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Welcome back to another events round-up! Here is what is happening at the Society in the week ahead:

– Tuesday, 6 February, 5:15PM : Join us for an Early American History seminar with current MHS-NEH Fellow Laurel Daen, and commenter Cornelia Dayton of the University of Connecticut. Between 1790 and 1840, Americans deemed to be cognitively disabled lost the right to vote, marry, immigrate, obtain residency, and live independently. “‘We all agree to exclude…those of unsound mind’: Disability, Doctors, and the Law in the Early Republic” charts these legal developments in Massachusetts as well as how disabled people used the courts to negotiate these contraints. Seminars are free and open to the public; RSVP required. Subscribe to receive advance copies of the seminar papers. To RSVP: email seminars@masshist.org or call (617) 646-0579.

– Wednesday, 7 February, 12:00PM : This week’s Brown Bag talk is titled “John Winthrop, Benjamin Martin, & Worlds of Scientific Work.” Pierce Williams of Carnegie Mellon University relates how Benjamin Martin was regarded by natural philosophers of his age as a showman and peddler of pseudo-scientific trinkets. At the same time, John Winthrop was working to elevate the North American colonies in the topography of learned culture. This project attempts to understand Winthrop’s puzzling choice of Martin to refurbish Harvard’s scientific instrument collection after the college laboratory burned to the ground in 1764. This talk is free and open to the public. 

– Wednesday, 7 February, 6:00 PM : In “Reconsidering King Philip’s War,” two historians reexamine the narrative of one of colonial America’s most devastating conflicts. Lisa Brooks, Amherst College, recovers a complex picture of war, captivity, and Native resistance during the “First Indian War.” Christine DeLucia, Mount Holyoke College, offers a major reconsideration of the war, providing an alternative to Pilgrim-centric narratives that have dominated the histories of colonial New England. The program will include short presentations by both scholars followed by a conversation. This talk is open to the public, registration required with a fee of $10 (no charge for MHS Members and Fellows, and EBT cardholders). We have exceeded the seating in our main room. Audience members registering on or after February 1st will be seated in overflow seating.

– Thursday, 8 February, 6:00PM : The second author talk this weak features Douglas Egerton, Le Moyne College, and his recent work Thunder at the Gates: The Black Civil War Regiments that Redeemed America. One of the most treasured objects belonging to the Society’s collection is the battle sword of Robert Gould Shaw, the leader of the courageous 54th Massachusetts infantry, the first black regiment in the North. The prominent Shaw family of Boston and New York had long been involved in reform, including antislavery and feminism, and their son, Robert, took up the mantle of his family’s progressive stances, though perhaps more reluctantly. In this lecture, historian Douglas R. Egerton focuses on the entire Shaw family during the war years and how following generations have dealt with their legacy. This talk is open to the public, registration required with a fee of $10 (no charge for MHS Members and Fellows, and EBT cardholders).

– Saturday, 10 February, 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: Yankees in the West.

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It’s time, once again, to see what public programs are coming in the week ahead here at the MHS:

– Monday, 29 January, 6:00PM : Martha McNamara of Wellesley College and Karan Sheldon of Northeast Historic Film discuss the selection of essays they recently edited titled Amateur Movie Making: Aesthetics of the Everyday in New England Film, 1915-1960, which illustrates how early twentieth-century amateur filmmaking produced irreplaceable records of peoples’ lives and beloved places. In this converation, McNamara and Sheldon highlight three examples: the comedies of landscape architect Sidney N. Shurcliff, depictions of pastoral family life by Elizabeth Woodman Wright, and the chronicles of Anna B. Harris, an African American resident of Manchester, Vermont. This talk is open to the public, though registration is required with a fee of $10 (no charge for MHS Members/Fellows or EBT Cardholders). Pre-talk reception begins at 5:30PM, followed by the speaking program at 6:00PM.

– Tuesday, 30 January, 5:15PM : The seminar this week comes from the Modern American Society and Culture series, and features the work of Anne Gray Fischer of Brown University, with Brandeis University’s Michael Willrich providing comment. “‘Momentum Toward Evil Is Strong’: Poor Women, Moral Panics, and the Rise of Crime-Fighting Policing in Depression-Era America” explores the dramatic shift in public perception of American law enforcement between Prohibition and World War II by studying the changing practices of Depression-era morality policing in boston and Los Angeles — specifically, the police enforcement of moral misdemeanors, including vagrancy, disorderly conduct, lewdness, and prostitution, which disproportionately targeted poor women on city streets. 

Seminars are free and open to the public; RSVP required. Subscribe to receive advance copies of the seminar papers. To RSVP, e-mail seminars@masshist.org or call (617) 646-0579.

– Wednesday, 31 January, 12:00PM : Stop by at noon for a Brown Bag talk with short-term research fellow Angela Hudson of Texas A&M University. “Indian Doctresses: Race, Labor, and Medicine in the 19th-century United States” focuses on women who worked as Indian doctresses and the clients who sought their care. They study strives to more fully integrate indigeneity into fields of study from which it is often absent, most notably labor history and the history of medicine. This talk is free and open to the public 

– Saturday, 3 February, 10:00AM : The History and Collections of the MHS is a 90-minute, docent-led walk through the public spaces of the Society’s home at 1154 Boylston St. The tour is free and open to the public with no need for reservations for individuals and small groups. Those wishing ot bring a larger party (8 or more), please contact Curator of Art Anne Bentley in advance at (617) 646-0508 or abentley@masshist.org. While you’re here you will also have the opportunity to view our current exhibition: Yankees in the West.

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First things first in this weekly round-up: The Society is CLOSED on Monday, 15 January, in observance of Martin Luther King, Jr., Day. Normal hours resume on Tuesday, 16 January.

Now that we have that out of the way, on to the programs scheduled for the coming week:

– Tuesday, 16 January, 5:15PM : The seminar this week is part of the Environmental History series. In this program Jeffrey Egan of the Unviersity of Connecticut and commenter Karl Haglund of the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation discuss “The Fight before the Flood: Rural Protest and the Debate over Boston’s Quabbin Reservoir, 1919-1927.” In 1919, state engineers proposed solving Boston’s water supply crisis by damming the Swift River, flooding a western Massachusetts valley and evicting 2,500 people. The contentious six-year debate that followed does not fit the standard story of urban conservationists versus rural peoples, as many valley residents defined themselves as rural and conservationist, and thus offers scholars a chance to see fresh nuances in early twentieth-century land management, rural life, and urban development. 

Seminars are free and open to the public; RSVP required. Subscribe to receive advance copies of the seminar papers.

– Wednesday, 17 Janauary, 12:00PM : “Skulls, Selves, and Showmanship: Itinerant Phrenologists in 19th-Century America” is a Brown Bag talk with research fellow Katherine Duffy of Brown University. Proponents of phrenology — a controversial, influential science — believed that the shape of one’s cranium revealed one’s character. This talk explores the world of phrenological lecture-demonstrations and the circulation of materialist ideas about the self. This talk is free and open to the public. 

– Wednesday, 17 January, 6:00PM : Join us for the Pauline Maier Memorial Lecture – Madison’s Hand: Revising the Constitutional Convention. In this talk and recent book with the same name, Mary Sarah Bilder of Boston College Law School reveals that James Madison revised his famed Notes on the 1787 Constitutional Convention to a far greater extent than previously thought. With this work, Bilder offers a biography of a document that, over two centuries, developed a life and character all its own. This talk is open to the public; registration required with a fee of $10 (No charge for MHS Members or Fellows, or EBT Cardholders). 

– Saturday, 20 January, 10:00AM : The History and Collections of the MHS 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: Yankees in the West.

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It is a very quiet week here at the Society as we await the thaw following last week’s storm. Here are the calendar notes for the coming days:

– The Exhibition Galleries are CLOSED on Monday, 8 January and Tuesday, 9 January. Normal hours resume on Wednesday, 10 January.

– Saturday, 13 January, 10:00AM : The History and Collections of the MHS is a 90-minute docent-led tour of the Society’s public spaces. The tour is free and open to the public with no need for reservations for indivudals or small groups. 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: Yankees in the West.

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We are back to business this week at the Society, thought it appears that Mother Nature may have other plans for us. Without thinking about the weather, here is what is on the calendar for the first week of the new year:

– Wednesday, 3 January, 12:00PM : Derek O’Leary of the University of California, Berkeley, kicks off the year with the first Brown Bag talk of 2018, “Excavating the Western Indian Mound and Building the American Archive.” Settlers and travelers moving westward in the early republid encountered the myriad Indian mounds scattered along the American frontier. These sundry earthworks furnished ample grist for various projects: frontier infrastructure, literary nationalism, the national historical narrative, and – as this talk explores – the emergence of the American archives. This talk is free and open to the public. 

– Saturday, 6 January, 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: Yankees in the West.

Throughout the winter, please keep an eye on our main website and online calendar for information about weather-related closings. 

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The library is CLOSED this week but you can still stop in and view our current exhibition, Yankees in the West. Gallery hours for the week between Christmas and New Year are as follows:

– Monday, 25 December : CLOSED

– Tuesday, 26 December : 10:00AM-4:00PM 

– Wednesday, 27 December : 10:00AM-4:00PM 

– Thursday, 28 December : 10:00AM-4:00PM 

– Friday, 29 December : 10:00AM-4:00PM 

– Saturday, 30 December : 10:00AM-4:00PM. There is also a free building tour on Saturday. Be here at 10:00AM for the History and Collections of the MHS. 

The Society is CLOSED on Monday, 1 January. Normal hours resume on Tuesday, 2 January. 

Happy Holidays!

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There is just one event on the calendar for the coming week here at the Society:

– Tuesday, 19 December, 5:30PM : This week’s seminar is part of the History of Women and Gender series. Micki McElya of University of Connecticut leads the discussion and Genevieve A Clutario of Harvard University provides comment. “Miss America’s Politics: Beauty and the Development of the New Right since 1968” examines the centrality of the Miss America pageant, its local networks, and individual contestants to the rise of conservative women and the New Right in the 1960s and 1970s. It analyzes the celebration, power, and political effects of normative beauty, steeped in heterosexual gender norms and white supremacy, and argues for the transformative effect of putting diverse women’s voices at the center of political history and inquiry. 

Seminars are free and open to the public; RSVP required. Subscribe to receive advance copies of the seminar papers.

Please note that the library closes early on Monday, 18 December, at 3:30PM, and the building closes at 4:00PM. Also, the MHS is CLOSED on Saturday, 23 December. The library remains closed the following week and reopens on Tuesday, 2 January. See the online calendar for more details about holiday closures and gallery hours. 

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As the end-of-year holidays approach we are slowly applying the brakes to our programming schedule here at the Society. However, we still have a few public events coming in the next couple of weeks. Here are the items on offer in the week ahead:

– Tuesday, 12 December, 5:15PM : Hannah Anderson of University of Pennsylvania leads the discussion in the this week’s Environmental History Seminar. “Lived Botany: Settler Colonialism, Household Knowledge Production, and Natural History in Eighteenth-Century Pennsylvania” examines how colonists developed ways of interpreting their landscapes that simultaneously partook of and deviated from the norms of eighteenth-century natural history. Domestic spaces became sites where colonists created information about the natural world, allowing them to feel secure in the new environments where they claimed dominion. Thomas Wickman of Trinity College is on-hand to provide comment. Seminars are free and open to the public. To RSVP, e-mail seminars@masshist.org or call 617-646-0579. Subscribe to receive advance copies of the seminar papers.

– Wedensday, 13 December, 6:00PM : Come in for an author talk with Manisha Sinha of University of Connecticut, whose most recent work is The Slave’s Cause: A History of Abolition. This book broadens the chronology of abolition beyond the antebellum period, and sets the abolition movement in a transnational context and illustrates how the abolitionist vision ultimately linked the slave’s cause to the struggle to redefine democracy and human rights across the globe. This event is open to the public; 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.

– Saturday, 16 December, 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: Yankees in the West

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The calendar is a bit top-heavy this week with a slew of events in the first few days. Here is a look at the programs in the week ahead:

Please note that on Thursday, 7 December, the library opens late at 12:00PM.

– Monday, 4 December, 6:00PM : Join us for a special program presented by a group of undergraduate students from Boston University, called Reforming Boston: Remaking the 19th-Century City. In this presentation and virtual exhibit, Professor Andrew Robichaud and his students present more than twenty rare artifacts and documents from the collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society. From prison and asylum reform, to education and temperance, to women’s rights and abolitionism, this presentation explores many dimensions of reform in Boston. How did Boston reformers understand their changing world, and how did they understand social change and improvement? This program is open to the public at no cost, though registration is required. Light refreshments served after the presentations. 

– Tuesday, 5 December, 5:15PM : This week’s seminar is from the Early American History series and features Adrian C. Weimer of Providence College, with Walter Woodward of University of Connecticut providing comment. “Petitions and the Cry of Sedition” looks at the political upheavals of the early Restoration in which a remarkable number of Massachusetts men and women expressed keen dissatisfaction with the monarch or General Court, leading to trials over seditious speech. The rich theological language in the petitions and feisty curses in the trial records offer an unrivaled glimpse into the significance of religion for the mobilization of local political communities in this tumultuous era. Seminars are free and open to the public. To RSVP, e-mail seminars@masshist.org or call 617-646-0579. Subscribe to receive advance copies of the seminar papers. 

– Wednesday, 6 December, 12:00PM : Chris Pastore of State University of New York at Albany leads this week’s Brown Bag discussion with “Constructing the Ocean’s Edge: Toward an Environmental History of the Atlantic World.” This presentation examines the environmental history and cultural geography of the North Atlantic shore during the Age of Exploration. A closer look at the ways coasts blurred the bounds of natural knowledge, conventions of conduct, and even the distinction between good and evil, may help us write uncertainty into an otherwise linear narrative of human progress, and, by extension, global expansion.

– Wednesday, 6 December, 6:00PM : MHS Fellows and Members are invited to the Society’s annual holiday party. Enjoy an evening of holiday cheer, celebrate the season, and wish a happy retirement to MHS President Emeritus Dennis Fiori. Holiday cocktail attire requested. RSVP by 1 December. Not a Member? Join today!

– Saturday, 9 December, 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: Yankees in the West.

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After a nice long holiday weekend it’s time to put down the turkey legs and get back to the business of history. Here are the programs on-tap in the week ahead:

– Monday, 27 November, 6:00PM : Join us for an author talk with Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Maria Tatar, both of Harvard University, as they discuss their new book, The Annotated African American Folktales. This new publication presents nearly 150 African American stories, among them familiar Brer Rabbit classics, but also stories like “The Talking Skull” and “Witches Who Ride,” as well as out-of-print tales from the 1890s’ Southern Workman. Arguing for the value of these stories as part of a sophisticated, complex, and heterogeneous cultural heritage, Gates and Tatar show how these stories deserve a place alongside the classic works of African American literature and American literature more broadly. This talk is open to the public. Registration is required with a fee of $10 (no charge for MHS Members or Fellows). The talk begins at 6:00PM and is preceded by a reception at 5:30PM. 

– Tuesday, 28 November, 5:15PM : This week’s seminar is part of the Modern American Society and Culture series. “Volunteerism and Civil Society in the Twentieth Century” is a panel discussion with K. Ian Shin of Bates College, and Chris Staysniak of Boston College, with Timothy Neary of Salve Regina University providing comment. This panel considers volunteerism as sponsored by ethnic and service organizations. Both essays challenge our notions of “belonging” in a civil society, including our understandings of assimilation, activism, and protest. Shin’s paper is “Masons, Scouts, and Legionnaires: Voluntary Associations and the Making of Chinese American Civil Society, 1864-1945.” Staysniak’s essay is “Poverty Warriors, Service Learners, and a Nationwide Movement: Youth Volunteer Service, 1964-1973.” Seminars are free and open to the public. To RSVP: email seminars@masshist.org or call (617) 646-0579. Subscribe to receive advance copies of the seminar papers.

– Thursday, 30 November, 6:00PM : The second author talk of the week features Russell Shorto of the New York Times Magazine who will discuss his recent work Revolution Song: A Story of American Freedom. With America’s founding principles being debated today as never before, Shorto looks back to the era in which those principles were forged. Drawing on new sources, he weaves the lives of six people into a seamless narrative that casts fresh light on the range of experience in colonial America on the cusp of revolution. While some of the protagonists play major roles, others struggle no less valiantly. Through these lives we understand that the Revolution was, indeed, fought over the meaning of individual freedom. This talk is open to the public. Registration is required with a fee of $10 (no charge for MHS Members or Fellows). Pre-talk reception kicks-off at 5:30PM, followed by the speaking program at 6:00PM. 

– Saturday, 2 December, 9:00AM : “The Political Lives of Historical Monuments and Memorials,” is a teacher workshop hosted by the MHS. This workshop is now full. Please join us on March 17, 2018, for another workshop on the topic of Monuments and Historical Memory. 

There is no tour this Saturday, 2 December, but remember to come in and see the current exhibition, Yankees in the West, open to the public with no charge Monday-Saturday, 10:00AM-4:00PM.