Taverns in the News, 1775 : A Tale of Two Taverns

Presentation by Joseph M. Adelman, Ph.D

This lively presentation by Joseph M. Adelman, Ph.D. expounding on the role of taverns in the Revolutionary Era can be found on our YouTube channel! Link HERE.

“As gathering places for locals and travelers alike, taverns were key sites for information and debate. As the imperial crisis peaked in the early months of 1775, wayside spots like the Golden Ball Tavern and the Josiah Smith Tavern found themselves as nodes for information, espionage, and passage for British soldiers and American patriots. Tavern goers read the newspapers from Boston and beyond, shared the latest gossip on anti-imperial resistance and British policy making, and worried about what the future held. In other words, the Revolution may not have begun in a tavern, but it had to stop there for food and drink.”

This talk was presented by The Golden Ball Tavern Museum and the Friends of the Josiah Smith Tavern.

Joseph M. Adelman is a Professor in the History Department at Framingham State University in Framingham, Massachusetts, where he is also the Program Coordinator for the Arts & Ideas Series. A historian of media, communication, and politics in the Atlantic world, in 2019 he published his first book, entitled Revolutionary Networks: The Business and Politics of Printing the News, 1763-1789 with Johns Hopkins University Press. The book was awarded an Honorable Mention for the 2019 St. Louis Mercantile Library Prize from the Bibliographical Society of America. He is now at work on a history of the Post Office in America.