Virtual Material Matters: It’s in the Details
The Fifteenth Annual “Material Matters: It’s in the Details” conference takes place virtually on January 24, 2026. We invite you to join us online for this conference on material culture spanning 1609-1815.
This conference is only available online through Fort Ticonderoga’s Center for Digital History, streaming through Zoom Webinars. A laptop, tablet, or smartphone is required to participate in the conference. Advanced registration is required. Registration is now open.
Participants will receive a Zoom link three days before the conference by email (a reminder link will be sent the morning of the conference as well). Participants are invited to ask questions of each presenter using the “Q&A” button in Zoom.
Schedule:
9:50am Welcome
10:00-10:30am “My dreadful mountain…”: Contemporary Remains of the Austrian Army’s Fortified Camp from 1762 in the Owl Mountains—After the Prussians’ victory in the Battle of Burkersdorf and Leutmannsdorf in July 1762, the main Austrian army retreated to the Owl Mountains on the border between Silesia and Bohemia, building a fortified camp, which existed there for the next six months. To this day, remains of this forgotten extensive complex can be found—both fortifications and soldiers’ campsites. These material traces compared with modern lidar scans of the terrain, archival documents, memoirs, and old maps and plans, allow us to recreate the layout of the entire defense position. The collected documentation may serve as a basis for future archaeological work in this area. Dawid Golik is a Polish historian and assistant professor at the Institute of History of the Jagiellonian University in Cracow.
10:45-11:15am A Casual Uniform: Two Unknown Rifle Shirts from the American War of Independence in German Collections—For more than 250 years, two rifle shirts have been stored unnoticed in Germany. Due to their simple design, they were not considered significant over time, as they do not correspond to the traditional, ornate uniforms. They are unique examples of the first American uniforms from the War of Independence, which were collected locally by German mercenaries. This lecture will present their collection history, construction, and use. Then the scope will be expanded to the first half of the 19th century to discuss their fashion influence, as rifle shirts were quickly adapted as outerwear by Indigenous peoples and frontier dwellers as well. Michael Galban is director of the Seneca Art & Culture Center at Ganondagan State Historic Site, NY. Nikolaus Stolle, Ph.D., is an independent researcher. Neal Hurst is the Curator of Textiles and Historic Dress at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
11:30am-12:00pm “Uniformly and decently dressed”: Constructing regimental and national identity in the British fencible regiments, 1793-1802—ln the 18th century, joining the British army meant leaving civilian life behind. Not only did one’s regiment provide a new uniform, dictating the iconography with which a soldier was now adorned, but the army itself provided a unique forum in which men from across the British Isles could meet and interact as equals. This talk considers how both these concepts were applied in the fencible regiments, a type of home defense regiment raised primarily in Scotland but popular across the British Isles, and how regimental and national communities were built through elements of military material culture. Rory Butcher has recently completed his doctoral studies at the University of Leeds and is in the final stages of publishing a volume about the fencibles for the Army Records Society.
12:00-12:30pm Lunch Break
12:30-1:15pm Bullet Strikes from the First Day of the American Revolution—In 2013, Joel Bohy began a collaboration with conflict archaeologist Dr. Douglas Scott to better understand the ammunition found during archaeological investigations on former battlegrounds. This morphed into live-fire research and the study of the extant battle-damaged structures and objects from April 19, 1775. From the Elisha Jones house in Concord, through Lexington and the Jason Russell house in Arlington, Massachusetts, they carefully studied all the surviving bullet strikes and bullet-struck objects. Using modern forensic techniques adapted to historical studies and live-fire validation, Bohy and Scott tell the story of the brutality of the fighting on the first day of the American Revolution as British forces retreated back to Boston. Joel Bohy is the owner of J. Bohy Historical Consulting, he is an arms & militaria specialist at Blackstone Valley Auctions, and an appraiser on the PBS TV series Antiques Roadshow.
1:30-2:00pm “A Convenient and Becoming Uniform”: Connecticut’s Militia Uniform 1793-1816—The state of Connecticut adopted a uniform for its militia in 1793, and during the following two decades it underwent several iterations which reflected the politics of the state, the needs of militiamen, and the taste of officers. Unlike with a standing military, each militiaman was encouraged and expected to provide himself with the uniform. Examining surviving militia coats and written sources, this paper explores how local and national politics ultimately shaped the design of clothing that a significant portion of the state’s population was compelled to wear. Matt Novosad is the Town Historian for Franklin, Connecticut.
2:15-2:45pm Pioneering Experiential History in Benson Lossing’s Pictorial Field-Book of the Revolution—This presentation examines how historian and entrepreneur Benson Lossing combined narrative, various types of landscape illustration, and directions for walking tours to enable readers to experience history and a renewed sense of national purpose in his guidebook to Revolutionary War sites along the Hudson River, published in 1851. It also addresses how Lossing appeals to readers concerned about rising secular ten-sions, tackles the challenge of battle sites devoid of visible markers of conflict, and incorporates the innovations of proto-cinematic art forms such as the moving panorama. Matt Johnston is a professor of art history at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon.
Teacher Scholarships
Fort Ticonderoga offers teacher scholarships for teachers who are first-time attendees at Material Matters.
