Chestertown, MD — On December 14 an unprecedented national event will take place. Across the country, bells will toll and flags will fly at half-staff in observance of the 200th anniversary of George Washington’s death. The first president’s educational namesake, Washington College, and the community that surrounds the small liberal arts and sciences college will hold a spirited commemoration of Washington’s death on the College’s Chestertown, Md., campus. Beginning at noon, the observance includes a 21-gun salute and musical tributes composed in honor of Washington, a wreath-laying with color guard accompaniment from the Maryland Air National Guard, and a solemn tolling of bells on campus at 1 p.m.
The ceremony at Washington College brings to an end an 18-month celebration of Washington’s life that brought to campus former U.S. president George Bush, the late John F. Kennedy Jr., presidential scholars Doris Kearns Goodwin and Richard Norton Smith, and Smithsonian curator Richard G. Doty.
College President John S. Toll says, "In his commitment to the ideals of scholarship, character, service, and leadership, George Washington has served as a historic role model for Washington College students."
Although most Americans believe they know everything there is to know about Washington, few realize that Washington College was founded in 1782 with his gift of 50 guineas and his permission in writing to use his name, the only school to earn that distinction. Washington served on the College’s Board of Visitors and Governors for five years and received an honorary degree from the College in 1789. Founded as the first college in the new nation, Washington College ranks among the country’s top 150 selective liberal arts colleges.
"With his gift of 50 guineas Washington invested in the future of a young democracy, knowing the new nation would require an educated citizenry in order to succeed," said President Toll.
The Washington Scholars program, a merit scholarship program that grants recipients $40,000 over four years at the College, was founded to carry on that vision. The program is open to members of the National Honor Society and the Cum Laude Society; 52 percent of the College’s 1,150 students were NHS members in high school.
Seventy-three percent of a recent graduating class intended to earn advanced degrees, while 35 percent were enrolled in Ph.D. or master’s degree programs to begin in the fall after their graduation.
Showing posts with label bicentennial. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bicentennial. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 7, 1999
Saturday, August 21, 1999
Historians Visit to Discuss George Washington’s Mount Vernon
Chestertown, MD — You can learn a lot about a man and his culture by examining his home. Particularly if that man is George Washington, and his home is Mount Vernon.
On Saturday, September 18th, two historians will visit Washington College to talk about the significance of "George Washington’s Mount Vernon" in shaping a new nation. Robert and Lee Dallzell, whose book on the subject was recently published, are giving a talk in the Casey Academic Center forum, beginning at 1:30 p.m.
Robert and Lee Dalzell are the co-authors of George Washington’s Mount Vernon: At Home in Revolutionary America, which is considered a major contribution to the literature of architectural history, Washington, and early American studies. By portraying Washington at home as he designs and shapes Mount Vernon to meet his needs, the Dalzells provide unexpected insights into his private and public personas.
Robert Dalzell is the Ephraim Williams Professor of American History at Williams College. His wife, Lee, is head of the reference department at the Williams College Library.
This event is part of the College’s year-long celebration of the life and times of George Washington, in observance of the bicentennial of his death.
On Saturday, September 18th, two historians will visit Washington College to talk about the significance of "George Washington’s Mount Vernon" in shaping a new nation. Robert and Lee Dallzell, whose book on the subject was recently published, are giving a talk in the Casey Academic Center forum, beginning at 1:30 p.m.
Robert and Lee Dalzell are the co-authors of George Washington’s Mount Vernon: At Home in Revolutionary America, which is considered a major contribution to the literature of architectural history, Washington, and early American studies. By portraying Washington at home as he designs and shapes Mount Vernon to meet his needs, the Dalzells provide unexpected insights into his private and public personas.
Robert Dalzell is the Ephraim Williams Professor of American History at Williams College. His wife, Lee, is head of the reference department at the Williams College Library.
This event is part of the College’s year-long celebration of the life and times of George Washington, in observance of the bicentennial of his death.
Librarian of Congress is Convocation Speaker at WC This Fall
Chestertown, MD — After a week of classes that begins on August 30, Washington College officially launches its new academic year on Thursday, September 9th with an evening Fall Convocation featuring the Librarian of Congress, Dr. James H. Billington.
Convocation begins at 7:30 p.m. in Tawes Theatre of the Gibson Performing Arts Center, and the public is cordially invited.
The Library of Congress, which celebrates its bicentennial in the year 2000, holds more than 115 million items in nearly every known language and format, from ancient Chinese woodblock prints to microchips. It holds the manuscript collections of 23 American presidents and the world’s largest collections of books, maps, music, and movies.
Dr. Billington is leading a major effort to direct the collected knowledge of the Library into the nation’s educational system. Millions of items for the Library’s core collections are now available for viewing on the World Wide Web. By early in the next century, the American Memory project will be disseminating the Library’s core collections in digitized form to every school and library in the country.
Dr. Billington is receiving the honorary Doctor of Humane Letters for his work at the Library and as an historian of Russian culture. He is the author of The Icon and the Axe, an interpretive history of Russian culture; Russia Transformed: Breakthrough to Hope, his eyewitness account of the failed coup attempt in 1991; and The Face of Russia, the companion book to the television series he wrote and narrated for airing on PBS. In 1992, he arranged and brought to the Library of Congress the first exhibition ever drawn from secret Soviet archives.
Convocation begins at 7:30 p.m. in Tawes Theatre of the Gibson Performing Arts Center, and the public is cordially invited.
The Library of Congress, which celebrates its bicentennial in the year 2000, holds more than 115 million items in nearly every known language and format, from ancient Chinese woodblock prints to microchips. It holds the manuscript collections of 23 American presidents and the world’s largest collections of books, maps, music, and movies.
Dr. Billington is leading a major effort to direct the collected knowledge of the Library into the nation’s educational system. Millions of items for the Library’s core collections are now available for viewing on the World Wide Web. By early in the next century, the American Memory project will be disseminating the Library’s core collections in digitized form to every school and library in the country.
Dr. Billington is receiving the honorary Doctor of Humane Letters for his work at the Library and as an historian of Russian culture. He is the author of The Icon and the Axe, an interpretive history of Russian culture; Russia Transformed: Breakthrough to Hope, his eyewitness account of the failed coup attempt in 1991; and The Face of Russia, the companion book to the television series he wrote and narrated for airing on PBS. In 1992, he arranged and brought to the Library of Congress the first exhibition ever drawn from secret Soviet archives.
Thursday, August 12, 1999
George Washington and the Currency of Fame
Washington College Hosts Smithsonian’s Numismatic Exhibit
Chestertown, MD — Money does make things happen. From his Revolutionary War headquarters in New York, General George Washington granted his name and the sum of fifty gold guineas to establish a liberal arts institution in Chestertown, Maryland. Today, Washington College is still educating responsible leaders for a changing world. In the 1790 census, this colonial port was the center of population in the new United States of America.
Later, as President Washington shaped the new democracy and advocated the establishment of the U. S. Mint, he is said to have donated his own table silver to be melted down and stamped into coinage. This governmental institution helped break the new nation’s dependency for currency on foreign countries and sparked new creativity and technology in the art of designing, stamping and engraving currency.
While he characteristically rejected the trappings of royalty and disliked the monarchical practice of having rulers appear on the nation’s money, Washington’s image has been represented on a remarkable array of American coins, medals, and paper money.
This fall, Washington College is organizing an exhibition of material on loan from the National Numismatic Collection of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, which surveys images of George Washington on currency from the time of the United States’ founding to the post-Civil War period. Also featured in the exhibition are an English guinea, fifty of which Washington gave to help found the College in 1782, and the recent issue of the U.S. Mint of a coin commemorating the 200th anniversary of Washington’s death.
The exhibition is on display in the gallery of the Chestertown Bank on High Street in Chestertown from September 2nd through October 29th, during banking hours. Extended hours are offered for visitors to the Chestertown Candlelight Tour on September 18th and the Chestertown Wildfowl Show on October 22nd and 23rd.
The practice of using the image of Washington reflects the enormous admiration 19th-century Americans had for their first president and his broad appeal as an icon for various ideologies, notes Donald A. McColl, the assistant professor of art history at Washington College who is curating the exhibition with the assistance of students from the departments of art and history.
From Indian Peace medals to Civil War "dog tags," Washington has been seen as, among other things, Pater Patriae, new Cincinnatus, friend of commerce, and model of temperance. At the same time, his changing image bears witness to a progression in the quality of American currency from the period of dominance of British and other mints to the time when the United States boasted some of the finest designers, engravers, and die cutters in the world.
"Some of the objects in this exhibit are quite rare," notes McColl, "and the engraved bank notes in particular are quite beautiful. What is especially interesting, though, is that these specimens had a ‘currency’ in the culture, if you will. Each piece tells you about the time in which it was made."
This exhibition is sponsored by Washington College as part of a national observation of the bicentennial of George Washington's death in December 1799. For more information, please call Nancy Nunn at Washington College, at 410-778-7139.
Chestertown, MD — Money does make things happen. From his Revolutionary War headquarters in New York, General George Washington granted his name and the sum of fifty gold guineas to establish a liberal arts institution in Chestertown, Maryland. Today, Washington College is still educating responsible leaders for a changing world. In the 1790 census, this colonial port was the center of population in the new United States of America.
Later, as President Washington shaped the new democracy and advocated the establishment of the U. S. Mint, he is said to have donated his own table silver to be melted down and stamped into coinage. This governmental institution helped break the new nation’s dependency for currency on foreign countries and sparked new creativity and technology in the art of designing, stamping and engraving currency.
While he characteristically rejected the trappings of royalty and disliked the monarchical practice of having rulers appear on the nation’s money, Washington’s image has been represented on a remarkable array of American coins, medals, and paper money.
This fall, Washington College is organizing an exhibition of material on loan from the National Numismatic Collection of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, which surveys images of George Washington on currency from the time of the United States’ founding to the post-Civil War period. Also featured in the exhibition are an English guinea, fifty of which Washington gave to help found the College in 1782, and the recent issue of the U.S. Mint of a coin commemorating the 200th anniversary of Washington’s death.
The exhibition is on display in the gallery of the Chestertown Bank on High Street in Chestertown from September 2nd through October 29th, during banking hours. Extended hours are offered for visitors to the Chestertown Candlelight Tour on September 18th and the Chestertown Wildfowl Show on October 22nd and 23rd.
The practice of using the image of Washington reflects the enormous admiration 19th-century Americans had for their first president and his broad appeal as an icon for various ideologies, notes Donald A. McColl, the assistant professor of art history at Washington College who is curating the exhibition with the assistance of students from the departments of art and history.
From Indian Peace medals to Civil War "dog tags," Washington has been seen as, among other things, Pater Patriae, new Cincinnatus, friend of commerce, and model of temperance. At the same time, his changing image bears witness to a progression in the quality of American currency from the period of dominance of British and other mints to the time when the United States boasted some of the finest designers, engravers, and die cutters in the world.
"Some of the objects in this exhibit are quite rare," notes McColl, "and the engraved bank notes in particular are quite beautiful. What is especially interesting, though, is that these specimens had a ‘currency’ in the culture, if you will. Each piece tells you about the time in which it was made."
This exhibition is sponsored by Washington College as part of a national observation of the bicentennial of George Washington's death in December 1799. For more information, please call Nancy Nunn at Washington College, at 410-778-7139.
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