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, PhD, a professor of history at Suffolk University, also teaches in the Harvard Extension School. He has written a series of short books about the American Revolution, on the histories of Boston and of Cape Cod, as well as longer works on the Barbary Wars and Naval hero Stephen Decatur. He edited an edition of The Interesting Narrative of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African. Allison created two classes for The Teaching Company’s series “The Great Courses,” on colonial America (“Before 1776: Life in the American Colonies” and “The Age of Benjamin Franklin”) drawn from his teaching which has covered all phases of American history, though his primary focus is the American Revolution and the early American republic. He is president of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts (colonialsociety.org), a scholarly organization which publishes primary documents on early American history, a life-trustee of the USS Constitution Museum, and as chair of Revolution 250, Allison hosts its weekly podcast, (buzzsprout.com/1336051) a series of conversations on the Revolution with historians, museum curators, and re-enactors.
Julia Mize is a ranger at Boston National Historical Park.