MaryKate Smolenski (GRS’27) stands inside the Boston Athenaeum, one of the oldest libraries in the nation. Smolenski, a PhD candidate in the College of Arts & Sciences’ American Studies program, interned at the Athenaeum through the BU Center for the Humanities.

Humanities

BU PhD Student Highlights Overlooked Revolutionary War Voices Through Internship at the Boston Athenaeum

MaryKate Smolenski (GRS’27) helped create lesson plans and teacher resources on Black Bostonians, women, Indigenous communities, and other groups

When thinking about the Revolutionary War, most people tend to picture the patriots: Paul Revere and Founding Fathers like Samuel Adams who fought for American independence. But for MaryKate Smolenski, it’s the loyalists—colonists who remained faithful to the British—who first come to mind. 

Smolenski (GRS‘27), a PhD candidate in the College of Arts & Sciences’ American Studies program, studies the memory of Revolutionary-era loyalism, with her dissertation examining nine loyalist families in New England.

So when Smolenski heard the Boston University Center for the Humanities was funding a summer internship at the Boston Athenaeum—one of the nation’s oldest libraries—that focused on Revolutionary-era research, she knew she had to apply. 

“It’s a perfect fit for the skills I wanted to grow, but also the perfect content for my dissertation,” Smolenski says. 

As an intern, Smolenski drew on the Athenaeum’s extensive collection of Revolutionary War materials to gather accounts of groups often overlooked in traditional accounts, such as Black Bostonians, women, and Indigenous communities. She then used those materials to help develop a three-day workshop for K-12 teachers looking to incorporate these underrepresented perspectives into their classrooms.

“They really want their students to hear the story, because they know that sometimes textbooks don’t always have these perspectives,” Smolenski says. 

Sources Smolenski gathered for the workshop included fugitive-slave ads and Indigenous literature. One of her favorite accounts was the story of Pompey Fleet, an enslaved Black man and loyalist who self-emancipated during the British evacuation of Boston in 1776. By combing through the Athenaeum’s documents, Smolenski was able to trace Fleet’s journey through New York City, Nova Scotia, and eventually Sierra Leone—a common trajectory for Black loyalists. 

“People like Pompey Fleet… might use that revolutionary rhetoric, or these opportunities that the revolution offered, to escape and gain their freedom,” Smolenski says. “There are more motivations than just political conscience. The revolution is a lot more complex than sometimes the basic story is.”

Stories such as Fleet’s are important, Smolenski says, because they reveal how different groups experienced the fight for independence. “By adding in these other voices, we see that complexity,” she says. “It gives a better understanding that dissent or questions about freedom and equality have always been there.”

For the workshop, Smolenski gathered manuscripts, maps, newspapers, and other primary sources. Teachers engaged with the sources and discussed how they could incorporate them into the classroom.

Smolenski helped translate those accounts into classroom-ready lesson plans. Fleet’s story, for example, could become a close-reading exercise in which students analyze the language of his runaway advertisement. “You ask questions like, ‘Who’s the audience for this ad? Why are they describing these certain things? What do we know about his life from this? What don’t we know?’” Smolenski says.

Smolenski adds that teachers read the documents “with a fresh set of eyes” and raised questions the workshop organizers hadn’t considered, such as how to help students read 18th-century cursive or locate additional sources.

The internship also broadened Smolenski’s own understanding of the Revolution. While her research focuses on loyalists, she said she didn’t know much about Indigenous involvement in the war effort prior to the workshop. One story that especially resonated with her was that of the Stockbridge-Munsee Mohican community, who fought alongside the Continental Army. Despite supporting the patriot cause, they returned home to find their land in Stockbridge, Mass., further taken by settlers.

Smolenski noted that Indigenous nations that allied with the British, such as the Mohawk, also faced displacement after the war. “It’s still this story of dispossession and agency on both sides,” Smolenski says.

Looking ahead, Smolenski says her internship reaffirmed her desire to return to museum work after completing her PhD. While she has worked in visitor experience roles—including designing a tour of the Hunter House in Newport, R.I.—she said she ultimately hopes to do curatorial work. 

The internship ended in late July, and Smolenski says the lasting lesson from the experience is that the Revolution cannot be understood through a single perspective. She hopes the workshop will encourage teachers to bring some of the overlooked stories of the Revolution into their classrooms.

“The American Revolution wasn’t just the Founding Fathers—everyone who was here was experiencing it,” Smolenski says. “By telling this wider perspective, we get a better understanding of the Revolution and our nation’s founding.”