The Meaning of the Declaration of Independence 5/7/26
Leading historians discuss the origins, meaning, and legacy of America’s founding document. Christopher Brown, David Schmidt, Maya Jasanoff, and Jane Kamensky comprise a panel moderated by Jill Lepore.
The night begins at 5pm on May 7th with live music in the Farmhouse Square by local country band The Rear Defrosters, followed by the panel discussion at 6pm.
About the moderator:
Jill Lepore is the David Woods Kemper ’41 Professor of American History at Harvard University and Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. She is also a staff writer at The New Yorker. A prize-winning professor, she teaches classes in evidence, historical methods, humanistic inquiry, and American history.
About the panelists:
Christopher Brown is a professor at Columbia University and a historian of Britain and the British empire, principally in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, with special emphasis on the comparative history of slavery and abolition, and with secondary interests in the Atlantic Slave Trade and the Age of Revolutions.
David Schmidt is the producer and co-director, along with Ken Burns and Sarah Botstein, of The American Revolution, a six-part, 12-hour series premiering on PBS in the fall of 2025.
Schmidt began working with Florentine Films as a researcher and apprentice editor for The Roosevelts (2014), and has worked closely with Burns on a number of projects in the last 12 years.
Maya Jasanoff is a professor at Harvard University and the author of three prize-winning books. Her teaching and research extend from the history of the British Empire to global history.
Dr. Jane Kamensky is President and CEO of Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello. A leading historian of early America and the United States, she worked for three decades as a professor and higher education leader, most recently as Jonathan Trumbull Professor of American History at Harvard University.
This event will be held outdoors, rain or shine! We will have a covered tent for the audience which will cover much of the square. A limited number of seating will be provided by Retreat Farm. We recommend and encourage folks to bring blankets or their own camp chairs to make themselves comfortable on our Farmhouse Square lawn.
This event is a part of America at 250, a series of community conversations hosted by Jill Lepore and co-presented by Retreat Farm, Vermont Public, and Vermont Community Foundation. It is supported in part by Vermont Community Foundation and the generous donors to Retreat Farm.
