Year in Review: The Most Popular MHS Social Media Posts of 2022

By Heather Rockwood, Communications Associate

What do a circus tent, a snowstorm, players from the 1967 Red Sox players, and a submarine have in common? They were all featured in some of our most popular social media posts of 2022. Let’s look back at these and other 2022 social media posts on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

On Twitter, our most popular post of the year was a video featuring Heather Cox Richardson and Joanne Freeman, MHS’s award winners for excellence in historical writing. The event is also available as a podcast.

Screenshot of a Twitter post. It reads “Massachusetts Historical Society @MHS1791 Nov 22 New video available online! @HC_Richardson in conversation with @jbf1755 on items from MHS collections youtu.be/cj7H86USZR4 #MHS1791 #Award #History” At the left is an image of two white women in front of computer screens smiling.
Twitter post featuring a video of Heather Cox Richardson and Joanne Freeman.

Our second most popular post of the year on Twitter was an “On this day in history” post—#OTDH—about the 1776 Liberty Bell and the first reading of the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia.

A screenshot of a Twitter post. There is text at the top and an image of a large metal bell with a crack going halfway up the bell. It is suspended between two metal poles holding a wooden board. In the background is a two-story federal style brick building with a statue to the left and a grassy area closer to the bell.
Twitter post featuring an image of the cracked Liberty Bell.

The third most popular MHS Twitter post of the year was an image featuring a circus tent. A painting of a P.T. Barnum circus tent on the very spot where the MHS building now stands.

A screenshot of a Twitter post. There is text at the top and an image of a color painting at the bottom. The painting is of a large white circus tent with many flags flying from the top. It is set up in a grassy area between two dirt roads and there are wagons and people around the tent. There is another white tent in the background, and further in the distance are buildings. To the right is a large brown rectangle and a smaller black rectangle.
Twitter post featuring a painted image of a circus tent.

On Facebook, our most popular post of the year went viral, reaching 2 million people! It told of a snowstorm that day, along with a photograph from the MHS collection of a snowstorm in New York City in 1888. Many people reminisced in the comments about the famous Blizzard of 1978 that resembled the image, with its blanketing of snow. And they equated it to the Children’s Blizzard, which happened in 1888 in Minnesota, Nebraska, Iowa, and eastern Dakota Territory.

Screenshot of a Facebook post. There is text at the top and an image at the bottom of an unidentified boy leaning against a tall wall of snow. On the opposite side of him are buildings. The area has been dug out around the building.

Facebook post featuring an image of a boy leaning against a dug-out wall of snow next to some buildings in New York City.

Our second most popular Facebook post from 2022 featured a blog post about a very sick John Quincy Adams traveling by coach, boat, and private carriage to give the keynote address at the opening of the Cincinnati Observatory in 1843.

Screenshot of a Facebook post. There is text at the top with a color photograph of a brick and white stone building with a rounded top or cupola at the bottom. There is manicured grass and many trees around the building.
Facebook post with an image of the Cincinnati Observatory on Mount Adams, named after John Quincy Adams.

The third most popular post on Facebook announced a new temporary exhibition at the MHS, “Impossible Dreamers: The Pennant-Winning 1967 Boston Red Sox.” It was on display August-September 2022.

A screenshot of a Facebook post. There is text at the top and an image on the bottom. The image is a black and white photograph of three baseball players from a view around their waists looking up at them. The three men are smiling and looking forward and not at the camera. Two are wearing Red Sox jersey’s, one is bare-chested. They each hold up their index and middle fingers, showing the back of their hands to the camera, the one on the very right is holding a baseball in the same hand. There is a microphone held up below them, close to the camera, and the background has a ceiling and pipes.
Facebook post with an image of three baseball players holding up two fingers each.

On Instagram the most popular MHS post of the year was a video of a temporary exhibition of love letters between John and Abigail (Smith) Adams before their marriage. These letters featured John Adams’s famous “Miss Adorable” letter to Abigail.

Black bars at the top and bottom of the image surround the beginning of a video–on this still is an orange background with a painting of a young man wearing a gray powdered wig, black vest and jacket with a white shirt and cravat. In red, words read “The Love Letters of John and Abigail Adams, Now on Exhibition! Visit the MHS to see them.”
A still of the Instagram Reel of a video panning across John and Abigail Adams portraits and a display case with several of their love letters.

The MHS’s second most popular Instagram post of the year was another “On this day in history” (#OTHD) featuring a 1789-1790 map of the Northwest Territory—part of present-day Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota—and related to Congress’s enacting the Northwest Ordinance, which allowed states to be formed free of enslavement in that designated area.

A color drawn map of the United States on a white background. The states and territories are different colors. The states are pink, territories are yellow, other countries are gray, and disputed areas are dark pink.
Map of the middle and eastern portion of the United States in 1789–1790, with the Northwest Territory featured.

The last post we’ll share today—MHS’s third most popular Instagram post of 2022—is both an “On this day in history” (#OTDH) and a blog post. It features the story of the first submarine used for warfare during the American Revolution in 1776.

A drawing of a man inside of a round mechanical device. There are many levers and pipes around him. Two propellers are on the left side and top of the device and a rudder is on the right side.
Instagram post of a diagram of the first submarine used in warfare during the American Revolution in 1776.

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Posted in MHS News