10/08/2026
For America’s 250th, the Levinson History Lecture brought three historians to campus: Dr. Joanne Freeman of Yale, Dr. Zara Anishanslin of the University of Delaware, and Dr. Michael Hattem of the Yale New Haven Teachers Institute.
Their argument? The nation’s founding was never a sure thing. As the trio shared, in the founders’ own letters, delegates signed the Declaration “with many doubts,” and Madison described the new government as “a wilderness without a single footstep to guide us.”
Students filled two sessions with questions for our guests, from what it felt like to wait weeks for news from across the Atlantic, to whether research has ever changed a historian’s mind. Time ran out before Saints’ curiosity did, so they stayed afterward to keep asking questions.
“It felt more like catching up on old friends than studying history,” says Lillian ‘28.
Full story at link in bio.
