This Week @ MHS

By Elaine Grublin

As the weather warms up, plan a trip to Boston and stop in at 1154 Boylston Street for one of our exciting events this week.

On Tuesday, 12 April 2011 we have two events that are free and open to the public.  Our lunchtime program, A Crisis in Leadership: Massachusetts on the Eve of Civil War, is at look at John A. Andrew’s early months as governor of Massachusetts as he balances his personal beliefs, his political allies & foes, and the best interests of the country in the tumultous time between his inauguration in January 1861 and the attack on Fort Sumter in April 1861.  This one hour program starts at 12:00 and is presented by MHS staff members Jayne Gordon, Kathleen Barker, and Elaine Grublin.  Tuesday evening at 5:15 PM the Boston Environmental History Seminar brings James C. O’Connell of the National Park Service to the MHS to discuss his paper “Smart Growth In Massachusetts.”  This paper includes material from O’Connell’s book project on Boston’s suburban development, 1800-2010, and focuses on the history of smart growth in metropolitan Boston. Sam Bass Warner of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology will give the comment.

On Thursday evening at 5:15 PM, Sarah Pearsall, Oxford Brookes University, presents her paper  “‘To give up having many wives’: The Politics of Polygamy in Colonial North America”
as part of the Boston Early American History Seminar series.  Lisa Wilson of Connecticut College will give the comment. 

As always advanced copies of the seminar papers are available for a small subscription fee. 

And on Saturday 16 April the weekly building tour, The History and Collections of the MHS, returns.  This 90 minute tour starts in the MHS lobby at 10:00 AM. 

Posted in This Week @MHS

Photography Fun @ the MHS

By Elaine Grublin

This week members of the MHS staff had fun playing in our daguerreotype studio.

Come on in and join the fun by visiting History Drawn with Light: Early Photographs from the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, an exhibition currently on view at the MHS.  

The exhibition is open to the public Monday through Saturday, 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM.   Bring your camera and strike your own pose.  

 

     

  

Posted in Uncategorized Tagged

Welcome to Short-Term Fellow Laura Prieto

By Anna J. Cook

This spring, the MHS staff  welcomes short-term fellow Laura Prieto, one of our 2010-2011 Ruth R & Alyson R. Miller fellows in women’s history. Dr. Prieto is an Associate Professor of History and Women’s and Gender Studies at Simmons College here in Boston. She received her Ph.D. in History from Brown University in 1998, and her dissertation on professional women artists in the United States, 1830-1930, has been published as the book At Home in the Studio: The Professionalization of Women Artists in America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001).

In addition her work on women artists, Dr. Prieto has done extensive research on gender, race, and imperialism during the past ten years.  Her MHS fellowship project, “New Women, New Empire: 1898 and its Legacies for Women in the United States” is a part of this research.  During her fellowship, Dr. Prieto will be exploring the “real and imagined collection relationship between American and colonized women,” with a focus on the Spanish-American war and the immediate post-war period, as the U.S. began to realize imperial ambitions.  She will be reading the private writing of women (correspondence and diaries) on the “splendid little war”, as well as newspaper coverage and the more public responses to the war made by public figures such as Charles Francis Adams and by leaders in the Anti-Imperialist League.

Laura Prieto will give a brown bag lunch talk about her research at the MHS on Wednesday 4 May from 12:00-1:00pm. The event is free and open to the public.

The MHS staff is pleased to have Dr. Prieto with us throughout the spring and wishes her a fellowship period full of discoveries.

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This Week @ MHS

By Elaine Grublin

It is another week filled with exciting programs at the MHS.  There is a little something for everyone this week, so plan to stop in for at least one event.

On Wednesday, 6 April we have two events.  At noon current MHS/NEH long-term fellow Dr. Linford Fisher presents  “The Land of the Unfree: Africans, Indians, and the Varieties of Slavery and Servitude in Colonial New England,” a brown-bag lunch program centered on the research he has conducted while in residence at the MHS.  For those new to the MHS brown-bag series, the program is typically a 25 minute presentation followed by a question and answer session.  Attendees can bring their lunch and we provide the beverages.  The program is free an open to the public. 

Between lunch and dinner on Wednesday we make the long jump from Colonial America to the 20th & 21st centuries with the next installment in our “Dangers and Denials” Conversation Series.  James Kloppenberg of Harvard University will be discussing his latest book, Reading Obama: Dreams, Hope, and the American Political Tradition.  The conversation, facilitated by Steve Marini of Wellesley College begins at 6:00 PM. There will be a brief reception prior to the program beginning at 5:30. This program is also free and open to the public.

Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, 7 – 9 April, the MHS hosts the conference What’s New about the New Immigration to the U.S.? Traditions and Transformations since 1965, presented with the generous support of The Lowell Institute.  The conference begins with the keynote address “U.S. Refugee Policy in the Post-Cold War Era: Balancing Humanitarian Obligations and Security Concerns” delivered by Professor Maria Cristina Garcia, Cornell University, on Thursday at 6:00 PM and continues with full days of programming on Friday & Saturday.  Registration is required for conference attendance.

There is no Saturday tour this week.  The tour will return on Saturday, 16 April.

 

Posted in This Week @MHS

Looking at the Civil War

By Elaine Grublin

Have you seen this month’s selection in Looking at the Civil War: Massachusetts Finds Her Voice, our monthly feature showcasing Civil War-era materials from the Massachusetts Historical Society’s rich collections?  If not, you should definitely take a look.

This month we feature an eight page letter written on 28 April 1861 by Charles Bower, a man from Concord, MA, who served protecting the federal capital with the Fifth Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Militia from May to July 1861.  The letter is a detailed description of Bowers’ journey from Concord to Washington — a journey that took nine days — with the Fifth.  Along the way Bowers’ travels by foot, train, and ship and makes a few interesting stops.  

If this is your first time visiting our Civil War feature, you can also browse the archive to see the items posted in January, February, and March.  

Posted in From Our Collections