Revolution Remembered, Stories Forgotten

The American Revolution is one of the most examined and revisited moments in American history. MS NOW journalist Antonia Hylton is joined by Sarah Botstein, director and co-producer of the PBS docuseries The American Revolution; Christopher Brown, professor at Columbia University; and Jonathan Gandelsman, violinist and composer, for a discussion on how the narrative of the American Revolution has been shaped, simplified, and memorialized. By considering what the docuseries reveals and what historical narratives often omit, the program connects questions of memory and meaning by exploring whose stories are preserved, whose are forgotten, and who ultimately controls the way the past is remembered. 

This program is part of the Revolutionary New York: Then and Now Series. For more programs in this series click here. 

Event Timeline: 
5:45 p.m. - The Occupied City: New York and the American Revolution open to viewing 
6:30 p.m. - Panel Discussion, Screening, and Q&A (Ronay Menschel Hall, Ground Floor) 
8:00 p.m. - Event Ends, Museum Closes 

About the Speakers: 
Antonia Hylton is a Peabody, Murrow, and two-time Emmy award-winning Anchor and Correspondent for MS NOW, and the New York Times bestselling author of MADNESS. She is also the cohost of the hit podcasts Southlake and Grapevine. From 2016 to 2020, Antonia was a Correspondent and Producer for Vice Media and HBO’s nightly news and documentary show, Vice News Tonight. Since 2019, she has also served as an annual judge for the American Mosaic Journalism Prize. Antonia graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University in 2015, where she received prizes for her writing and investigative research on race, mass incarceration, and the history of psychiatry. She lives in Brooklyn, NY.
 

Sarah Botstein has produced some of the most popular and acclaimed documentaries on PBS. Her work with Ken Burns and Lynn Novick includes Jazz (2001), The War (2007), Prohibition (2011), The Vietnam War (2017), College Behind Bars (2019), and Hemingway (2020). The U.S. and the Holocaust marked Botstein’s debut as a co-director. The series, which premiered in September 2022 to widespread critical acclaim, tells the story of how the American people grappled with one of the greatest humanitarian tragedies in history. In addition to the television broadcasts, Botstein is an original contributor to Ken Burns UNUM, a web-based platform that highlights historical themes across the Florentine Films body of work. Botstein works closely with PBS LearningMedia and WETA-TV to develop educational content for programming as part of the Ken Burns Classroom. Currently, Botstein is working on an epic six-part series on the American Revolution and a three-part series about the life and presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson.
 

Christopher Brown is a historian of Britain and the British empire, principally in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, with special emphasis on the comparative history of slavery and abolition, and with secondary interests in the Atlantic Slave Trade and the Age of Revolutions.  His current research centers on the history of European experience on the African coast at the height of the Atlantic slave trade, and continues early commitments to the rise and fall of slavery in the British Empire.  Published work has received prizes in four distinct fields of study – American History, British History, Atlantic History, and the history of Slavery, Abolition, and Resistance.  Completed projects include Moral Capital: Foundations of British Abolitionism (University of North Carolina Press) and, with Philip D. Morgan, Arming Slaves: Classical Times to the Modern Age (Yale University Press).  He has written as well for The Nation, The New York Times, and the London Review of Books, among other outlets.  

Johnny Gandelsman is a violinist and producer reimagining classical works and nurturing the creation of new music across genre and stylistic boundaries. In solo performances, collaborations and ensembles, and commissioning of new work, Gandelsman builds connections among diverse musical cultures and global artistic threads. He uniquely synthesizes past and present, making the experience of listening to music wholly new and fresh for audiences.
 

This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.