It is great to have such a large for there on this day election, as we are all sort of anxiously awaiting what happens. It is a genuine pleasure for me to be able to introduce amanda to you. Director ofssociate the National History center. I have worked with her for the past 2. 5 years. I could sing your praises ad. Auseam she is indispensable to the operations and success of the center over the years. For someone who is so young, she had an interesting and varied career. Before she became an historian, she was a pastry chef and worked at a prominent restaurant and got her phd at the university of michigan and a postdoc at yale. At the same time, she has continued her interest in food history. She has taught historical cooking classes. She has a blog called just desserts. She has herto that, mainstay as a historian, her work on the origins of humanitarianism and that has led to the book from empire to the American Revolution and origins of humanitarianism which was published by Oxford University press which she will be speaking to us about today. Amanda . Amanda thank you very much for the kind introduction. I am delighted to speak at this seminar. One of the many gratifying aspects of working at the National History center and American Historical Association over the past couple of years has been that it is so intellectually broadening. The seminar has played an especially big role in accurate the opportunity to hear topics outside of my own area focused each week is incredibly stimulating. It is a real pleasure to work with eric christian, who is not year. I apologize for not being the ideal presenter in terms of email communication. Amanda perry and especially thank you all very much. The seminar explores the historical background, Current International and national affairs. You may be wondering what someone who studies benevolence in the 18th century is doing here beyond the fact that i had an in with the director . [laughter] there is many to send conversation about philanthropy today. A journalist asked me that question, framed slightly differently. He wanted to know whether i thought leaving american foundations should be spending more at home. Big foundations focusing too much abroad at the expense of needs here in the United States. Part of aion is larger debate today about how to you Balance National and international priorities. That is playing out in various xts both here and abroad, about perceptions in community and results of understandings and moral responsibility. Americans in the revolutionary era wrestled with similar issues. Rather than address the issue of what philanthropists today should be doing, i would like to start by explaining how i came to explore revolutionary era debates about this question. When i was casting about for a dissipation project, i was reading sources on late 18th century activity. Dissertation project, i was reading sources on late 18th century activity. They borrowed ideas from one charitableggested projects to each other and kept each other abreast of progress and challenges in various causes. And doingcooperating so pretty intensely. In congress to me since the American Revolution only fractured the angloamerican polity. Reflects perception of community. We exercise our moral responsibility within circles we feel connected to. I was surprised in the wake of a war of separation. Americans and britain felt morally invested in the welfare of people who were illegal strangers. If you are familiar with the literature on the rise of humanitarianism, you may be wondering why i found caring for strangers surprising. Scholars have exploded the expansion of moral latensibility in the 18th and early 19 centuries were focused on the Antislavery Movement. It the rise of the Antislavery Movement along with the burgeoning of other charitable and reform causes was economic. He rise of capitalism, argument has gone, gave rise to humanitarianism. They thought to train the lower sorts for industrial economy for and since, the reform institutions worked similarly to factories and the well off generally rethought to make class. Another argument has been that at gave rise to more responsibly. They realize they could have an impact far away at a distance time. They made a contract now for something that was going to happen in a years time in a distant place and that help them to understand that if they were consuming sugar produced by slaves, that they had a moral connection and by not consuming sugar could morally improve the situation. That has been the argument. Focusedrks have often on particular movements, most particularly antislavery and Prison Reform. We have gained many insights from them. These studies often start their story after the revolution and that seemed to me to be beginning to late. The americans and britons who were leaders in philanthropy were middleaged by that point. They had grown to young adult head in the vibrant, successful, and interconnected British Empire before the American Revolution. I wanted to know about the world had grown up in. How they hadnow experienced the American Revolution, which was an event that changed their world. Most of all, i wanted to know why people who had just experienced the civil war collaborated so closely in benefits and projects after. The humanitarian Movement Made a generation the center of my investigation. The men i studied were born in north america, the british and they are almost all men. Did not get involved in Public Charitable institutions enjoy very end of the 18th century. The people i study are almost all men. It they include men like of philadelphian dr. Doctor. Delphian lettson. Kley John Crawford on the left. In northern ireland, school that trinity college, and he joined the east India Company as a ship surgeon and a survivor couple of voyages to the east indies. He got a post that a British Military hospital in barbados and was in barbados for several years. From there, he moved to south america and eventually, he moved to baltimore, where he lived for the last 15 to 20 years of his life. He founded medical charities in barbados and the same types of medical charities in baltimore. Henry on the right, he was a scotsman. Has the black glasses. He was an itinerant lecturer in chemistry and natural philosophy, science. He was a popular lecturer around the British Isles and in the mid1780s, 1784, he came to the United States and is spent a couple years here, giving lectures on science and also promoting the founding of humane societies, which were charities that promoted the rescue and resuscitation of drowning victims. Thomas russell, he was a bostonian, a merchant. He was the First American after the revolution to send a commercial ship to russia and a leader in bostons charitable landscape. He was the president of a number of charities in boston. This is her thomas canard. Bernard. Omas a last royal governor of massachusetts, so he spent much of his childhood growing up in. He colonies he began his College Education at harvard but then left with his father and when that to inland where he was involved various charitable causes and founded the society for bettering the condition of the poor, a leading clearinghouse of poor relief at the end the 18th century and beginning of the 19th century. These are some of the people featured in my book. The book follows this group of leading philanthropists and others as they came of age in facererevolutionary world, a civil war and remainder their and a rain regained their ties. What i found was that the revolution was not a starting point in humanitarianism. It was a turning point. Before they broke their political bands, americans and britons had shared an imperial approach to ventures. Unsettled the familiar convention. In the postwar years, as it they adjusted to being foreigners, americans and britons embraced the universal approach in philanthropy. Their legacy was to make the suffering strangers routine. I would like to delve deeper into this history by talking about the best connected philanthropist in the early United States, Benjamin Rush. World tell you about the that Benjamin Rush grew up in. When rush was born in philadelphia in 1746, great written and its north american colonies were growing closer. Transatlantic trade grew markedly in the early to mid century. Appointing their homes with more and more goods manufactured in britain for instance t sets and harrison tea sets, hairpins and tobacco. Americans and britons materialized were becoming more similar. Communication across the atlantic in greased, to increased too. Periodicals were putting britons around the world in better touch with each other. The world of expanding commerce communications. N it was a world of warring empires. Britain fought its foes repeatedly over the centuries. Situationegic centur tie benevolence a cause to them together. Virgin that americans alike look to charities to strengthen the British Empire. Britons and americans alike looked to charities to strengthen the bridge empire. Hospitala wave of foundations, which were typically charities in this era. Picture of the foundling hospital, a very wellknown london charity. It was established in 1739 to care for children born out of wedlock. The man who founded it, a key part of mover founding it was thomas, who had spent 10 years living in the north american colonies at the beginning of the 18th century and was active in a number of charitable schemes that had imperial alliance. Imperialing ends. Would preserve lives and help strengthen bridge and militarily. That was a commonplace thing of the day. Preserves them to be expended, i guess, by the army or navy later on. [laughter] amanda in the american colonies, hospitals have an imperial agenda. American colonies, britons and americans similarly founded and supported charities aimed at all stirring legends stering strength. George whitfield, you see here. Whitfield was an english 10 clergyman and is remembered best for helping to propel the religious revivals known as the great awakening in the midcentury. Throughout the colonies, preaching his revival message to huge crowds outdoors and he was probably the bestknown person in the colonies. Benjamin rush, met him and then again, as a besides his us mission, he also had a charitable mission. One reason he came to america was to found an orphanage in georgia. The orphanage was called mercy, and ite of was based on conditions in germany. You may not be familiar with the foundation. Uite ofs a s charitable organizations that were enormously influential in protestant charitable world in the 18th century. Whitfield drew explicitly on them as a model. Raised funds throughout the colonies and in britain for the orphanage. Religion motivated him, but his charitable projects also had other aims. One reason he established the often as was to lure for said poor settlers to georgia. The presence of the charity would assure settlers to georgia that if they died in their new home, someone would care for their children. What has this got to do with the empire . Georgia was a new colony, on the border with spanish florida, at attracting settlers was important for making an effective buffer. Charitable activists like whitfield and Benjamin Franklin integratet to cultural outsiders into british culture. Rush also new franklin. They were deeply concerned about cultural outsiders in the colonies. France andc rivals, spain, ordered the north american colonies and many protestant americans and virgins feared that native people, people of african descent, colonists British Security could be threatened. They sounded Charity Schools to integrate sounded Charity Schools to integrate outsiders. Founded Charity Schools to integrate outsiders. Rush andhe world that his contemporaries grew up in. He and other philanthropic leaders of the late 18th century came of age in his culture where charitable projects often sought to bolster charitable aims. Rush and revolution, his contemporaries would continue to believe that charitable activity had a political tenor. Benjamin rushs on experiences as a young man further integrated him into this world transatlantic connection. He went to the college of new jersey and after graduating, he got some medical training in philadelphia and then he headed school,urgh for medical inspiring american doctors typically went to edinburgh for middle schoo medical school. Rush remembered his time in edinburgh is the happiest period of his life. It was intellectually stimulating and socially rewarding. Withvelops relationships young men from all over the British Empire. Budding british doctors also had similar experiences at this stage in their life of meeting fellow doctors or fellow doctors in training from around the empire. After he received his degree in london,h, rush went to where he trained in the cities tour capitals and one of the hospitals he trained at was a ll he may well have been familiar with that. He was certainly familiar with other hospitals in the city. Rush did not think he would learn much at londons hospitals but he did think his time would enhance his reputation. He appreciated more the connections he forged in london. From theother quaker british west indies. He let someone become a lifelong partner. He was wellconnected. Yet as a life of benevolence. Mencomfortable ambitious that meant among other things joining voluntary associations and rush did. He was a devout man and one of the groups he joined in 1768 was a society for promoting religious knowledge. A group of dissenting had set up the charity in london in 1750 to distribute the bible and other religious works to the poor. The way it worked was this. Members pay their annual subscriptions and received their allotments of books to theirbute to the poor in neighborhoods. Londonbased members picked up their books at the monthly meetings while different arrangements were made for subscribers outside the metropolis to get their books. By 1769, 46 people in america had joined out of about 700 subscribers so 6. 5 of the total. Group, rush was embracing the conventions of collaborative transatlantic charitable projects he had grown up with. From the early 18th century to the 1760s, those conventions had flourished. It is true that some criticized aid to distant people within the empire. There were great needs close to home that should have greater claims to peoples resources. This is what the fun fundraisers for the colonial colleges heard when they went to britain in the 1760s to raise buts so there were critics, many on both sides of the atlantic felt connected enough to donate to help distant members of the empire in distress, for instance, after hurricanes are fires. Many also give to charities like whitfield orphanage or missionary charities that thought to promote the british interest. Because the conflict began as a civil war, it would raise perplexing questions about how former compatriots who were now foreigners would relate to one another first, the imperial crisis and the war alienated and angered americans and charity showed it. Or promotingfro religious knowledge had been gaining support in the colonies in the 50s and 60s. One reason for its appeal was that it seemed to treat american members on par with british members in the way that the other transatlantic missionary charities did not. They supported other missionary charities but they had been junior partners in them. There was no doubt about that and that was not true for this society. For when the British Government policies increasingly membership,ists americans stopped joining the society for promoting religious knowledge. Was a bellwether even though it was not apparent at the time. Patriots were not advocating independence. A few years later, when americans did decide for independence, rush was at the forefront of the patriot cause. He signed the declaration of independence and during the war, served in public offices including the medical department of the army for a time. Britishd with fury at mistreatment of american prisoners during the war including his fatherinlaw, who was also a continental congressmen and had been abused by the british. Friend, a scottish someone rush had met while he was in edinburgh died in the battle of princeton, fighting for the british army, he wept for the first time for a victory gained over british troops. Even a few years into the fighting, even as an ardent patriot, rush could experience the conflict of the civil war. How do you pick up from a civil war that and with the political separation . ,s soon as the war was over all friends across the atlantic reached out to one another. The correspondence by the unhappy disputes wrote and it american o an rush was unsure about how to relate to former compatriots. Before the United States and protect had signed a final peace treaty, rush wrote to a british friend to ask him to solicit donations for a new college and carlisle, pennsylvania. His friend, richard price, british clergyman who had been supportive of the revolutionary cause replied no, he would not help raise funds. Price hoped, would learn to take care of itself. The imperial breakup did not lead for nationals to turn with one another but it did stoke in inappropriate expectations about the transatlantic relationship. It raised the question of what the boundaries and more responsibilities were when political boundaries changed. Britons wrestled with this question first. In the book, i asked for the society of universal good where that developed goodwill that developed plans to work on a global scale. The president was struggling with the civil war which was not just dividing the empire but this mans family. For him, thinking about moral