This Week @ MHS

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– Wednesday, 25 July, 12:00PM : “The End of War: The Wabanaki Struggle with New England, 1722-1727” is a Brown Bag talk with Ian Saxine of Alfred University. This talk examines the Anglo-Wabanaki War of 1722-1727 in the American Northeast. It situates the conflict as the final resolution of a half-century of imperial crisis in the region. The talk argues the limits of indigenous, colonial, and imperial power influenced the war’s outbreak, the fighting, and its resolution.

This talk is free and open to the public.

– Wednesday, 25 July, 6:00PM : On November 23, 1849, in the heart of Boston, one of the city’s richest men, Dr. George Parkman, vanished. What resulted was a baffling case of red herrings, grave robbery, and dismemberment on the grounds of Harvard Medical School. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. John White Webster pioneered the use of medical forensics and the meaning of reasonable doubt. In “Bloody & Ivy: The 1849 Murder That Scandalized Harvard,” Paul Collins of Portland State University brings 19th-century Boston back to life in vivid detail, weaving together accounts of one of America’s greatest murder mysteries.

This talk is open to the public, registration required with a fee of $10 (no charge for MHS Fellows and Members or EBT cardholders). Pre-talk reception begins at 5:30PM, followed by the speaking program at 6:00PM.

– Thursday, 26 July : The teacher workshop “Immigration Policy in American History” has been POSTPONED. Please check back for further information about rescheduling.

– Friday, 27 July, 12:00PM : The second Brown Bag talk this week is with Katherine McIntyre of Columbia University. “Maroon Ecologies: Albery Allson Whitman and the Place of Poetry” follows the intertwining of race and ecology in Albery Allson Whitman’s 1884 The Rape of Florida through an analysis of colonial cartographic practices. Using maps to examine the cartographic representation of swamps and other wetlands that permeate the boundary between land and water, this talk opens questions about the porous ecologies of maroon communities and the poetics that follow from such ecologies.

This talk is free and open to the public.

– Saturday, 28 July, 10:00AM : The History and Collections of the MHS 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: Entrepreneurship & Classical Design in Boston’s South End: The Furniture of Isaac Vose & Thomas Seymour, 1815 to 1825.