Nobody Knew How It Would End: Historians on America's 250th 

"I have no reason to believe we were better than you are," John Adams once wrote to an admirer of the founding generation. He meant it. The men who signed the Declaration of Independence had doubts and regrets, and also no idea how any of it would turn out. 

That human, uncertain—as historians might say, contingent—side of our nation’s founding was at the center of this year’s Levinson History Symposium at St. Andrew’s School in Middletown, Delaware, on Friday, September 18, 2026. 

Most years, the Levinson Lecture series brings one scholar to campus. This year, in honor of America’s 250th anniversary, it brought three: Dr. Joanne Freeman of Yale University, Dr. Zara Anishanslin of the University of Delaware, and Dr. Michael Hattem of the Yale New Haven Teachers Institute.

The plan for this expanded event—referred to as the Symposium this year—took shape last spring. History Department Chair Matt Edmonds and Dean of Teaching and Learning Emily Pressman started talking about America’s semiquincentennial—”which I just think is a word that should be in print as much as possible,” Edmonds says. They wanted to bring the 250th to life for students, and to show that the Declaration and the Constitution aren’t finished documents. Pressman says the anniversary was "a perfect opportunity" to help students connect past and present. 

With three scholars on one stage, students could watch historians discuss, disagree, push back, and build on each other's ideas. "History is actually an ongoing conversation," Pressman says, "and not a single narrative that is universally agreed upon."

Joanne Freeman on Why the Founding Was Never Certain

Freeman opened the Symposium with an afternoon lecture. Pressman introduced her as one of her own most influential teachers before running through Freeman's credentials. Freeman is the Alan J. Boles, Jr. Professor of History and American Studies at Yale University. Her first book, Affairs of Honor: National Politics in the New Republic, won the Society of Historians of the Early American Republic's Best Book Award. Her most recent, The Field of Blood: Violence in Congress and the Road to Civil War, was a finalist for the Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize and a New York Times Notable Book. She has also advised the National Park Service on the restoration of Alexander Hamilton's home, and Lin-Manuel Miranda drew on her research while writing Hamilton: An American Musical.

Freeman then took the stage and brought students back to the first days of the new government, at a time when no one knew whether it would last. She shared that James Madison put it plainly in 1789: "We are in a wilderness without a single footstep to guide us." Freeman built her talk around that uncertainty, and around one idea: contingency.

Americans tend to look back on the Revolution as a certainty. Of course independence was declared. Of course the new government held. Of course the Constitution was ratified. That version of the story, Freeman told students, is comforting but wrong.

She made her case through the founders' own letters. John Adams spent decades fielding mail from strangers who wanted him to describe the Revolution's "glorious" moments, and he pushed back again and again. Watching his fellow delegates sign the Declaration of Independence, he later wrote that some had signed "with regret," and others "with many doubts." 

Freeman also told the story of Pennsylvania Senator William Maclay. Maclay wrote in his diary about being invited by President George Washington to sit beside him at a dinner party, then freezing in the middle of the room. He was worried that accepting might look like bowing to a king. It's a small, human moment, Freeman said, but it shows how unsettled everything felt at the time.

In addition to speaking in front of the entire school in Engelhard, Freeman visited classes and connected with students during the day. Lillian Hosty ’28 was among those present. For her, the opportunity to speak with Freeman brought a different kind of relationship to history. “It was fantastic; I’ve never been more engaged,” she says. "We were talking so casually about these people—the slang they used, the funny things about them. It felt more like catching up on old friends than studying history." That's Freeman's gift. She makes people who lived 250 years ago feel like people you know.

Three Historians Debate 1776 and the Declaration

That evening, Freeman returned to the stage to lead a conversation with Anishanslin and Hattem, the latter of whom earned his Ph.D. under Freeman. Anishanslin directs the University of Delaware's museum studies and public engagement program. Her book, The Painter's Fire: A Forgotten History of the Artists Who Championed the American Revolution (2025), is on the longlist for the 2026 Cundill History Prize, one of the world’s top awards for history writing. Anishanslin is in good company. Past Levinson Lecturer Benjamin Nathans was also longlisted for the Cundill and went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for the book he was writing during his visit. Hattem's book The Memory of '76: The Revolution in American History was a 2025 George Washington Prize finalist. His next book on the Declaration of Independence comes out from Oxford University Press in November.

Anishanslin's research follows American patriots who worked for the cause from England. One was Patience Wright, a wax sculptor who ran a spy operation for Benjamin Franklin and the Continental Congress out of her London wax museum. Another was Prince Demah, a portrait painter who had been enslaved and later enlisted with the patriots.

The panelists kept building on one another’s points. Independence wasn't decided only in Philadelphia. Towns and counties across Massachusetts held their own meetings and wrote their own declarations, debating the question for themselves. The Declaration that came out of Philadelphia was made to be heard, too. Most colonists didn't read it. They heard it read aloud in public. Its first printing, a one-page poster known as the Dunlap broadside, spaced out the list of grievances so whoever read it aloud would know where to pause.

The panelists didn't always agree. They went back and forth over how much Thomas Paine's Common Sense actually changed minds in 1776.

They also compared this year's anniversary to the last big one. The 1976 bicentennial was known for what one panelist called “bicentennial schlock”—Liberty Bell pens and branded merchandise of every kind. Historian Jesse Lemisch even had students collect bicentennial items that cost under a dollar, and that collection is now held at Yale's Sterling Library. This year's commemorations, the panel said, lean toward museum and institutional programs, with less federal money behind them.

St. Andrew's Students Question the Historians

When the floor opened during both sessions—day and evening—a sea of hands waved in the air. Daniel Zhu ’27 asked why the United States marks its history with formal days of remembrance. Margaret Taylor ’27 asked a question every historian has to answer at some point: has your research ever changed your mind about someone?

Hosty asked a question she’s still thinking about: how did colonists live with the uncertainty of waiting for news to cross the Atlantic? “You couldn’t just send an email,” she says. “I wanted to know what that waiting felt like—knowing you were creating a new country, but not knowing what would happen next. That’s what I was curious about.” The panelists talked about what was happening in England, but Hosty is still curious what that wait was like for colonists. 

The questions had to be cut off, and students stayed after the lectures were over to chat with the three historians. Edmonds notes that he wasn’t surprised by the questions: “If we had an event and told the students they wouldn’t get to ask questions, there would be a revolt. They expect their voices to be heard.” After all, both Pressman and Edmonds noted the St. Andrew’s pedagogy is focused on developing student intellectual agency and empowering student voice.

Pressman added that these lectures matter especially for younger students. “A fourteen-year-old may never have had the chance to go to a talk like this," she says. The takeaway for students is that "this person actually wants to answer my question and takes me seriously"—an extension of their experience in classrooms on campus. That's why the department looks for scholars who are "teachers first and foremost." The visitors notice, too. Scholars often tell Pressman and Edmonds afterward, "I wish I could bring them back with me to my college."

Pressman says it's easy to take the Levinson for granted because it happens every year. "But it is really remarkable that we have the opportunity to bring scholars of this caliber to interact with high schoolers," she says.

David N. Levinson '53 and his family endowed the Levinson History Lecture so St. Andrew's students could engage with experts in history, politics, economics, or related social-science fields.