Society of Cincinnati Lecture: “When the United States Spoke French”

François Furstenberg
Professor of History at Johns Hopkins University

This lecture explores the republic’s formative years from the perspective of a distinguished circle of five French statesmen, writers and philosophers who took refuge in America at the height of the French Revolution. These men left their homes and families in France, crossed the Atlantic, and landed in Philadelphia—then America’s capital, its principal port, and by far its most cosmopolitan city and the home of the wealthiest merchants and financiers. Their immigration stories offer a fresh perspective on the tumultuous years of the young nation, when the Atlantic World’s first great republican experiments were put to the test.

Sponsored by the Department of History.