Fighting Words, 2012

August 10–September 23

Exhibition: Fighting Words: American Revolutionary War Pamphlets

Curator: Alison Conner

Location: Special Collections Gallery, J. Willard Marriott Library, level 4

Gallery hours: Monday–Friday, 8:00–6:00; Saturday, 9:00–6:00; Hours differ during University breaks and holidays.

The exhibition is FREE and open to the public.

Before the first shots were fired at the battle of Lexington and Concord, American colonists and British Imperialists had already begun to fight in print. Words could not win physical battles but they could fight on the ideological front. American and British pamphleteers struggled to determine the meaning of the revolution and what winning meant. Ultimately they would define what it meant to be an American. Fighting Words chronicles the pamphlet war from both sides of the Atlantic, and includes pieces by Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, William Pitt, and many more.