Thursday, October 1st @4pm

Guest Speaker: Joe Hall​

Why the Fourth of July and not the second?

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Hall will unpack the historical reasons behind America’s chosen Independence Day and what the alternative date reveals about the nation’s founding.

 

Joseph M. Hall Jr. is an Auburn local and Bates College historian whose teaching and research center on colonial North America, environmental history, and Native American history, with particular focus on Indigenous-European relations before 1850. After publishing a book on trade and gift-giving dynamics in the Southeast (1350–1740), his current project examines how Wabanaki communities preserved ties to their homelands throughout European-American settlement in western Maine. 

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Don’t miss this chance to hear a fresh perspective on a familiar holiday.

 

What: Why do we celebrate the Fourth of July and not the 2nd?

When: 10/1/2026

Where: Julia Adams Morse Memorial Library, Greene, Maine

Why: It is America's Semi-quincentennial Anniversary

Who: Joseph M. Hall, Jr.​