Dr. Michael Jarvis to Launch Drayton Hall Distinguished Speakers Series

Join us as scholars and thought leaders from across the nation travel to Charleston for the launch of the new Drayton Hall Distinguished Speakers Series—fascinating presentations related to colonial history and culture by many of today’s most respected historians, archaeologists, and curators.

Archaeologist and historian Dr. Michael Jarvis is the inaugural Drayton Hall distinguished speaker and will be presenting on Thursday, February 20, 2014.

On February 20^th, our inaugural speaker, archaeologist and historian Michael Jarvis, will present Shaftesbury, Bermuda, and the Settlement of Carolina, or the OTHER important B-island in South Carolina’s History. Dr. Jarvis’ research investigates inter-colonial Atlantic connections and networks by studying small-scale entrepreneurial seafarers and the self-organized and often trans-imperial trade circuits they created. A social historian at heart, he also studies port communities, architecture and material culture, maritime environments and work, and non-plantation slavery in the greater Caribbean. Most recently his research has taken a digital turn: he is building an interactive 2D and 3D Virtual St. George’s (Bermuda), where time travelling visitors can explore critical Atlantic institutions, activities, and events on a local level. He also runs a historical archaeology field school in Bermuda each summer, excavating early 17th- to mid-19th-century sites.

In addition to Dr. Jarvis’s presentation, the spring 2014 Drayton Hall Distinguished Speaker Series includes a March 20 presentation by Mary Beth Norton, Cornell University, entitled Beyond Boston: The Fate of the Seven Tea Ships of 1773 and an April 17 presentation by S. Max Edelson, University of Virginia, entitled Mapping Carolina:  Cartography and the Quest for Empire in the Colonial Southeast.

The fall 2014 Drayton Hall Distinguished Speaker Series will bring another trio of accomplished academics, researchers and speakers to Charleston, with a September 18 presentation by Ronald L. Hurst, Colonial Williamsburg, entitled A Rich and Varied Culture: The Material World of the Early South; an October 16 presentation by Andrew O’Shaughnessy, University of Virginia/Monticello, entitled The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership, the American Revolution, and the Fate of the Empire; and a November 20 presentation by Architectural Historian Jill M. Lord entitled Improvement of the Americas: The Architecture of Colonial American Libraries.

Know Before You Go

All Drayton Hall Distinguished Speakers Series programs will begin promptly at 7:00 p.m. and will be hosted by South Carolina Society Hall, 72 Meeting Street, downtown Charleston.

Doors will open by 6:30 p.m., seating is limited, and a dessert reception will follow. This program is free to Friends of Drayton Hall and their guests.

Please contact Steve Mount, Director of Philanthropy, at 843-769-2601 or smount@draytonhall.org with any questions.