PrincetonPacket: PRINCETON: Princeton images on Revolution website
Princeton’s American Revolution roots are featured in the first installment of images in a new online photo library launched by the Crossroads of the American Revolution Association.
Images and informational captions in the “Ten Crucial Days” section include the Sons of the American Revolution battle marker commemorating the Continental Army’s march from Trenton to Princeton, the Thomas Clarke House, the Quaker Meeting house and Morven.
The ten crucial days began on Christmas in 1776 and continued until the Battle of Princeton.
The digital image library titled “Storylines of the Crossroads of the American Revolution National Heritage Area” is viewable on the organization’s website, www. revolutionarynj.org.
”We’re always trying to find different ways and use different mediums to tell New Jersey’s story of its role in the American Revolution,” said Cate Litvack, executive director, Crossroads of the American Revolution Association. “This seemed like a great way to do it.”
The library took about a year to come together with photography, captioning and web development.
”It took a long time to whittle through the hundreds of photographs to tell a story of different segments of the American Revolution in New Jersey,” said Ms. Litvak. “It’s more a saga than a story. George Washington spent more time in New Jersey during the Revolution than anywhere else and the geography provided Washington and the army places to retreat during the winter and enough food to eat during the summer.”
The site is organized into story lines, with the first three online, beginning at the beginning of the war. There have been 14 story lines identified that tell the story of New Jersey’s Revolutionary history from November 1776 when the Battle of Fort Lee took place to the end of the war when Congress was in Princeton at Nassau Hall and learned of the Treaty of Paris.
”It divides the Revolution into stories that link together,” she said.
Eventually the group hopes to get the rest of New Jersey’s story online.
”We will add to it and tell the whole story,” said Ms. Litvak. “It’s a very exciting project.”
Featured in this initial installment of the library are images of Revolutionary War era historic sites, monuments and commemorative markers from story lines within New Jersey’s Crossroads of the American Revolution National Heritage Area. Examples include the fall of Fort Lee, Washington’s Crossing, the Battles of Trenton and Princeton and the first Winter in Morristown.
The accompanying text, were written by Michael Russell, a trustee and board member of the Crossroads of the American Revolution, conveys the significance of New Jersey to our national struggle for independence. When the library is fully realized the images and accompanying text will depict the cultural and heritage context of the American Revolution as it affected the lives of New Jersey residents over a six year period from 1776 through 1783.
”Besides showing where these events took place, it shows the humanity of these events,” said Mr. Russell. “Real peoples lives were changed and sacrificed. We can’t afford to loose our history, because if we do, we loose our identity.”
The image library “is something Crossroads is developing to help the public learn more about New Jersey’s role in the American Revolution,” he said.
With his education background, he was the ideal choice to help with the image library. It took “coming up with all the details and facts and editing, the entire thing took about two months,” he said. “I did not want to put anything in there that was not correct. I wanted it to be personalized so the viewer could connect with these images, which is key to people wanting to learn about the Revolution. We have the name Crossroads for a reason, and people don’t realize New Jersey’s rich Revolutionary history.”
Mr. Russell, a Rahway resident and teacher, got involved with the organization while finishing his master’s degree in military history from Norwich University in Vermont.
”I remember one point in particular sitting on my front porch reading an article and realized this happened about four blocks from my house,” he said. “I knew it happened here, but I didn’t know all the details. I knew the larger picture, but I didn’t know the details and I’ve learned the story is in the details.”
Mr. Russell’s family, who has served in the armed forces since the American Revolution, inspired him to military service and to obtain his master’s degree.
”It was a part of my childhood ... and then I joined and spent six years in the Army Reserves and the National Guard,” he said. “The military has always fascinated me and has been a part of me for so long.”
To learn more, in addition to his master’s degree, Mr. Russell, became involved with the Crossroads of the American Revolution and Bravo, which does battlefield archeology, to learn more about military history. He has done digs at the Princeton Battlefield.
The image library was funded, in part, by a grant from the New Jersey Council for the Humanities, a state partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
