Discover 1775 – the American Revolution’s first year through images that are behind our videos and posts. These visuals shape how we remember — and reimagine — the Revolutionary Era. Each image tells its own story, highlighting a key figure, event, or idea, with context about the artist and historical significance. Explore these Revolutionary Era visuals to dig even deeper into history.
Explore the Images of the American Revolution – 1775: Revolution’s First Year
One of my favorite aspects of the American Revolution is its wonderful images. These images of 1775 – the American Revolution’s first year – complement our videos and posts, where there is often little space to share more about the images themselves, their artists, and their backstories. Yet we believe you should know them — at least to some extent — because they add depth to how we Americans perceive and picture the Revolution and, equally important, how our collective memory of the Revolutionary Era has been shaped and reshaped over the centuries.
Almost all of the images we use in our program, as well as the music, are in the Public Domain. For those that aren’t, we’ve included links, licenses, and attributions. If you use any of these images, please provide proper credit and include links when required.
This post features images of 1775 – the American Revolution’s first year, which are presented individually, each with its historical significance and the artist’s background. These posts are designed for exploration — enjoy browsing, learning, and linking to related history posts. Explore these Revolutionary Era visuals to dig even deeper into history.
Patrick Henry
“Give me liberty, or give me death!”
Chances are, most Americans have heard this phrase.
Patrick Henry (1736-1799) delivered it before the Second Virginia Convention on March 23, 1775, in St. John’s Church in Richmond, Virginia. This was almost a month before the Battles of Lexington and Concord. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were both present in this assembly, and Henry’s passionate oratory is credited with swinging Virginia’s balance in favor of allocating troops for the Revolutionary War.
This was quite an important boost to the Revolutionary cause, not only because Virginia was the most populous and largest colony then, but also because Virginia had been at the forefront of opposing British legislative oppression and military control of the colonies.
Depending on the program’s direction in the coming months, in addition to the 30-plus scholars that I am interviewing about the American Revolution, I may invite other scholars to discuss the following colonies: Massachusetts, Connecticut, South Carolina and Virginia. I am particularly interested in these four colonies because they were in the vanguard of anti-British sentiments and activities.
Here I want to recommend a fantastic book on the roles the above four colonies played in the early months of the American Revolution: 1775, A Good Year for Revolution, by Kevin Phillips (1940-2023). Although Phillips was a political commentator and not an academic historian, 1775 is one of the most illuminating books I have read on the American Revolution. I highly recommend it.
Returning to Patrick Henry, I should note that this firebrand revolutionary American refused to attend the Constitutional Convention of 1787, and was a leading opponent of the Constitution’s ratification in Virginia. This is because he felt the Constitution gave too much power to the federal government and lacked a Bill of Rights.
Henry did not sign the Declaration of Independence. But that’s because he was not a delegate to the Second Continental Congress in 1776.
This lithographic print is a 1876 work of Currier & Ives, a prominent publishing firm that produced and sold millions of inexpensive lithographic prints from 1835 to 1907.
This image is in the Public Domain.
Battles of Lexington and Concord
On April 19, 1775, British Regulars from Boston marched to Concord with the intention of seizing colonial military cache. Along the way, they were confronted by Minutemen – initially in Lexington (below left) and then again at the North Bridge in Concord (below right). These marked the first open military confrontations of the Revolutionary War. And the Battle of Bunker Hill followed two months later (see above).
The “shot heard ’round the world” entered our culture and history from Ralph Waldo Emerson, who lived in Concord for the majority of his life until his death. Apparently there is some debate among historians regarding the first shot – did the colonials shoot first in Lexington or in Concord?
In this program, Robert A. Gross, a renowned scholar of 18th-century Concord, discusses the social, economic and religious forces that transformed Concord into its battle-ready stance against the British. Dr. Gross is the author of many works on this subject, including The Minutemen and Their World, which won the Bancroft Prize in American History. I will provide a link to our interview here when it publishes in 2026.
The First Fight for Independence, Lexington Common, April 19, 1775, is by William Barnes Wollen (1857-1936), an English painter known for his battle scenes. He is famous for his battle scene paintings, including those from the Second Boer War, WWI and Afghanistan in 1842. This image is in the Public Domain.
North Bridge, Concord, Massachusetts, April 19, 1775 is a 1909 work by Frank T. Merrill. His drawings for the illustrated edition of Little Women, a novel by Louisa May Alcott, are his best-known works. This image is in the Public Domain.
Battle of Bunker Hill
This a photomechanical print (not a painting) of the Battle of Bunker Hill. The original print was made by Edward Percy Moran in 1909. This image is in the Public Domain.
Moran (1862-1935) was an American artist who is well-known for his works on American history, including scenes titled Signing the Mayflower Compact, George Washington’s Farewell Address and Battle of New Orleans.
Returning to this print, did you know that the Battle of Bunker Hill (June 17, 1775) was actually fought on Breed’s Hill? Did you know that in 1843, a 221-foot tall obelisk was erected on Breed’s Hill to commemorate the Battle of Bunker Hill?
So why the confusion?
Because even though Col. William Prescott—an American officer in the Revolutionary War—was ordered to fortify Bunker Hill, he chose to fortify Breed’s Hill instead – and that’s where the main battle took place. The confusion is due to the mislabeling of the two hills (Bunker Hill and Breed’s Hill) on the map and, of course, the original order to fortify Bunker Hill.
King’s Proclamation
A scan of King George III’s Proclamation of Rebellion. This image is in the Public Domain.
It is believed that the King issued this proclamation on the same day he received news of the Battle of Bunker Hill: August 23, 1775.
The official title of this document is “A Proclamation for Suppressing Rebellion and Sedition”. Two parts of this Proclamation interest me the most.
The first part is the Proclamation’s reference to “open and avowed rebellion”. After the Battle of Bunker Hill, there was really no other way to label the state of the American colonies. It was manifest to all that the Americans were no longer mischievous, ingrate, troublesome British colonial subjects. They had revealed their true identity and asserted their intention: rebels and rebellion.
The second part is this: “traitorous correspondence.”
In our program, Carlton F.W. Larson details the history treason and what were considered traitorous acts during the American Revolution. Prof. Larson is the author of The Trials of Allegiance: Treason, Juries, and the American Revolution, an important book that we discuss in detail. I will share its link here when our interview publishes in 2026.
For the limited purposes of this post, I want to focus on the word “correspondence”.
The history behind this word is fascinating because it demonstrates that the Americans had begun the Revolution years before 1775 (and certainly before 1776).
In November 1772, the first Committee of Correspondence was formed in Boston. In March 1773, an intercolonial Committee of Correspondence was established in Virginia.
So why is this important?
Because these networks of “correspondence”, which led to the First Continental Congress in 1774, were the backbone of colonial opposition to British policies and eventually British rule. Through “correspondence”, the American colonists shared information (not so easy in those days), rallied support and organized their collective action, movement and resistance. In essence, the Committees of Correspondence had created a shadow government that had effectively dispensed with the British colonial administration even before the Revolution.
In this short video, Harvey Kaye, a guest scholar in our program, explains the British began to recognize, and worry, that the American colonists had, in fact, mounted a revolution without even firing a single shot:
Tap for more vidoes about the American Revolution.
About This Program
Analyzing American Revolution (AAR) is a special series podcast production of the History Behind News program. In this series, 33 professors (and counting) analyze the American Revolution from 33 different angles through in-depth interviews with host Adel Aali.
Themes of the Revolution
Tap below for a closer look at the Revolutionary Era themes we examine—and to meet our guest scholars.
Visit our Revolutionary Era Blog page for
- Interview Transcript Highlights
- Interview Image and Artist Highlights
- Quiz Answers and Backstories
Visual Index of the American Revolution
Explore the backstories and artist bios behind images of our Founding—before and after the American Revolution. These visuals shape how we remember—and reimagine—the Revolutionary Era.
Experienced Analysis of History
About HbN Program:
The History Behind News program (HbN) is committed to making in-depth history researched and written by scholars enjoyable and accessible to everyone. Our motto is bridging scholarly works to everyday news.
The histories we’ve uncovered encompass an impressively wide range of subjects from ancient history to U.S. politics and economy to race, women’s rights, immigration, climate, science, military, war, China, Europe, Middle East, Russia & Ukraine, Africa and the Americas to many other issues in the news. We also receive advanced copies of scholarly books and discuss them in our program (in the context of current news).
198 Scholars & Counting:
Our guests are scholars in prestigious institutions, such as Oxford, Yale, Caltech, Harvard, MIT, Stanford, the Hoover Institution, the American Enterprise Institute, Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, King’s College London, Princeton University, Notre Dame, Dartmouth College, Columbia University, the Atlantic Council, Duke, Amherst College, University of Michigan, Rhodes College, Emory University, Northwestern Law, Vanderbilt University, US Naval War College, Air Command and Staff College, Marine Corp University, US Army War College, UVA, Johns Hopkins, Cornell, NYU, Rice, University of Chicago, White House Historical Association, Baylor University, USC, UC Berkeley, UCSF, UCI, UCSD, UC Davis, UCR, Tel Aviv University, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the Israel Democracy Institute, University of Aberdeen, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, University of Navarra, University of Seville, Helsinki University, Diego Portales University (Chile), Lund University (Sweden), University of Edinburgh, Near East University (Türkiye), Cardiff University, the Free University of Berlin and many others.
They include Pulitzer Prize winners, renowned documentary producers, former White House advisors and other high-ranking government officials, and current and former senior reporters at The Wall Street Journal and New York Times Magazine. Many have testified in Congressional hearings and others frequently contribute to major media outlets and widely read publications, ranging from the BBC, NPR, PBS and MSNBC to The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.
Think You Know the American Revolution?
