagine what the Revolution was like for Phillis Wheatley, Elizabeth Freeman, James Forten, Harry Washington, and others.