Gertrude Codman Carter’s Diary, September 1917

By Anna Clutterbuck-Cook, Reader Services

Today we return to the 1917 diary of Gertrude Codman Carter. You may read the previous entries here:

Introduction | January | February | March | April | May

June | July | August

September’s entries are heavily illustrated with drawings and photographs. Having just moved into Ilaro, Gertrude supervises continued construction at the site while managing the household in her husband’s absence. Domestic drama includes the “letting go” of a servant who “couldn’t stand the stairs” of the new residence, and the hiring of a replacement — actions that do not endear Gertrude to her staff.

The war intrudes on the household once again as Gertrude receives a letter from the Colonial Secretary’s office with instruction for the conscription of her automobile in the event of an attack by the enemy. Amidst it all, Gertude continues to live a life of social obligation and voluntary labor as part of the Self-Help group and other island committees.

* * *

Sept 1.

Sent Barbara $50.

Moved into Ilaro. Toppin & Small, Edith & Norah & Ada, who couldn’t stand the stairs after all. We had our first dinner there on the marble verandah & it was quite lovely.

 

Sept 2.

Unpacked & tried to feel settled. John & I slept in the [illegible] room. Such fun.

 

Sept 3.

Rising bell at 7 a.m. & the house full up with very busy workmen,clanging & banging, sawing and jawing, [missing fragment], taping & scraping, patching & scratching, latching & detaching whatever was wrong, which happened after.

Our meal was rather full of coral dust but Topping was zealous & managed quite wonderfully for his age.

 

Sept 4.

Marked out servants quarters.

Mrs. Skeet came by to look at it.

I stopped at Charles Hayes at 6.30 and dined with Mrs. DaCosta.

 

Sept 5.

These little figures were made for a scale model of Ilaro, to gauge the height and width of doors.

Sept 6.

10.30 Civic Circle met at [illegible] Park.

 

Sept 7.

Called Chelston for washing. Gave up Ada & hired Rosina, a girl of the Cawfields. This, it appears, was considered by everyone below stairs as a fearful faux pas. I got no less than three anonymous letters on the subject, which outraged Bailey beyond measure.

 

Sept 8.

John began a letter & headed it “Ilaro Court limited.”

“What does it mean, John?” — “Oh – just what it means on the honey bottle!”

 

Sept 9.

Laddie to tea & a little [illegible] out. He is very appreciative of my powers as an architect.

 

Sept 10.

Miss Hatfield called about the Easter Féte for my advice. I became a sort of unofficial Chairman of the Committee & advised in a Sybelline manner.

 

Sept 11.

To photographer with John. [illegible] had sticks — both of them.

 

John Carter

 

4.30 to bathe at Mrs. Harold Whytes.

 

12 Sept.

Self-Help meeting

Miss [illegible] again.

Laddie later for a spin.

 

13 Sept.

[entry obscured by a typescript letter from the Colonial Secretary’s Office]

 

CONFIDENTIAL.

CIRCULAR.

No. 19.

 

Colonial Secretary’s Office, Barbados.

14th September 1917.

 

Madam,

I am directed by the Governor to inform you that the Defence Committee will require transport facilities for the Defence Force in case of enemy attack. On the “Alarm” being sounded you are requested to send your motor car No. M158 to [illegible] where it will be available for use in accordance with order issued by the officers of the Force.

2. A driver, and the necessary supply of Petrol, spare tyres, etc. should be available with the car.

3. The Government undertake to recommend to the Legislature that compensation be paid for damage caused by enemy action.

4. The “alarm” consists of the firing of five rockets from the Harbour Police Station, and the firing of powder charges from two 9 pounder guns, at the Garrison and the Reef respectively.

5. The Defence Committee’s recommendations are based on the assumption that you will readily co-operate with them in arranging transport facilities in case of attack. His Excellency has therefore asked me to obtain from you a statement to the effect that you have made arrangement of a kind to ensure prompt dispatch of the car whenever the “Alarm” is sounded.

I have the honor to be,

Madam,

Your most obedient servant,

T.E. Fell,

Colonial Secretary.

 

Sept 14.

Ditto.

“Toppin. Five minutes before the arrival of the Gubernatorial Party.”

 

Sept 15

The Probyns came to see the house.

 

Sept 16.

Mr & Mrs [illegible] to see house.

I dined at the Laurie Piles.

 

Sept 17.

Auction inspection.

I dined at the Harold Whytes’ – a most amusing evening. Harold Whyte & Laddy & Mr Fell played an uproarious game of bridge in which they were respectfully alluded to as the army, the vestry, and the government & every now and then a large land crab would come in & sport about the floor. I took Mr Fell & Colonel Humphreys home & my car began to wheeze just after that & I found that it was in for a long illness this time.

 

Sept 18.

Mrs [illegible] came & fetched up & took me back to Brittons for bitters.

 

Sept 19.

Hired a car & took Mrs. Carpenter to an auction in the country. We had a picnic lunch. Great fun.

 

Sept 27.

Mrs Humphreys & Doreen to tea. Rained heavily & we had no where to go but in & then it was only a courtyard.

I dined with the [illegible]. Jolly evening.

 

Sept 28.

Busy on the house.

Laddy telephoned.

 

 

Sept 29.

[illegible]. Laddy had a picnic & took me to Bleak House. Had [illegible] drove Mrs Carpenter. We had bitters & sandwiches & a great time.

 

Sept 30.

Laddie drove me out to the Charlie Haynes’. After dinner we worked all of us on the [illegible]. We saw Lady [illegible] toes out of the window!

 

* * *

As always, if you are interested in viewing the diary or letters yourself, in our library, or have other questions about the collection please visit the library or contact a member of the library staff for further assistance.

 

Posted in From Our Collections

This Week @ MHS

By Dan Hinchen

The Irish Atlantic has set sail to make way for our next exhibit, Yankees in the West, which opens to the public on Friday, 6 October. In the meantime, there are plenty of events on the agenda at the Society, including a return of our several seminar series. Here is what to expect in the coming week:

– Tuesday, 26 September, 5:15PM : The first Modern American Society and Culture seminar of the season is titled “Lost Cities of Chicago’s South Side.” This essay comes from a book-in-progress about Chicago’s South Shore neighborhood by Carlo Rotella of Boston College. Over the past half-century, the area has gradually shifted toward a class system of haves and have-nots separated by an increasing divide. Samuel Zipp of Brown University provides comment for the discussion. Seminars are free and open to the public; RSVP required. Subscribe to receive advance copies of the seminar papers. To RSVP, click the link or call (617)-646-0579.

– Wednesday, 27 September, 12:00PM : Pack a lunch and stop by for a Brown Bag lunch talk with Laurel Daen, MHS-NEH Fellow, as she talks about “The Constitution of Disability in the Early United States.” This project examines the development of disability as a meaningful bureaucratic, legal, institutional, and cultural category in the Early Republic, rooted in ideas about work, social worth, and economic independence, and increasinly determined by the expert discourse of medicine. This talk is free and open to the public. 

– Wednesday, 27 September, 6:00PM : Donna Lucey of the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities discusses her recently published work Sargent’s Women: Four Lives Behind the Canvas in this author talk of the same name. This biography illuminates four extraordinary women painted by the iconic high-society portraitist John Singer Sargent. These compelling stories of female courage connect our past with our present and remind us that while women live differently now, they still face obstacles to attaining full equality. This talk is open to the public, registration required with a fee of $10 (no charge for MHS Members or Fellows). Pre-talk reception begins at 5:30PM, followed by the speaking program at 6:00PM. 

– Thursday, 28 September, 6:00PM : Area gradute students and faculty are invited to attend our annual Graduate Student Reception. Enjoy complimentary drinks and hors d’oeuvres as you meet students and professors from other universities working in your field. In addition to networking is the opportunity learn more about the Society and its collections as well as the resources available to support your scholarship, from research fellowships to our five different seminar series. This reception is free but we ask that you RSVP by September 27 by e-mailing seminars@masshist.org or calling (617) 646-0579.

– Saturday, 30 September, 1:00PM : “Begin at the Beginning – Violence, Disease, and Public Medicine during the Pequot and King Philip’s Wars.” This interactive talk by Kevin McBride, director of research at the Pequot Museum, and Ashley Bissonnette, Pequot Museum senior researcher, reveals how New England’s landscapes were far more heavily contested than previously thought, exploring the reality of the Pequot and King Philip’s Wars. In addition, they will discuss the beginning of public health in the colonies. RSVP required for this event at no cost. 

Posted in This Week @MHS

Who is J. Gibbs?

By Susan Martin, Collection Services

The Massachusetts Historical Society recently received a donation of William Gray Brooks family papers, primarily correspondence on genealogical subjects. It’s a terrific collection of letters from some of the leading lights of the 19th century, including Charles Francis Adams, Edward Everett, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Eliza Susan Quincy, and many others. This new acquisition complements other MHS collections related to Brooks and his family.

I was intrigued, however, by additional material that came to us as part of the collection, namely 22 issues of a family “newspaper” called “The One Hoss Shay.” The newspapers were handwritten by J. Gibbs of Brookline, Mass. and reproduced on a hectograph.

 

“The One Hoss Shay” contains light-hearted poems, stories, illustrations, jokes, announcements, reviews, etc., written by Gibbs and others, and it makes for some very fun reading. Here’s one of the better limericks:

There was a young man of Bombay

Excessively fond of croquet,

But when he got beat,

He would beat a retreat

And show himself no more that day.

 

Sandwiched between articles are editorial asides by Gibbs.

We wish to apologise for the condition of our hectograph, which absolutely refuses to print well. We are not responsible for it’s [sic] freaks.

If the “Shay” should chance to seem too local for general interest, we call attention to the fact that the more we heard from elsewhere, the more foreign news could be introduced. (Hint.)

 

Who was the mysterious J. Gibbs of Brookline? Unfortunately, the “Shay” provides very few clues. She was a “Miss,” and I eventually found her first name: Julia. The newspapers were written between 1886-1888, which probably meant she was born in the 1860s or early 1870s. Her family apparently summered in Marion, Mass. These were the only biographical details I could find or infer.

I guessed that because the newspapers accompanied the Brooks letters, and because some Brooks family members are mentioned in Julia’s articles, she may have been a relative. It was easy enough to find Brooks genealogies, given how famous the family is. (William Gray Brooks’ son Phillips, for example, was one of Boston’s most renowned clergymen.) But there was no sign of a Gibbs among William’s siblings or cousins or their children or grandchildren.

I went back to the collection for more information and noticed a reference to “Harriette Brooks Hawkins (Mrs. Hubert A.) […] (a granddaughter of W.G.B.).” Born in 1881, Harriette was the daughter of William’s youngest son John Cotton Brooks and his wife Harriette Hall (Lovett) Brooks. She owned the Brooks letters in 1935, but had she also owned the newspapers? Did she have a connection to Julia Gibbs?

Armed with a few more keywords, I took one last crack at an online search for Julia and finally found her: Julia de Wolf Gibbs (1866-1952), later Mrs. Addison. The name was right, the age was right, and the location was right—she is buried in Marion, Mass. So what was her connection to Harriette and/or William Gray Brooks? I got my answer when I identified her parents: Julia’s mother was Anne (or Anna) de Wolf (Lovett) Gibbs. Her mother and Harriette’s mother were sisters.

Out of curiosity, I searched our catalog for Julia and was excited to learn that she later became not only a published author…

 

But also a designer of metalwork, ornamentation, etc. Some photographs of her work appear in one of our collections.

 

“The One Hoss Shay” was the brainchild of a creative young woman at the start of her career. Julia apparently took the title of her newspaper from Oliver Wendell Holmes’ 1858 poem “The Deacon’s Masterpiece, or the Wonderful ‘One-Hoss Shay’: A Logical Story.” In her third issue, she wrote that she and her aunt Harriette attended Holmes’ recitation of the poem at Harvard’s Sanders Theatre. This was her one-line review: “Our Patron Poet was quite at his best.”

(Incidentally, Julia’s future husband also earned a passing mention in one issue: “Rev. Daniel Dulany Addison is in Washington.”)

I’d be remiss if I didn’t say more about the newspaper’s impressive illustrations. Some were drawn by Julia herself, such as the seated girl on the right side of the first image above. Others were contributed by another of her cousins, “our popular artist, Mr. C. Dana Gibson.” If that name sounds familiar to you, it’s because Charles Dana Gibson went on to become one of the most popular illustrators in America and creator of the iconic turn-of-the-century Gibson Girl. He designed the letterhead for the “Shay” and provided drawings like this one:

Scene, a crowded horse-car. (Stout old man.) “Come, sonny, get up & give the lady your seat.” (Small Boy.) “Get up yourself, & give her two!”


For more about Gibson, I recommend the 1936 biography Portrait of an Era, which contains hundreds of his beautiful illustrations.

 

Posted in From Our Collections

John Quincy Adams and the Education of a “Warrior Patriot”

By Rhonda Barlow, Adams Papers

When President John Quincy Adams delivered his first annual message to Congress on December 6, 1825, he noted that “the want of a naval school of instruction, corresponding with the Military Academy at West Point, for the formation of scientific and accomplished officers, is felt with daily increasing aggravation.” But Congress was not sufficiently aggravated to establish a school. Because young naval officers could learn to handle a ship only at sea, it seemed reasonable for all their education to be conducted aboard ship.

On December 4, 1827, Adams gave his third annual message to Congress, and for the third time, recommended the establishment of a naval academy similar to West Point, which Thomas Jefferson had established twenty-five years earlier. But this time, Adams explained his view of naval education in detail.

Adams held high standards for the “enquiring minds” of “the youths who devote their lives to the service of their country upon the ocean.” In his 1827 message, he explained that the academy he envisioned needed teachers, books, equipment, and a permanent location on shore. Subjects should include not only shipbuilding, math, and astronomy, but also literature, “which can place our officers on a level of polished education with the officers of other maritime nations,” and knowledge of foreign laws. As a former diplomat, and secretary of state from 1817 to 1825, Adams recognized that naval officers were a special class of American ambassadors.

But this combined scientific, technical, and liberal education was not enough. “Above all,” Adams continued, a young naval officer needed to learn “principles of honour and Justice” and “higher obligations of morals.” For John Quincy Adams, an American naval officer was a “Warrior Patriot,” equipped with a moral education that distinguished him from a mere pirate.

An entry in Adams’ Diary, made a few days after his 1827 speech, sheds light on his understanding of the role of morality in officer education. In his Diary, Adams reflected on the court martial of Master Commander William Carter for drunkenness.

Although he was reluctant to end Carter’s naval career, he wrote that “such enormous evils from intemperance demanded a signal example.” While intoxicated, the master commander twice was guilty of giving orders that almost caused the ship to founder, endangering both the valuable warship and her crew. On another occasion, he had been rude to a British officer. On another, he had engaged in disorderly conduct on shore, observed by, among others, a British officer. Adams’ Diary reveals that moral education was about self-control and responsibility, and the reputation of America’s fledgling navy abroad, especially among the British, whose Royal Navy was the envy of the world.

Adams failed to convince Congress to establish a naval academy. But eighteen years later, Adams, then a congressman, met with George Bancroft, the new secretary of the navy. In his Diary, Adams recorded that Bancroft “professes great zeal to make something of his Department.” A few months later, on October 10, 1845, Bancroft opened the Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD.

Posted in From Our Collections Tagged

This Week @ MHS

By

Here is the weekly round-up of events at the MHS in the week to come. 

– Wednesday, 20 September, 12:00PM : Pack a lunch and stop by at noon for a Brown Bag talk with independent researcher Nina Sankovitch. “Exploring Conflict, Collaboration, and Conciliation in Colonial Families before the American Revolution” considers how the Quincy, Adams, and Hancock families – all living in Braintree, MA but of varying social classes – interacted, especially in their attitudes towards England in the late colonial era, and the roles the families played in fomenting agitation against English rule. This talk is open to the public free of charge. 

– Wednesday, 20 September, 6:00PM : Join us for a public conversation with Garrison Nelson of the University of Vermont, Michael Dukakis of Northeastern University, and Peter Drummey of the MHS. “John McCormack and David K. Niles: How Two Reinvented Bostonians Altered American Politics and Foreign Policy” explores the lives of two Boston politicians who came from large poor families within religious minority communities and rose to the levels of Speaker of House and White House advisor, and how both became central to the shaping of modern American political parties and politics. This talk is open to the public and registration is required with a fee of $20 (no charge for MHS Members or Fellows). The talk begins at 6:00PM and is preceded by a reception at 5:30PM. 

– Thursday, 21 September, 6:00PM : “An Extraordinary Life: An Evening with John Quincy Adams” is a fun and festive evening celebrating the life of one of America’s most fascinating statesmen. Enjoy a reception, learn about moments from Adams’s life—as told through his diary and correspondence—from incoming MHS President Catherine Allgor and the staff of the Adams Papers editorial project, and explore a pop-up exhibit of the artifacts and documents that tell his story and that of our nation’s history. This program is SOLD OUT.

– Friday, 22 September, 10:00AM-4:00PM : This is your last chance to view our current exhibition, The Irish Atlantic, which ends on Friday. 

– Saturday, 23 September, 9:00AM : “John Quincy Adams and American Diplomacy” is a teacher workshop open to all K-12 educators. Participants will learn more about JQA’s achievements as Secretary of State; analyze documents from the Adams family papers, including JQA’s diary; discuss his role in westward expansion; and meet Adams papers editors and learn how they make the family’s work accessible to audiences of all ages. Registration is required for this event with a fee of $25. 

Posted in This Week @MHS

“An Amusing Journey”: John Quincy Adams Explores Silesia

By Hobson Woodward, Adams Papers

On 17 July 1800 John Quincy Adams and his wife Louisa Catherine embarked on an extended tour of Silesia, now southwest Poland. John Quincy chronicled their tour in a series of letters to his brother Thomas in the United States. The letters provide a rich description of a European excursion at the dawn of the nineteenth century. They also provide a rare look at a relaxed John Quincy Adams, unfettered by the demands of his diplomatic duties in Berlin.

John Quincy Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 20 July 1800, letterbook copy (Adams family papers, Massachusetts Historical Society)

John Quincy prefaced his first letter to Thomas by advising him to send his correspondence to their mother Abigail if his extended descriptions of the Silesian countryside and people proved a bore:

I cannot promise you an amusing journey, though I hope it will prove so to us; & if at the sight of this my first letter on this occasion, you think it looks too long, & appears likely to prove tiresome, seal it up, unread, & send it to Quincy, where a mother’s heart will fill it with all the interest of which it may be destitute in itself

Thomas Boylston Adams to John Quincy Adams, 15 January 1801 (Adams family papers, Massachusetts Historical Society)

Thomas found the letters anything but boring, however, and he was so entranced that he gave them to a newspaper editor friend for publication. John Quincy graciously accepted their printing for the public, even though he had not been told in advance. He was less happy when the articles were later published in an unauthorized 1801 London edition.

John Quincy’s travel accounts are indeed vivid. In a 3 August letter he described an ascent of a mountain near Schreiberhau (now Szklarska Poreba, Poland). The hike began easily enough, he reported, traversing a grade “about equal to the steepest part of Beacon hill in Boston.” The difficulty increased, however, and the party finally emerged to a dramatic sight:

Instantly a precipice nearly fifteen hundred feet deep opened its gastly jaws before us— A sort of isthmus, or tongue of land however allowed us to proceed about an hundred rods further, untill we could fix ourselves against the side of a rock, & look over into the tremendous depth— We had then the precipice on both sides of us, & it passes by the respective names of the great & the small snow-pit— They are so called because generally the snow at the bottom remains unmelted the whole round, although this has not been the case for the last two summers, & at present they contain no snow at all

Later John Quincy and Louisa visited the Zackenfall waterfall. One is almost brushed by the leafy mist when reading John Quincy’s description:

At this place you stand upon one side of the cleft & see the water dash down from the other; upon a level with yourself; between you & the stream is an abrupt precipice, which seems the more profound, for being so narrow; about an hundred yards— With the help of a ladder I descended to the bottom, & walked partly over the rocks, & partly over the billets of wood lying in the bed of the stream to the spot from which the water falls— We likewise went round by a winding foot path on the top, to the spot from which the streams launches itself

John Quincy also described a visit to a coal mine near Waldenburg (now Walbrzych, Poland). The mine was accessed by a small boat navigated over a subterranean stream.

You go down in a boat, flat bottom’d, about a yard wide, & ten feet long. The canal is not more than four wide, & equally deep, & over it is an arch about as high, hew’d in many places through the solid rock. It is nearly an english mile long, & strikes deeper & deeper under ground, untill the surface of the earth over head is more than 150 feet above you. The boat is pushed along through the canal, by two men, one standing at each end, who with a short stick in the hand press it against the sides of the arch that goes over the canal.

John Quincy further commented on churches, factories, and estates, and the peasants, craftsmen, and soldiers who occupied them. Thomas called his brother’s travel accounts a “rich feast of epistolary excellence.” The letters survive today in the Adams Papers collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society. In 2019 a selection of them will be annotated and published in volume 14 of Adams Family Correspondence, providing unprecedented access to a luminous portrait of an excursion through central Europe in an age gone by.

Posted in From Our Collections Tagged

This Week @ MHS

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A chill is in the air as autumn arrives. And with the turning of the leaves comes a return to more public programs for your consumption here at the Society. This is what’s coming up in the week ahead:

– Wednesday, 13 September, 6:00PM : John Kenneth Galbraith devoted his professional life to three main political goals: ending war, fighting poverty, and improving quality of life by achieving a balance between private and public goods in an affluent capitalist society. In The Selected Letters of John Kenneth Galbraith, Richard P. F. Holt selected the most important of the thousands of letters that Galbraith wrote in his long, cosmopolitan life. This talk with Mr. Holt is open to the public and registration is required with a fee of $10 (no charge for MHS Members or Fellows). A pre-talk reception begins at 5:30PM, followed by the speaking program at 6:00PM. 

– Thursday, 14 September, 6:00PM : The second author talk this week features Hidetaka Hirota of the City College of New York. Expelling the Poor: Atlantic Seaboard States & the Nineteenth-Century Origins of American Immigration Policy, is a groundbreaking work which reinterprets the origins of immigration restriction in the U.S. This work fundamentally revises the history of American immigration policy by locating the roots of immigration control in cultural and economic nativism against the Irish on the 19th-century Atlantic seaboard. This talk is open tot he public free of charge. The program begins at 6:00PM, and is preceded by a reception beginning at 5:30PM. 

– Saturday, 16 September, 10:00AM : The History and Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society Tour is a 90-minute docent-led walk through our public rooms. The tour is free, open to the public, with no need for reservations. If you would like to bring a larger party (8 or more), please contact Curator of Art Anne Bentley at 617-646-0508 or abentley@masshist.org.

While you’re here you will also have the opportunity to view our current exhibition: The Irish Atlantic: A Story of Famine Migration and Opportunity. This exhibit ends on Friday, 22 September, so don’t miss it!

Posted in This Week @MHS

Holding Those in the Path of Hurricane Irma in Our Thoughts

By Anna J. Clutterbuck-Cook, Reader Services

As I write this post on Friday, September 8th, Hurricane Irma is working its destructive way through the Caribbean toward the southeast United States. While this blog post was scheduled to be the September 1917 diary entries of Gertrude Codman Carter it felt strange not to recognize the lives that are being turned upside down in the very islands that Lady Carter called home for much of her adult life. Carter’s diaries, chronicling her journey from Boston to Barbados in the early twentieth century, are far from the only or the earliest connections between Massachusetts and the Caribbean to be found in the MHS collections.

 

Today, I want to share some images from our copy of Thomas Jeffrey’s The West-India Atlas: or, A compendious description of the West-Indies: illustrated with forty correct charts and maps, taken from actual surveys. Together with an historical account of the several countries and islands which compose that part of the world (London: R. Sayer and J. Bennett, 1775). The MHS copy of this 18th century atlas was owned by Robert Haswell, whose Voyage round the world onboard the ship Columbia-Rediviva and sloop Washington, 1787-1789 also resides in our collections. A pastel portrait of Haswell by the English painter James Sharples may be viewed here.

 

 

The details in this atlas are both informational and whimsical. In addition to the flocks of birds pictured above, almost every chart includes tiny parades of detailed ships making their way safely past such landmarks as the Colorados Reef, sunken rocks, and false headlands.

 

The atlas also provides voyagers with information about fresh water, as in this detail of the tip of Cuba, an “old ruined castle.”

 

Earlier this week, Hurricane Irma devastated the islands of Barbuda and Antigua, pictured here. I encourage you, if you have the ability, to donate to a charity of your choosing that will support those who need to rebuild their lives.

Look for a return to Lady Gertrude’s diary at the end of September.

Posted in From Our Collections Tagged

This Week @ MHS

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The Society is CLOSED on Monday, 4 September, in observance of Labor Day. Normal hours resume on Tuesday, 5 September. 

With September comes a return to much more activity here at the Society as far as programs are concerned. But after a long weekend, the increase begins quietly. Here is what is happening at the MHS this week:

– Wednesday, 6 September, 12:00PM : “The Liberator’s Legacy: Memory, Ablitionism, and the Struggle for Civil Rights, 1865-1965” is the first Brown Bag talk in a month. In it, Donald Yacovone of Harvard University explores popular memory of William Lloyg Garrison, Frederick Douglass, and their fellow abolitionists in the decades following the Civil War and reveals how that legacy influenced the rise of the modern Civil Rights Movements. This talks is open to the public with no charge. 

– Saturday, 9 September, 10:00AM : The History and Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society Tour is a 90-minute docent-led walk through our public rooms. The tour is free, open to the public, with no need for reservations. If you would like to bring a larger party (8 or more), please contact Curator of Art Anne Bentley at 617-646-0508 or abentley@masshist.org.

While you’re here you will also have the opportunity to view our current exhibition: The Irish Atlantic: A Story of Famine Migration and Opportunity.

 

And don’t forget to check our online calendar to see what else is coming in the weeks ahead!

Posted in This Week @MHS