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Declaration of Independence focus of Friends annual lecture, April 18
Posted 4/4/2000
MADISON, Wis.--"Does the Declaration of Independence Have a History?" That's a question historians are asking more frequently, particularly Pauline Maier, a former UW-Madison professor now at MIT. She addresses the question in a Friends of the UW-Madison Libraries annual lecture at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 18.
Maier, the author of four books, including From Resistance to Revolution and The Old Revolutionaries, points out in American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence that more than 90 local "declarations" were generated by the American colonies between April and July of 1776. And, she adds, such declarations against the king represented an English tradition dating from the 14th century.
According to historian Stephen E. Ambrose, "American Scripture [shows] how a political document designed to justify and encourage rebellion . . . became a sacred text." Writer David McCullough calls Maier "one of our best historians, a national treasure."
Maier is the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of American History at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Before Maier moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, she spent one year as the Robinson-Edwards Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Her lecture will be held in the Howard Auditorium, at the newly opened Fluno Center for Executive Education on the UW-Madison campus, 601 University Ave. For more information, contact the Friends at (608) 265-2505 or e-mail: friends@library.wisc.edu.
