Although 250 years have passed since the Battle of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775, local schoolchildren will soon be experiencing that major moment in American history firsthand. 

Thanks in part to Kim Frederick, AG99, students will explore the history of the Revolutionary War through powder horns, wearable purses, homespun fabric, and other artifacts designed to turn classrooms into living museums.

Frederick is a history teacher at Concord Academy and a member of the Concord 250 Committee, a group formed to develop programs and events commemorating the anniversary. As part of the committee’s History and Education Subcommittee, Frederick has been at the heart of a multi-year initiative to create “Revolutionary Trunks” for use in Bay State classrooms this fall. These compact kits are filled with tactile primary source materials and ready-to-use curricula. Designed for grades 3, 5, and 7 (with emphasis on the fifth grade, during which the Revolution features prominently in the Massachusetts curriculum), the trunks are the result of a robust collaboration among educators, historians, and museum professionals.

“The 250th anniversary is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to refresh how we teach the war,” Frederick explains. “We knew teachers would be looking for new materials because the anniversary is a big deal, and we thought: here’s a chance to bring more recent research into the way the story gets told.”

The trunks combine material culture with updated narratives—an attempt to move beyond textbooks and bring in perspectives rooted in contemporary scholarship. That includes questioning simplistic hero narratives, weaving in stories of the contributions of enslaved and free African Americans, and empowering teachers with hands-on tools and historical context to which they might not otherwise have access.

“We designed [the Revolutionary Trunk] to be ready for the classroom right out of the box,” Frederick says. “Teachers can open the trunk and have everything they need—the curriculum, the objects, the pedagogical guidance … It’s experiential, and it’s also accessible.”

Each trunk includes a curated collection of objects—like the powder horns or swatches of homespun fabric—paired with lesson plans and activity guides created by public-school educators from Concord and nearby communities including Boston, Lowell, and Lawrence, among others. The development process itself was a form of experiential learning: these teachers from Concord and beyond gathered over two summers to test materials, refine ideas, and build the components from the ground up. 

“It was an incredible collaboration,” Frederick says. “We weren’t just designing resources; we were creating a framework for how to teach this history in a way that’s meaningful and inclusive.”

“Making History Live”

Frederick’s role in the 250th commemoration extends beyond the classroom. As part of the Concord 250 Committee, she’s also supporting an ambitious effort to identify every individual with ties to the town during the Revolutionary era—whether they lived in Concord, served in the militia, or were otherwise connected to the pivotal (and famous) role that the town played in 1775.

“The research is meticulous,” Frederick says, “and it’s uncovering powerful and often overlooked stories.”

For example, toward the end of the war, people could hire substitutes to take their place in the army. That led to African Americans—many of whom were enslaved—joining the military in large numbers, explains Frederick. She points to the example of Caesar Robbins, an enslaved man from Chelmsford who gained his freedom by fighting in the war before settling in Concord. 

Frederick is intimately familiar with such stories in part because she serves on the board of the Robbins House, a museum and interpretive center dedicated to African-American history in the area.

This view of the Revolution—one that goes beyond muskets and minutemen to include the full spectrum of human experience—is at the heart of her work. It's also an extension of what she learned as a graduate student at Tufts, where she studied with Virginia Drachman and the late historian Gerald Gill. “They taught me how to think like a historian,” she recalls, “but also how to think about doing history in public—how to make it live.”

Musicals, Maps, and Making Meaning

Frederick’s commitment to public history has transformed her classroom into a laboratory for creative engagement. Over the years, she’s led students in designing augmented-reality walking tours of Concord and investigating the history of the Concord Academy grounds. At other times she has trained students to be tour guides for the town of Concord.

This fall, she’s taking it up a notch: her students will research, write, and stage a historical musical about Concord’s role in the Revolution. Inspired by shows like Hamilton and 1776, the project combines primary-source analysis with songwriting, historical interpretation, and theater.

One planned song centers on the Bliss siblings—an historical Concord family divided by their loyalties during the war. “One brother supported independence; the other was a Tory who had to flee town,” Frederick explains. “We want the students to wrestle with what those arguments meant, and why ordinary people made such extraordinary choices.”

That kind of reflection is at the core of Frederick’s vision for the 250th: using history not to reinforce comforting myths, but to illuminate real experiences—and offer insight into the present.

“I want students to understand that history isn't just about what happened—it’s about how we choose to remember and interpret it,” she says. “When they see themselves as part of that process, it builds civic agency. It helps them realize that the work of shaping a democracy didn’t stop in 1775. It continues with them.”