History 211, “Remembering 1776” with Professor Matthew Pinsker meets at Dickinson College during fall semester 2026 on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 1030am in Denny 211. Course texts include Joseph Plumb Martin’s memoir of his revolutionary war service and Ted Widmer’s The Living Declaration (2026) as well as a variety of other primary source texts and several essays by leading historians such as Fergus Bordewich, Jelani Cobb, Marc Egnal, Joseph Ellis, Jane Kamensky, and Marc Stein. Participants in this course will write two short essays and will undertake a longer paper analyzing the evolution of American public memory concerning the Declaration of Independence.
Banner image: Declaration of Independence (1819) by John Trumbull (original at Yale University and enlarged canvas in US Capitol). For some fascinating details on this famous painting, read this article by David McCullough and see the key below.
UPDATE: According to art historian Irma Jaffe, the key below is wrong. She argues that there are several mistakes scattered across the identifications, but most notably that Figure #23 (the man with the hat) was supposed to represent John Dickinson, not Figure #44.
Jaffe explains in her 1971 article that Figure 23 was supposed to represent a Quaker figure (wearing a hat inside) and that Dickinson was the obvious choice for that depiction for several reasons. One of her factors was the similarity between Figure 23 and the contemporary images of Dickinson featured below. Decide for yourself!
