By Dan Hinchen

There is rain on the horizon as we start this week at the MHS. Why not duck into the Society to get out of the rain and take part in some of our public programs?

On Wednesday of this week, 13 August, we have a Brown Bag lunch talk beginning at noon. This time around, Serena Zabin of Carleton College presents “Military Wives in Eighteenth-Century Boston.” When British troops came to Boston in 1768, hundreds of army wives and children came with them. At the time, Boston newspapers exclaimed in horror at the arrival of these army women, referring to them as the “dregs and refuse of all nations.” Yet tantalizing hints in the diaries of Massachusetts militia and provincial soldiers suggest that during the campaigns in 1745 to Louisburg and throughout the Seven Years War, women may have occasionally also accompanied Massachusetts troops. If so, some Boston women may themselves have once been military wives, a possibility that no historian has ever considered, and one that might explain some of the relationships that came to develop between British regulars and Boston civilians in the months preceding the Boston Massacre. This talk is free and open to the public.

And on Friday there is another Brown Bag talk, again at noon. Bring a lunch and listen to Brenton Grom of Case Western Reserve University as he discusses “The Death and Transfiguration of New England Psalmody, ca.1790-1860.” The robust culture of psalm- and hymn-singing that flourished in Revolutionary New England became subject to Europeanizing reforms after the turn of the nineteenth century. Introducing these reform efforts as instances of political and theological ideology operating within a larger discourse of refinement, this presentation focuses on their surprisingly variable reception as revealed in copybooks and marginalia. It furthermore considers Victorian values of home, sentiment, and historical memory as masks for the retention of outmoded musical styles in later years.

Also going on this week is the third in a series of two-day teacher workshops, this time taking place in Falmouth, Mass. on Wednesday and Thursday, 13-14 August. Learn more about “Old Towns/New Country: The First Years of a New Nation” on our website, including information about the final session which will take place in Framingham, Mass. on 26-27 September.

Finally, do not forget about our ongoing exhibition, “Letters and Photographs from the Battle Country: Massachusetts Women in World War I,” on view Monday-Saturday, 10:00AM-4:00PM. And come in for “The History and Collections of the MHS,” a free tour of the Society’s building on Saturday, 16 August.