Revolutionary Connections

Although I have previously written about using artificial intelligence in my own historical research to transcribe nineteenth- century German census records, I was surprised to learn that the vaulted Library of Congress and the Smithsonian are collaborating on a project called Revolution Crossroads. Using AI, researchers can examine Revolutionary-era collections, reconnect long-separated records, and identify overlooked names, patterns, relationships, and stories.

The timing is appropriate: during the nation’s 250th anniversary year, the project reminds us that the history of the American Revolution is not finished. New evidence and new interpretations of old evidence continue to emerge.

Historical discoveries sometimes begin with long-forgotten letters found in an attic or tucked inside a dusty volume. Families may preserve papers for generations before donating them to a museum, library, or archive. Once received, those materials must be examined one page – and sometimes one barely legible word – at a time.

For a historian and teacher, the work being done at the Library of Congress represents an extraordinary opportunity. AI can help researchers reach beyond individual names and dates to uncover subtleties of communication: personal relationships, recurring ideas, and unexpected connections hidden within vast collections.

The U. S. National Archives also has AI projects planned. One would create a “semantic search engine,” allowing researchers to search by concepts and relationships rather than guessing the exact words used in a document. Another would allow people to question documentary collections in ordinary language instead of constructing complicated database searches. The possibilities are not merely theoretical.

While cataloging Royal Navy records for the Revolution’s 250th anniversary, a volunteer at Britain’s National Archives in Kew recently unfolded a document that had rested virtually unnoticed for nearly two and a half centuries. It was an exceptionally rare broadside printing of the Declaration of Independence, produced in Exeter, New Hampshire, between July 16 and 19, 1776, less than two weeks after Congress adopted the Declaration in Philadelphia.

The document had been carried aboard the Dalton, an American privateer captured by the Royal Navy off Portugal in December 1776. Tucked among papers seized from the vessel, including a privateering commission signed by John Hancock, the broadside was recorded simply as “another document” and largely forgotten. Its discovery does not alter the familiar story of independence, but it supplies remarkable physical evidence that the Declaration traveled directly into the maritime struggle.

That connection to the war at sea brings to mind Eric Jay Dolin’s 2022 book, Rebels at Sea: Privateering in the American Revolution. Dolin challenges the conventional portrayal of privateers as little more than licensed pirates operating at the edges of the war. By attacking British shipping and disrupting commerce, these privately owned vessels contributed more substantially to the American cause than their small place in Revolutionary history might suggest. Dolin also examines the moral ambiguities and human costs of privateering, transforming what might have been a naval footnote into a vivid part of the struggle for independence.

The document aboard the Dalton illustrates why historical discovery still matters. Sometimes a seemingly insignificant notation, “another document,” conceals a story connecting the Declaration of Independence, an obscure privateer, the Royal Navy, and the experiences of ordinary sailors.