By Dan Hinchen
It is time again to check out what events are on tap this week at the Historical Society.
First, on Tuesday, 5 March 2013, join us for our latest in the Early American History Seminar series. Presenting “Blood in the Water: The Pequot War, Kieft’s War, and the Contagion of Coastal Violence,” Andrew Lipman of Syracuse University examines the links between the Anglo-Indian conflict in 1636-1637 and the Dutch-Indian conflict of 1643-1645. The paper deals with the larger implications of seeing these two wars as tandem events and viewing New England and New Netherland as part of a single contested region. Comment will be provided by Katherine Grandjean, Wellesley College. Seminars are free and open to the public though RSVP is required. Subscribe to receive advance copies of the seminar papers.
On Wednesday, 6 March 2013, there will be two events to take advantage of at the Society. Pack a lunch and come by at 12:00pm for a Brown Bag discussion. Independent researcher Charles Wyzanski will share information about his research into the papers of his father when he presents “Charles E. Wyzanski, Jr.: Lawyer, Judge, Public Citizen in Massachusetts and Beyond.” In 1927, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes encouraged the subject to “…realize that every detail has the mystery of the universe behind it and keep up [his] heart with undying faith.” Throughout his life, Mr. Wyzanski, Jr. carried out the advice and had a large influence on the legal, political, intellectual, and moral life of his times, until his death in 1986.
And on Wednesday evening the MHS will present “Walking the Great Beach with a Volume of the MHS ‘Collections’ in Hand,” the next event in the “Object of History” series.This conversation series, hosted by MHS Librarian Peter Drummey, looks at various documents and artifacts from the collections of the Society to see what they can tell us about the characters, events, and issues of the past and the role of the Society in documenting them. In Henry David Thoreau’s Cape Cod, the author describes using an early MHS publication as a sort of antiquarian travel guide — a way of looking back on the landscape he traversed as it had been described almost 50 years earlier. What did the founders of the MHS set out to print and what have later generations made of our early publications? There will be a pre-talk reception starting at 5:30pm with the event kicking-off at 6:00pm. Registration is required and there is a fee for this event. Please contact the education department at 617-646-0557 / education@masshist.org.
Finally, do not forget about the three exhibits currently on display. First is “Proclaim Liberty Throughout All the Land: Boston Abolitionists, 1831-1865.” Through various artifacts, manuscripts, and photographs related to the abolitionist movement, this exhibit demonstrates how Boston emerged as a center for the national antislavery movement in the decades leading up to the Civil War. Included in the display are examples of William Lloyd Garrison’s, the Liberator, the country’s leading abolitionist newspaper, published in Boston beginning in 1831. Also illustrated is the fierce resistance that this radical movement received, not only from Southern slaveholders, but from Northerners, as well.
Complementing this new exhibit are two minor exhibitions that spotlight Abraham Lincoln and the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, an event that occurred on the first day of the new year exactly 150 years ago. All of these exhibits are free and open to the public with opening hours Monday-Saturday, 10:00am-4:00pm. All three will be on view until 24 May 2013.