America 250th
On July 4, 2026, the United States will celebrate its 250th anniversary (Semi-quincentennial) of the Declaration of Independence.
Most people have a passing knowledge of this era – they might know who George Washington was, what Thomas Paine wrote, where Paul Revere rode, and when the Battles of Lexington and Concord were fought, but not much else.
This page, supported by the Department of Museums, Archives & Rare Books at Kennesaw State University, seeks to deepen our understanding of this period, with special focus on Georgia, and celebrate the accomplishments of our nation’s founders.
❱ Scholar Spotlights ❰
Dr. Marianne Holtzkom
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Dr. Marianne Holtzkom a professor of history at Kennesaw State University in Kennesaw, Georgia.
She specializes in the colonial and revolutionary periods of United States history, focusing on the study of History and Memory. She has presented several papers examining various ways in which early U.S. history is remembered in different genres.
In addition, she has contributed chapters in edited volumes on the subject of history in popular culture, including “A Past to Make Us Proud: U.S. History According to Disney” in Learning From Micky, Donald and Walt: Essays on Disney’s Edutainment Films (McFarland, 2011). Her interest in John Adams began during the United States Bicentennial, when she first saw the musical 1776.
Her recent book, Remembering John Adams: The Second President in History, Memory and Popular Culture is the culmination of that interest. This book was named an Outstanding Academic Title by Choice Reviews.
Recently, she was named an Adams Memorial Foundation Scholar.
Learn more about the Adams Memorial Foundation.
To learn more aabout Dr. Marianne Holtzkom, visit: https://marianneholdzkom.com/about-me
Dr. Amy Dunagin
Dr. Amy Dunagin is an associate professor of history, specializing in the cultural and political history of Britain and its empire. Her research focuses on how Britons made sense of their shifting cultural identities during the transformative decades of the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Her book, “The Land Without Music: English Identity and the Idea of Unmusicality,” is forthcoming from Yale University Press in 2026. In it, she explores why the English developed a reputation as an unmusical people in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, even as they aggressively asserted national superiority over Continental Europeans in a host of other spheres.
Her work appears in venues such as the Journal of British Studies, Eighteenth-Century Life, Early American Studies, and Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture.
Dunagin received her doctorate in history and musicology from Yale University. Prior to her appointment at KSU, she taught world history, European history, and music history at Oklahoma City, Quinnipiac, and Yale Universities. She also served as Managing Editor of the interdisciplinary journal Eighteenth-Century Studies from 2015 to 2017. She teaches courses on world history and British history at KSU.
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