The Department of History is delighted to send a shout out to members of our Undergraduate Student Advisory Council and other history students who organized a wildly successful participatory event earlier this semester as part of the Department’s continuing commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
For the last two days in September, history students invited passersby on the MACC Plaza to sign their names to a giant replica of the Declaration. Participants also had the opportunity to answer fun trivia questions about the document and larger Revolutionary Era in order to win a limited-edition commemorative sticker or snack prize. Some history students dressed for the part; and a group of them even enthusiastically re-created Emanuel Leutze’s Washington Crossing the Delaware.
We were overwhelmed by the enthusiastic response to this event, which proved so popular that signatories eventually had to use the margins or resort to signing over the document’s text. This event was wholly conceptualized and run by history students, whose commitment to the discipline was inspiring.
Watch the video the students made during the event:
