Transnational Contexts, Meanings, and Legacies
An exhibit, made possible by Sid Lapidus, in conjunction with the conference "The Quebec Act of 1774: Transnational Contexts, Meanings, and Legacies."
In June 1774, the same year in which Parliament had already alarmed Britain’s North American colonists with four Coercive Acts punishing Massachusetts for the Boston Tea Party, Parliament also passed the Quebec Act. Unlike the Intolerable Acts with which it was and is often associated, the Quebec Act was a response not to the misbehavior of unruly Bostonians, but rather to the challenges of governing the French, Catholic, and Amerindian inhabitants of the vast North American territories acquired by Britain in the Seven Years’ War.
Images of the exhibit are available from Swem Library on Flickr.
The Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture organized this exhibit and is grateful to Mr. Sid Lapidus for the loan of these documents. Since 1943, a dynamic community of Institute authors, editors, governing boards, Associates, readers and conference and seminar participants has kept the Institute’s work at the leading edge of historical scholarship. The Institute’s scope encompasses the history and cultures of North America from circa 1450 to 1820 and includes related developments in Africa, the British Isles, the Caribbean, Europe, and Latin America. Within this field, the Institute stimulates interest in and disseminates historical knowledge about the earliest period of American history and furthers an understanding of the early United States through the publication of books and the William & Mary Quarterly and by assisting writers and scholars in their work.
Exhibit text: Paul Mapp, Associate Professor of History. Exhibit design: Catherine Thompson, OIEAHC Graphic Designer, and Jennie Davy, Burger Archives Specialist.