Revolutionary Tales for Veteran's Day: Examples of New Jersey's Surviving Soldiers

Eminent historian Maxine N. Lurie will deliver the 40th annual Louis Faugères Bishop III lecture on November 11 at Alexander Library.

The American Revolution in New Jersey lasted for eight long years and was accompanied by considerable violence and destruction. This was not a place anyone here today would have wanted to be. On this Veteran's Day, a noteworthy 250 years after the Declaration of Independence, we will take a look at the lives of some of those who survived no matter what side they had taken. Lurie’s lecture will highlight Revolutionary War veterans, their service, and discuss what happened to them afterwards. Examples will include Patriots and Loyalists (who stayed or left), African Americans, women, and those of different religions (Dutch Reformed, Anglicans, Presbyterians, and Quakers) to show both the diversity of New Jersey's population at the time and the impact of the war on its people.

The lecture will take place at 4 p.m. in the Teleconference Lecture Hall on the fourth floor of the Alexander Library in New Brunswick. Signed copies of Lurie’s most recently published book, Taking Sides in Revolutionary New Jersey: Caught in the Crossfire, will be available for purchase. Please register here for the lecture. Click here for parking registration and information.

This lecture is co-sponsored by the New Jersey Studies Academic Alliance.

About the Lecturer

Maxine N. Lurie is an emerita Professor of History at Seton Hall University. She holds a bachelor of arts degree from Alfred University, a master of arts degree from the University of Rochester, and a doctorate from the University of Wisconsin. Lurie has taught at Marquette University and at Rutgers University where for about ten years she also worked at the Libraries’ Special Collections and University Archives. An early-American historian, she has taught and written about New Jersey history for nearly forty years and continues to be active with research projects and in the state’s history community. She is the author of scholarly articles and has collaborated on books published by Rutgers University Press including The New Jersey Anthology (1994, 2010), The Encyclopedia of New Jersey (2004), Mapping New Jersey (2009), New Jersey: A History of the Garden State (2012), and Envisioning New Jersey: An Illustrated History (2016). Most recently published is her book Taking Sides in Revolutionary New Jersey: Caught in the Crossfire (2022).