Join us for an unforgettable evening at the Making History Gala. Following a cocktail reception, guests will enjoy a delightful three-course dinner and an engaging speaking program with featured speaker Doris Kearns Goodwin.

Twenty years ago, in May 2004, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court’s ruling in Goodridge v. Dept. of Public Health legalizing same-sex marriage in Massachusetts took effect. The ruling made Massachusetts the first state to legalize gay marriage.  Mary Buonato, a civil rights advocate who has been working with GLAD since 1990, will discuss her role representing the couples in the Goodridge case. Professor Nancy Cott will explain the part that a historians’ amicus brief played in this case and others.  Former Chief Justice Margaret H. Marshall will discuss the import of Goodridge, as well as the reaction to it.  In conversation with MHS President Catherine Allgor, our speakers will reflect upon this landmark case, and the role historians may play in legal cases.

Did you know that Paul Revere never actually said “the British are coming” during his midnight ride to warn John Hancock and Samuel Adams about the British troop movements? In his letter to MHS Founder Jeremy Belknap, he expressed discretion about alerting his fellow Patriots by placing a signal lantern in the steeple of Old North Church to warn them of the British movements. The MHS will have the original Letter from Paul Revere to Jeremy Belknap, circa 1798 on display during this event. Come see it for yourself!

Cultural shifts and updated curatorial standards have influenced current ideas about what is appropriate to discuss and display in museums and historical organizations. Increasingly, journalists, critics, scholars, and the public are approaching museum exhibitions with a more critical eye as to which stories organizations choose to interpret as well as those that are absent. Join us as MHS President Catherine Allgor moderates a conversation among representatives from Historic New England and the Peabody Essex Museum, about the curatorial decision-making process on how to tell difficult histories. Speakers will touch on debates about displaying controversial objects and speak to how their institutions use exhibitions as a tool to facilitate discussion. 

Professor Richardson teaches nineteenth-century American history at both the undergraduate and the graduate level. Her early work focused on the transformation of political ideology from the Civil War to the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt. It examined issues of race, economics, westward expansion, and the construction of the concept of an American middle class. Her history of the Republican Party, To Make Men Free (2014) examines the fundamental tensions in American politics from the time of the Northwest Ordinance to the present. She is currently working on an intellectual history of American politics and a graphic treatment of the Reconstruction Era.

Policy makers and medical advisors faced unprecedented challenges as they struggled to balance public health and economic impact. As hospitals filled up and downtowns emptied, people looked to experts to chart a course through unknown waters. As the pandemic dragged on, the questions of the economic impact on shuttered businesses and the mental health impact on isolated students and people of all ages became more of a challenge. Join some of the top experts in Massachusetts who have been working to make these difficult policy decisions.