Lecture: Longfellow, Paul Revere, and the Creation of an American Mythology

Lecturer: Steve Wills, education consultant and former director, Wachovia Teacher Resource Center, Philadelphia Museum of Art

In the 1800s, our young nation’s cultural history began with heroes and mythology created by writers such as James Fennimore Cooper, who gave us Hawkeye, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, who commemorated Paul Revere.  This presentation will highlight these early tales of ingenuity, confidence, independence, optimism and grit – viewed in the context of the creation of an American Spirit.