Robert Allison and Julia Mize
Evacuation Day and Dorchester Heights
The British evacuation of Boston on March 17, 1776 was the first American victory in the War for Independence. It is commemorated both by the annual Evacuation Day holiday, and by a monument on Dorchester Heights. This year, the National Park Service will begin a $25 million restoration of the 1902 Monument and the grounds surrounding it, and will bring it back in time for the 250th anniversary of the Revolution. Find out more about Evacuation Day and the Monument in this discussion with historian Robert Allison and Boston National Historical Park Ranger Julia Mize.
[Recorded August 13, 2022.]
Robert J. Allison, Ph.D. (robertallisonhistory.com), is a Professor of History at Suffolk University in Boston. He chairs Revolution 250 (revolution250.org), a consortium of organizations and individuals exploring the history of the American Revolution and the ways that this story still resonates in society two and a half centuries later. Allison is also the President of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts. His books include short histories of the American Revolution, Boston, the Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party, and the debates over the U.S. Constitution, as well as longer books on Stephen Decatur and Olaudah Equiano and The Crescent Obscured: The United States and the Muslim World 1776–1815 (University of Chicago Press). His lecture series on the Age of Franklin and on Colonial America are available through Great Courses.
Julia Mize is a ranger at Boston National Historical Park.