Join us on Tuesday, February 4 at 7 PM at the Woodbridge Main Library as Dr. Jonathan Mercantini, Department of History – Kean University, will present a program and discussion on America’s Founding Fathers. This program will focus on the following themes based on the primary documents in the Readings from the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History booklet:
• Propaganda and the coming of the revolution
• A Revolution for whom?
• Creating a New Nation — How Revolutionary was the Revolution
Jonathan Mercantini is Acting Dean, College of Liberal Arts and Associate Professor in Kean University’s Department of History where he has taught since 2007. Prior to his appointment at Kean he taught at the University of Miami and Canisius College. He has also taught at Princeton University. He earned his Ph. D. in American History from Emory University.
Among his major publications are: Who Shall Rule at Home: The Evolution of South Carolina’s Political Culture, 1748-1776 (Univ. South Carolina Press, 2007), The Stamp Act of 1765, Broadview Sources Series (Broadview Press, 2017), and essays on slavery in South Carolina and New Jersey.
He teaches a wide variety of courses: Colonial and Revolutionary America, The New Nation, Pirates in the Atlantic World, New Jersey History, and the Civil War and Reconstruction to name just a few. His current research projects include: Make History@Kean: William Livingston’s World – an exploration of the 18th Century Atlantic World funded by a Humanities Initiatives Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
In 2014 he worked with the New Jersey Historical Commission to plan activities for the 350th Anniversary of New Jersey. He received Emmy Nominations from the New York Region and the Mid-Atlantic Region for his work on It Happened Here – New Jersey a weekly series on New Jersey History topics featured on New Jersey Public TV and online. He has received external grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and other agencies to support his research on the history of New Jersey and of South Carolina in the 18th and 19th Centuries. A popular speaker on topics including military history, NJ History, the American Revolution, and the history of baseball, Dr. Mercantini engages audiences with the American past.
This program is free and open to all. Light refreshments will be served! No registration is needed.
This program is part of Revisiting the Founding Era, a three-year national initiative of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History presented in partnership with the American Library Association and the National Constitution Center, with generous support from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
