Fort Ticonderoga is thrilled to announce that Curator Dr. Matthew Keagle has recently been selected as the American Trust for the British Library (ATBL) – Clements Library 2023–2024 Transatlantic Fellow. This competitive fellowship program supports researchers that seek to bring transatlantic collections into dialogue to better understand and explore the past, and to inform public history programs like Fort Ticonderoga’s institutional efforts.
Dr. Keagle will use the opportunity to conduct research into the period around the opening of the American Revolution, when Ticonderoga and surrounding forts were garrisoned by small numbers of British troops living with their wives and families. Far from universally being the aggressors, these soldiers often intermarried and intermingled with American colonists in ways that defy a simple narrative of imperial tyranny. This support will allow fort Ticonderoga to better understand this world as we near our interpretation of these soldiers and their families as part of our REAL TIME REVOLUTION® programming during the 250th anniversary of the Revolution beginning in 2024.
“The ATBL is honored to welcome Matt Keagle as our second ATBL-William L. Clements Library Fellow,” said Elizabeth Berkowitz, Executive Director for the American Trust for the British Library. “Matt’s project not only exemplifies the transatlantic exchange endemic to 18th century American colonial life, but also underscores the importance of public history work to unraveling the mysteries of the past.”
Dr. Matthew Keagle has been involved in exhibitions, curation, research, historical interpretation, and program development for historic sites and museums in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Delaware, Virginia, North and South Carolina. He holds a Bachelor’s degree from Cornell University, a Masters in American Material Culture from the Winterthur Museum, and a Ph.D. from the Bard Graduate Center in New York City. He joined Fort Ticonderoga in 2014 and has been involved developing exhibits, conducting research, delivering programs, and advancing a greater understanding of the 18th-century military experience. He has researched and lectured at archives and collections across the US, Canada, and Europe.
The Clements Library at the University of Michigan and the British Library are the foremost collections of their kind on each side of the Atlantic and contain vital sources for this research in the respective papers of Thomas Gage and Frederick Haldimand. Their direct correspondence with officers at Ticonderoga, and surrounding posts, provides the most important sources of information about life here as the Revolution was unfolding. Thanks to the support of the American Trust for the British Library Dr. Keagle will be able to share this material for years to come with Fort Ticonderoga’s team and visitors through public history programming, exhibits, and publications.
The American Trust for the British Library exists to support and promote the work of the British Library in the US and has partnered with a number of equally prestigious and important American collections to provide support for scholars to work across these collections for their work.
About Fort Ticonderoga
Welcoming visitors since 1909, Fort Ticonderoga is a historic site, museum, center of learning and major cultural destination. Fort Ticonderoga engages more than 70,000 visitors each year on site with an economic impact of more than $12 million annually and offers programs, historic interpretation, boat cruises, tours, demonstrations, and exhibits throughout the year, and is open for daily visitation May through October. Fort Ticonderoga is owned and operated by The Fort Ticonderoga Association, a non-profit educational organization which serves its mission to preserve, educate and provoke an active discussion about the past and its importance to present and future generations. Fort Ticonderoga reaches more than 30 million people through its digital outreach each year through its Center for Digital History and is supported in part through generous donations and with some general operating support made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts. To view Fort Ticonderoga’s electronic press kit, click here. © The Fort Ticonderoga Association. 2023 All Rights Reserved.