Founding Memories: America at 250 with Dr. Libby Bischof

CELEBRATING AMERICA AT 250

Please join us in welcoming Dr. Libby Bischof, Executive Director of the Osher Map Library and Smith Center for Cartographic Education and Professor of History at USM for a special presentation about the country's founding and Maine's place in the battle for independence!

On October 18, 1775, a small Royal Navy flotilla commanded by Lt. Henry Mowat bombarded the small port settlement in Falmouth, bringing the Revolution to Maine. A profound moment in local history, it is just one of innumerable moments with local, regional, and national significance from the Revolutionary War (1775–1783). Over the course of the past 250 years, the ways in which the Revolutionary War has been portrayed has continuously shifted and changed, ranging from celebratory and patriotic to challenging the nation to fully live up to its Revolutionary ideals of equality, freedom, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In “Founding Memories: America at 250,” we will look at maps, textbooks, posters, and objects, from the 1770s to the 1970s, to reflect on the different and changing meanings that the Revolution and its imagery and iconography has had for Americans. Together we will reflect on history and memory, and explore how municipalities, political figures, educational institutions, museums, libraries, corporations, artists, scholars, activists, and civic-minded individuals have used large commemorative events like centennials and bicentennials for their own purposes: to increase morale and patriotic sentiment, to raise money, to revise education curricula, to showcase “progress,” to bring communities together in celebration, and to challenge the status quo.

This program is free and open to the public. Space is limited and registration is requested. Those who register will receive an email reminder. Arrive early to secure your seat. 

About Libby Bischof, Ph.D
Libby Bischof explores American society through the lens of history — and the lens of a camera. A nineteenth-century American cultural historian, Professor Bischof specializes in the history of photography, particularly in Maine.  She is the co-author of the 2015 book Maine Photography: A History, 1840-2015.  Her other research interests include Maine history, modernism, how friendship informs cultural production and nineteenth-century New England women writers.  She is the Executive Director of the Osher Map Library and Smith Center for Cartographic Education at USM.

Prof. Bischof teaches a variety of introductory and upper-level courses in the History major, including History of Maine, Photographing American History, American Popular Culture, and a variety of Senior Seminars.  

Prof. Bischof has received fellowship support for her research and publications from the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum and Research Center for American Modernism, the Beinecke Library at Yale University, the Center for Creative Photography, the Peter E. Palmquist Foundation for Historical Photographic Research and the Maine Women Writers Collection.