By Dan Hinchen
This week’s events round-up is a bit top-heavy with four events in three days. Kicking things off on Monday, 14 July, is a Brown Bag lunch talk that begins at noon. Stop by with your lunch and listen as Jonathan Koefoed presents “Cautious Romantics: The Dana Family of Boston as the Interpretive Key to a Larger Discourse.” With this project, Koefoed hopes to provide a fuller picture of the way that European Romantic texts functioned in American intellectual, cultural, and religious history by highlighting a group of “Cautious Romantics” that emerged as an alternative and conservative Romantic religious tradition in America between 1800 and the late 19th century. The program focuses on how the Dana Family functions as a critical lens through which one can view the large Cautious Romantic discourse. This program is free and open to the public.
On Tuesday, 15 July, is another Brown Bag lunch talk, this time presented by Mark Thompson of the University of Groningen. “Land, Liberty, & Property: Surveyors and the Production of Empire in British North America” examines the land surveyor as a key figure in early America – instrumental in everything form makring colonial boundaries to measuring the smallest parcel of a farmer’s land. Adapting European methods to American conditions, surveyors drafted a “creole science” that served the demands of imperial authorities and common settlers alike. Together they transformed land into liberty, property, and territorial empire. This talk begins at noon and is free and open to the public.
Also on Tuesday is a rare summer evening event. “‘What is Focus?’ Margaret Hall’s Battle Country” is an author talk featuring Margaret R. Higonnet, editor of the forthcoming MHS publication Letters and Photographs from the Battle Country: The World War I Memoir of Margaret Hall. Higonnet is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Connecticut, an affiliate at Harvard’s Center for European Studies, and has published extensively on gender and World War I. Providing comment during the talk are Susan Solomon and Suzanne Diefenbach. Solomon, of Boğaziçi University, Istanbul, will comment on her research into the life and photographs of Hall. Diefenbach, great niece of Margaret Hall, will share recollections of “Aunts” and life with her at Paradise Hill Farm in Hull, Massachusetts. This event is open to the public but registration is required at no cost. Register online or call the MHS reservations line at 617-646-0560. Pre-talk reception begins at 5:30PM and the talk begins at 6:00PM.
The next day, Wednesday, 16 July, there is a third Brown Bag lunch talk. In this installment, Laurie Dickmeyer, University of California, presents “Americans in Chinese Treaty Ports: Trade and Diplomacy in Nineteenth-Century U.S. – China Relations.” With this project, Dickmeyer explores the changing texture and relationship of trade and diplomacy between American and Chinese traders and diplomats from 1784 to the 1860s. This talk will present an overview of the project but will focus on findings from traders’ records at the MHS. The talk is open to the public and begins at noon.
And on Saturday, 19 July, is another free public tour. Beginning at 10:00AM, The History and Collections of the MHS is a 90-minute, docent-led tour of the Society’s historic building and touches on the art, architecture, history, and collections of the Society. The tour is free and open to the public and no reservations are required for individuals or small groups. Parties of 8 or more should contact the MHS prior to attending a tour. For more information please contact Curator of Art Anne Bentley at 617-646-0508 orabentley@masshist.org.
Finally, remember that our current exhibition is open to the public free of charge. “Letters and Photographs from the Battle Country: Massachusetts Women in the First World War” features photographs, letters, diaries, and memorabilia related to Margaret Hall and Eleanor (Nora) Saltonstall, Red Cross volunteers in France. This exhibit commemorates the centennial of the outbreak of World War I and celebrates the forthcoming MHS publication Letters and Photographs from the Battle Country: The World War I Memoir of Margaret Hall. The exhibit is open Monday-Saturday, 10:00AM-4:00PM until 24 January 2015.