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As part of Lafayette’s celebration of the 250th anniversary of the Marquis de Lafayette’s birthday, renowned scholar Robert Rhodes Crout, adjunct professor of history at College of Charleston, will present the lecture “Lafayette and Slavery: The Ideal, The Practical,” 4:10 p.m. Oct. 11 in the Gendebien Room of Skillman Library.
Lafayette is planning a yearlong celebration during 2007-08 in recognition of the life and legacy of the man for whom it is named. Major events will include a lecture series, entitled Lives of Liberty, featuring renowned speakers; a historical exhibit at the Williams Center for the Arts, entitled A Son and his Adoptive Father: The Marquis de Lafayette and George Washington; and a birthday party on Sept. 6.
Crout’s lecture will cover the Marquis’ youthful endeavors and his mature struggles that spanned three continents to end the “peculiar institution” of slavery, which became his lifelong quest. Following the lecture, historical interpreters from the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association will perform “Lafayette & Slavery” a short dramatic portrayal of the Marquis de Lafayette and the African American slave/spy James Armistead Lafayette. Both events are also part of the For Captive Africa exhibit running Oct. 11, 2007 – Feb. 29, 2008 in the Simon Room of Skillman Library
Crout has done extensive research on the Marquis. His current research includes the political language of the Atlantic Revolution, 1770-1840 and Lafayette. He has contributed over fifty entries on diplomatic and foreign issues for Scribner Publishers’ Encyclopedia of the American Revolutionary War.
He was co-editor of the Lafayette Papers Project at Cornell University which published the five volume series, Lafayette in the Age of the American Revolution: Selected Letters and Papers, 1776-1790. He also has contributed numerous articles and entries in academic journals and books on the Marquis.
Crout’s research on Lafayette led him to become only the second scholar and first American to work in the Lafayette family archives at Chateau Lagrange, outside Paris.
He was a consultant and interviewee on the recent History Channel series “Washington and His Generals” and is currently working with the Discovery Channel on a forthcoming program on Lafayette.
Aside from his research on the Marquis de Lafayette, Crout was associate editor of the Papers of Thomas Jefferson Project at Princeton University and associate editor in charge of the Secretary of States Series of the James Madison Papers Project at the University of Virginia.
His additional research and teaching interests include France, the Atlantic World, revolutionary and early national America, early modern and modern Western Europe, North Africa, applied history, and French colonial history.
Crout earned Ph.D. and M.A. degrees in history from University of Georgia and a B.A. in history from Augusta State University.