Join us for the 24th Annual Barn Dance Saturday, September 17! Featuring pig races, music by local bands, delicious food, and a campfire, this festive fundraiser raises funds for all of Friends of John Jay Homestead’s educational work.
This event has sold out! Merchandise is available for purchase below. Thank you for your support!
David Gellman, Liberty’s Chain: Slavery, Abolition and the Jay Family of New York
Liberty’s Chain explores the contradictions of the Jay family’s attitudes and actions toward slavery over multiple generations. Enslaved and formerly enslaved people living at Bedford experienced isolation, even as members of the Jay family took increasingly radical approaches to law, policy, politics, and advocacy. Gellman is Professor of History at DePauw University, author or co-author of three other books, as well as essays on such disparate cultural icons as James Fenimore Cooper and Bruce Springsteen.
After two years of virtual lectures, we are thrilled to announce we will be holding this lecture in-person.
David will be joining us at St. Matthew’s Church in Bedford, NY, to present his lecture in our traditional pre-COVID format, followed by a book signing.
Attendees must self-certify that they’ve been vaccinated against COVID-19 and must be masked when seated.
A live broadcast via Zoom will also be available for those of you unable to attend in person.
Pre-registration is required for either ticket.
St. Matthew’s Church
382 Cantitoe St. Bedford, NY
Check in begins at 6:30pm with light refreshments.
Deborah Willis, The Black Civil War Soldier: A Visual History of Conflict and Citizenship
Though both Union and Confederate armies excluded African American men from their initial calls to arms, many of the men who eventually served were black. With over seventy images, supplemented with handwritten captions, letters, and other personal materials, Willis depicts the lives of black soldiers and other African Americans involved with the struggle, and the importance of African American communities in the development and prosecution of the war.
Willis is University Professor and Chair of the Department of Photography & Imaging at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. An art photographer as well, she is one of the nation’s leading historians of African American photography and curators of African diasporic cultures. She is a recipient of (among others) MacArthur, Cohen, Guggenheim and Alphonse Fletcher Fellowships; a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; and recipient of the Outstanding Service Award from the Royal Photographic Society in the UK.
Tickets to this virtual lecture are free but must be reserved in advance. Only registered guests will receive a link to the Zoom webinar the day before the lecture.
Support the Lecture Series by making a donation here.
Donate $250 or more to join the Lecture Committee.
Jeff Shesol, Mercury Rising: John Glenn, John Kennedy, and the New Battleground of the Cold War
Mercury Rising is a propulsive narrative of the early space race at the time of Sputnik and JFK’s young Presidency, embedded in Cold War politics domestic and international, and a very different American culture of heroes. It also an exploration of the terrors of new technologies – both space and nuclear weapons – and how they intersected in fears of the militarization of space.
A Rhodes Scholar, creator of the nationally syndicated comic strip Thatch, former Fellow at Princeton and the University of California, frequent commentator in print and on TV and radio, Presidential speechwriter and founding partner of West Wing Writers, Shesol is also author of Supreme Power: Franklin Roosevelt v. The Supreme Court, about which he spoke at the Homestead in 2011.
Tickets to this virtual lecture are free but must be reserved in advance. Only registered guests will receive a link to the Zoom webinar the day before the lecture.
Support the Lecture Series by making a donation here.
Donate $250 or more to join the Lecture Committee.
Who you gonna call? Ghostbusters! Jump in your Ectomobile and head to John Jay Homestead on Friday, October 15* for the 1984 supernatural comedy on the big screen. This special drive-in movie is presented by Friends of John Jay Homestead and Bedford Playhouse. Gates open at 5:30pm. Movie begins at 6:30pm. *Rain date Saturday, October 16.
Tickets and concessions on sale Saturday, October 2nd at 9:00am.
2021 Founders Lecture
Thursday, October 14, 2021
James Oakes, The Crooked Path to Abolition: Abraham Lincoln and the Antislavery Constitution
The Crooked Path meticulously traces the steps by which Lincoln activated the antislavery powers of the Constitution and neutralized its weaknesses, and the leaders of the many branches of antislavery activism from whom he borrowed and with whom he strategized and often disagreed. Finally, Lincoln was able to achieve the “king’s cure for all the evils” of slavery – its abolition by both Federal and State powers, by statute and by Constitution – and even envision a post-slavery society of racial equality and voting rights for freed men.
James Oakes holds the Humanities Chair in the Department of History at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Author also of multiple essays, articles, and op-eds, and twice winner of the Lincoln Prize (in 2008 and 2013), he is widely praised for writing that is scholarly, timely and accessible. The Crooked Path has been called superb, brilliant, indispensable, and cogent.
*This lecture will be held via Zoom. Registration is required but free. Links to the webinar & recording will be distributed to registered guests ONLY.
Interested in joining the Lecture Committee? Click here.
Lecture Committee 2022-23
To help develop, promote, and support the participation of distinguished historians and scholars in education and public programs at John Jay Homestead State Historic Site.
Our Committee makes possible this special event that shines a light on our unique Homestead, with a wider reach, no ticket price barrier, and no limit on capacity for students: when our lectures are held virtually, we’ll be requiring registration, we won’t be charging admission.
Committee Members each pledge a minimum gift of $250 per person and receive a signed bookplate by each speaker and, for in-person talks, an invitation to dinner with a speaker.
This approximately 25-minute educator-led walk for families with young children will encourage exploration and mindfulness as we use our senses to discover many of the hidden natural wonders on the Homestead’s property. All children must be accompanied by an adult, and all adults must be accompanied by a child; please leave your pets at home. These experiences are free, but reservations are suggested. Rain or Shine.
This approximately 25-minute educator-led walk for families with young children will encourage exploration and mindfulness as we use our senses to discover many of the hidden natural wonders on the Homestead’s property. All children must be accompanied by an adult, and all adults must be accompanied by a child; please leave your pets at home. These experiences are free, but reservations are suggested. Rain or Shine.
This approximately 25-minute educator-led walk for families with young children will encourage exploration and mindfulness as we use our senses to discover many of the hidden natural wonders on the Homestead’s property. All children must be accompanied by an adult, and all adults must be accompanied by a child; please leave your pets at home. These experiences are free, but reservations are suggested. Rain or Shine.
Join us out on the grounds of the historic site for tidbits about our history. On the first and third week of each month, May through October, we’ll explore a different area of the Homestead. Reservations suggested. Free admission.
Join us out on the grounds of the historic site for tidbits about our history. On the first and third week of each month, May through October, we’ll explore a different area of the Homestead. Reservations suggested. Free admission.
Join us out on the grounds of the historic site for tidbits about our history. On the first and third week of each month, May through October, we’ll explore a different area of the Homestead. Reservations suggested. Free admission.
Join us out on the grounds of the historic site for tidbits about our history. On the first and third week of each month, May through October, we’ll explore a different area of the Homestead. Reservations suggested. Free admission.
Join us out on the grounds of the historic site for tidbits about our history. On the first and third week of each month, May through October, we’ll explore a different area of the Homestead. Reservations suggested. Free admission.