Join Reference Librarian Lauren Gray for a gallery talk on the exhibition "1775: Rebels, Rights & Revolution," which charts major Massachusetts events in the first year of the American Revolution. Lauren will delve into the impact of the Battles of Lexington and Concord using related exhibition items. Visitors are invited to explore the rest of the exhibition and ask questions.

Join Reference Librarian Lauren Gray for a gallery talk on the exhibition "1775: Rebels, Rights & Revolution," which charts major Massachusetts events in the first year of the American Revolution. Lauren will delve into the impact of the Battles of Lexington and Concord using related exhibition items. Visitors are invited to explore the rest of the exhibition and ask questions.

John Quincy Adams (1767–1848) went everywhere, and he left an incredible paper trail to show for it. Go around the world with the Adams Papers editors in one history-filled night at the MHS. Visit the moments and manuscripts that cemented JQA as a statesman, a president, an anti-slavery crusader, and a public servant in the family tradition. Join us for JQA’s guide to a world gone by.

Join us for a performance and panel considering cultural practices the Asian American and Pacific Islander diaspora have created in Massachusetts. Speakers will discuss what traditions their families brought to Massachusetts and how these intermingled with other cultures to form new rituals. They will also examine what has been lost and the challenges that prevented certain customs from continuing in new environments.

Lafayette’s tour of the United States in 1824-5 resulted in the production of objects—ceramics, textiles, prints, among others—all emblazoned with his name and visage.  But like Lafayette himself, French impact on material culture dates to the American Revolution.  Join us as Ashli White examines the influence of various French things on political movements throughout the revolutionary Atlantic world and considers how diverse populations turned to these items as part of their attempts to realize liberty and equality.

Join Chief Historian, Peter Drummey, for a gallery talk on the exhibition, 1775: Rebels, Rights & Revolution, which charts major Massachusetts events in the first year of the American Revolution. Peter will discuss the impact of the Battle of Bunker Hill using related exhibition items. Visitors are invited to explore the rest of the exhibition and ask questions. 

Join Chief Historian, Peter Drummey, for a gallery talk on the exhibition, 1775: Rebels, Rights & Revolution, which charts major Massachusetts events in the first year of the American Revolution. Peter will discuss the impact of the Battle of Bunker Hill using related exhibition items. Visitors are invited to explore the rest of the exhibition and ask questions. 

The American Revolution had a profound impact on families, with some ideas and experiences dramatically altered and some surprisingly durable. Conflicting beliefs about the future of the nation caused familial rifts, and many lost friends and loved ones to battle and plunder. Enslaved people simultaneously broadened ideas about family in response to the violence of slavery and evaluated whether independence would keep their kin safer from future violence. Gender roles were both everchanging in the circumstances of war as women ran businesses, handled material needs of war, and faced new childcare situations, but also remained constant in many ways. As a result of change and continuity, families included stepfamilies and single parents, relationships across plantations, and transcended biological connections. In this program, panelists will consider how the American Revolution both disrupted family arrangements and brought new formations of kinship while retaining many of the same structures.

In her book We Refuse, historian Kellie Carter Jackson examines the breadth of Black responses to white oppression, particularly those pioneered by Black women.  Force—from work stoppages and property destruction to armed revolt—has played a pivotal part in securing freedom and justice for Black people since the days of the American and Haitian Revolutions. In conversation with Kanisorn Wongsrichanalai, Carter Jackson will discuss force alongside other vital tactics that have shaped the Black struggle, from the restorative power of finding joy in the face of suffering to the quiet strength of simply walking away. 

Over the spring and summer of 1775, revolutionary committees in small towns and rural communities took charge of the revolutionary movement.  In the chaos that followed the battles of Lexington and Concord, thousands of farmers, lawyers, ministers, shopkeepers, and artisans all over British North America reluctantly took up the reins of power in their communities. Exercising emergency civil powers, they established a rudimentary form of revolutionary government in place of the ousted colonial regimes. Local committeemen organized and equipped vast new revolutionary armies, collected taxes, drove out perceived enemies, and maintained what semblance they could of legal procedure. By the end of 1775, the local committees had succeeded in establishing a fragile but effective revolutionary authority that supplanted imperial government in all but a few isolated pockets of the thirteen now-former colonies.

The war that we now call the American Revolution was not only fought in the colonies with muskets and bayonets. On both sides of the Atlantic, artists armed with paint, canvas, and wax played an integral role in forging revolutionary ideals. Join us, as Zara Anishanslin charts the intertwined lives of three such figures who dared to defy the British monarchy: Robert Edge Pine, Prince Demah, and Patience Wright. From London to Boston, from Jamaica to Paris, from Bath to Philadelphia, these largely forgotten patriots boldly risked their reputations and their lives to declare independence.

Many of us give only a moment’s thought about the environment when considering the War of Independence: the slope of Breed’s Hill, the ice-choked Delaware River, and diseases such as smallpox. But what might we gain by connecting biology, ecology, and geology to the thinking and actions of soldiers and civilians? Rebels and British soldiers acquired and used energy in the form of food, fuel, and work animals, which shaped people’s lives, the course of the war, and the direction of environmental change. Join us as David Hsiung, in conversation with Joyce Chaplin, discusses the intricate and often surprising ways in which the natural environment and the war changed each other.

David Rubenstein is one of the most trusted voices in the investment world. He is the CEO of the Major League Baseball team the Baltimore Orioles and the Chairman of the Boards of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Council on Foreign Relations, the National Gallery of Art, the Economic Club of Washington, and the University of Chicago, among other philanthropic endeavors. In How to Invest: Masters on the Craft, Rubenstein interviews the biggest names in finance to discover the time-tested principles, hard-earned wisdom, and indispensable tools that guide their practice.​

In her book We Refuse, historian Kellie Carter Jackson examines the breadth of Black responses to white oppression, particularly those pioneered by Black women.  Force—from work stoppages and property destruction to armed revolt—has played a pivotal part in securing freedom and justice for Black people since the days of the American and Haitian Revolutions. In conversation with Kanisorn Wongsrichanalai, Carter Jackson will discuss force alongside other vital tactics that have shaped the Black struggle, from the restorative power of finding joy in the face of suffering to the quiet strength of simply walking away. 

At the end of the American Revolution, Elizabeth Freeman was an enslaved widow and mother living in Massachusetts. Hearing the words of the new Mass. state constitution which declared liberty and equality for all, she sought the help of a young lawyer named Theodore Sedgwick, later Speaker of the House and one of America's leading Federalist politicians. The lawsuit that she and Sedgwick pursued would bring freedom to her and her daughter, as well as thousands of other enslaved people. Freeman left her enslaver to be employed by Sedgwick. After Sedgwick's wife, Pamela, became a chronic invalid, Freeman effectively became the foster mother to his seven children, enabling him to pursue a political career. Join us online as author Donna Tesiero details Elizabeth Freeman's life and the far-reaching influence of her battle for freedom. 

How and why did Boston’s parks come to be? What did they mean to those who created them? How have they changed over time? In this public presentation, Professor Andrew Robichaud and students from Boston University will present rare archival items from the Massachusetts Historical Society related to these questions, shedding new light on the Boston Common, Louisburg Square, Commonwealth Avenue, Franklin Park, the Victory Gardens, and more. Light refreshments will be served after the presentations.

In recognition of her career as an essayist and award-winning author, Stacy Schiff will be presented with the William Hickling Prescott Award for Excellence in Historical Writing by the The National Society of The Colonial Dames of America in Massachusetts and the Massachusetts Historical Society. In a conversation following the award presentation, Schiff and interlocutor Megan Marshall will discuss how authors approach wide-ranging subject matter, the process of writing biographies, and the importance of archives such as the MHS.

Making the Presidency is a captivating and authoritative account of John Adams’s presidency, exploring how Adams shaped the highest office and ensured the survival of the American republic. The quixotic and stubborn Adams would rely on his ideas about executive power, the Constitution, politics, and the state of the world to navigate the hurdles of the position. He defended the presidency from his own obstructionist cabinet, protected the nation from foreign attacks, and forged trust and dedication to election integrity…at the cost of his political future.