Calendar of Events

Join us for a tour of the Society's public rooms. Led by an MHS staff member or docent, the tour touches on the history and collections of the MHS and lasts approximately 90 minutes.

The tour is free and open to the public. No reservation is required for individuals or small groups. Parties of 8 or more should contact the MHS prior to attending a tour. For more information please contact Curator of Art Anne Bentley at 617-646-0508 or abentley@masshist.org.

Free and open to the public.

Discussion will focus on two seminar papers: “African American and Indian Church Affiliation: Reevaluating Race and Religion in the North, 1730-1776,” by Richard Boles of George Washington University, and  “A World of Deference and Dependence: Slavery and Unfreedom in Eighteenth-century Boston,” by Jared Hardesty of Boston College. Boles’s paper explores black and Indian participation in each major Protestant denomination, suggesting the need to reevaluate aspects of the religious history of the colonial North in regard to how blacks and Indians influenced theology and church practices. Hardesty’s essay aims to raise serious questions about the nature of freedom in the American Colonies by engaging the literature concerning liberty in early America and challenging the popular slave/free dichotomy that dominates the historiography.

Internationally famous author, pioneering Unitarian, rural and urban benevolent worker, sister to six siblings, active aunt to 37 nieces and nephews, and prolific correspondent, Catharine Maria Sedgwick’s fascinating life deserves a full-length biography. With over 4,000 letters in addition to personal journals at the MHS, there is much to examine. In her brown bag talk Lucinda Damon-Bach will share some of the questions and discoveries to date that are helping her to clear up misconceptions and prepare a long-overdue book about Sedgwick’s life and work.

In March 1861, when Lincoln delivered his First Inaugural, neither he nor many in the audience envisioned that four years later, at his Second, the eradication of slavery would be imminent. What events led to the Emancipation Proclamation? And what would follow as Lincoln led the nation toward his “king’s cure for all the evils,” the Thirteenth Amendment? On the eve of Lincoln’s birthday, William Martin will explore Lincoln’s passage from the careful Constitutional lawyer of the First Inaugural to the almost messianic figure of the Second. An MHS Fellow,  Mr. Martin has written novels that appear on the New York Times bestsellers list, as well as scripts for television and film.

Reservations requested. Please click on the RSVP link above, or contact the education department at 617-646-0560 / education@masshist.org.

By examining towns of Plymouth County, particularly Pembroke and Middleboro, this project shows how political, economic, and at times military power flowed from effective control of the waterways. The shift in what might be called “water regimes” was a crucial location of what Charles Sellers has called the Market Revolution.

Join us for a tour of the Society's public rooms. Led by an MHS staff member or docent, the tour touches on the history and collections of the MHS and lasts approximately 90 minutes.

The tour is free and open to the public. No reservation is required for individuals or small groups. Parties of 8 or more should contact the MHS prior to attending a tour. For more information please contact Curator of Art Anne Bentley at 617-646-0508 or abentley@masshist.org.

Free and open to the public.

Rescheduled from October 30. This seminar paper will focus on the ideological elements in the conflict that emerged over wage and price regulation, as wartime debates created a conceptual gap between calls for economic equality and liberty. It is part of a larger study of the evolution of notions of equality in America.

MHS Fellows and Members are invited to a special preview reception of "Proclaim Liberty Throughout All the Land." The evening will begin with remarks by Stephen T. Riley Librarian Peter Drummey.

In the decades leading up to the Civil War, Boston became a center of the national antislavery movement, and in 1831 William Lloyd Garrison, "all on fire" for the cause, began publication of The Liberator, the country's leading abolitionist newspaper. There was strong resistance to the radical movement, however, not only in the slaveholding South, but among Northerners' as well. The exhibition features manuscripts, photographs, artifacts—including the imposing stone for The Liberator—and portraits related to the abolitionist movement in Boston.

Librarian Peter Drummey will discuss materials in the new exhibition that illustrate the life and career of William Lloyd Garrison, editor of the Liberator, and a central figure in the antislavery movement in Boston.

Join us for a tour of the Society's public rooms. Led by an MHS staff member or docent, the tour touches on the history and collections of the MHS and lasts approximately 90 minutes.

The tour is free and open to the public. No reservation is required for individuals or small groups. Parties of 8 or more should contact the MHS prior to attending a tour. For more information please contact Curator of Art Anne Bentley at 617-646-0508 or abentley@masshist.org.

Free and open to the public.

This essay will explore Broadway as the central location for many of Jaffe’s case studies of cultural entrepreneurs as well as the subject and site of new ways of seeing in the city. His research includes Currier & Ives lithographs, John Rogers sculptures, E. & H. T. Anthony Stereographs, and Harper's illustrations.

Join us at this two-day workshop as we explore eighteenth-century letters from the collections of the Revere House and the Massachusetts Historical Society! Teachers will learn more about the importance of letters as a communication tool in the eighteenth century, as well as their importance as historical sources today. Participants can also try their hand at writing letters using eighteenth-century technology and conventions and transcribing letters written by members of the Revere and Adams families.

Participants can earn 12 PDPs by attending both days of the course and writing one lesson plan, or One Graduate Credit (equal to 22.5 PDPs) from Framingham State (credit pending) by paying an additional fee of $75 and completing a more extensive project.

Registration Fee: $80. Includes course readings, morning snacks and one lunch. To Register: Please complete this registration form and send it with your check (payable to the Revere House) to:19 North Sq., Boston, MA 02113.

Workshop Schedule

SATURDAY, March 2, 2013
9:00 – 4:30 Paul Revere House 19 North Square, Boston, MA 02113

Morning Sessions:
Letter-writing in the 18th century: Who wrote letters and why?

Reading Between the Lines: What do surviving Revere letters tell us about the family? Small groups work together to note information gleaned from original and transcribed Revere family letters. A short tour of the Revere House is included to see a few Revere written items on display. Staff reveal the recent discovery of a missing Revere letter, how it came to light and how it has since been conserved.

Afternoon Sessions:
Composition Workshop: Write your own 18th c. style letter by following patterns & styles noted in examples shared in the morning sessions and required reading.

Penmanship: Quill Pen Writing Workshop: Copy out your own letter with a quill pen and ink. Proper 18th c. writing style & quill pen sharpening method will be taught by R. P. Hale, calligrapher and printer extraordinaire.

SATURDAY, MARCH 9, 2013
9:00 – 4:30 Massachusetts Historical Society 1154 Boylston Street, Boston, MA 02215

Morning Sessions
Making Sense of Manuscripts: Learn more about the challenges & rewards of working with eighteenth-century documents such as the Adams Family Papers.

Collections Tour: View examples of letters in the Massachusetts Historical Society’s extensive collections.

Afternoon Sessions:
Your turn: Try your hand at transcribing eighteenthcentury letters from the Society’s collections. After working in small groups, participants can share their own challenges and successes.

A Life in Letters: What does the correspondence between Abigail Adams and her husband and sisters tell us about life in the late eighteenth century? Participants will examine a series of letters in order to create a sketch of Adams family life at the time of the American Revolution.

For Further Information: Contact the Education Department: 617-646-0557 or education@masshist.org.

Recently scholars have pointed out links between the 1636-1637 Anglo-Indian conflict known as the "Pequot War" and the 1643-1645 Dutch-Indian conflict known as "Kieft's War." This paper unpacks the larger historiographic implications of seeing the two wars as tandem events, and viewing New England and New Netherland as part of a single contested region.

For much of the 20th century, Charles E. Wyzanski, Jr., the presenter's father, engaged the leading individuals and intellectuals of his time and left his imprint on a surprising number of them. While a first-year law student in 1927, Wyzanski received a handwritten note from Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, in which Holmes hoped that whenever Wyzanski's work "seemed to present only mean details, he might realize that every detail has the mystery of the universe behind it and keep up [his] heart with undying faith." Wyzanski did just that until his death in 1986, influencing to a remarkable degree the legal, political, intellectual, and moral life of his times.

In Cape Cod, Henry David Thoreau describes using an early MHS publication as a sort of antiquarian travel guide -- a way of looking back on the landscape he traversed as it had been described almost 50 years earlier. What did the founders of the MHS set out to print and what have later generations made of our early publications?

The Object of History
A series of chats with MHS Librarian Peter Drummey about what documents and artifacts from the collections can tell us about the characters, events, and issues of the past, as well as the role of MHS in documenting the rich history of our state and nation.

Registration Required. Fee $25/$15 (F/M); Free for MHS Fund Giving Circle members. Please click on the ticket icon above, or contact the education department at 617-646-0557 / education@masshist.org.

Register for all three programs in “The Object of History” series and receive a registration discount! Series fee: $60/30 (F/M); Free for MHS Fund Circle members.

Join us at this two-day workshop as we explore eighteenth-century letters from the collections of the Revere House and the Massachusetts Historical Society! Teachers will learn more about the importance of letters as a communication tool in the eighteenth century, as well as their importance as historical sources today. Participants can also try their hand at writing letters using eighteenth-century technology and conventions and transcribing letters written by members of the Revere and Adams families.

Participants can earn 12 PDPs by attending both days of the course and writing one lesson plan, or One Graduate Credit (equal to 22.5 PDPs) from Framingham State (credit pending) by paying an additional fee of $75 and completing a more extensive project.

Registration Fee: $80. Includes course readings, morning snacks and one lunch. To Register: Please complete this registration form and send it with your check (payable to the Revere House) to:19 North Sq., Boston, MA 02113 by 31 January 2013.

Workshop Schedule

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2013
9:00 – 4:30 Paul Revere House 19 North Square, Boston, MA 02113

Morning Sessions:
Letter-writing in the 18th century: Who wrote letters and why?

Reading Between the Lines: What do surviving Revere letters tell us about the family? Small groups work together to note information gleaned from original and transcribed Revere family letters. A short tour of the Revere House is included to see a few Revere written items on display. Staff reveal the recent discovery of a missing Revere letter, how it came to light and how it has since been conserved.

Afternoon Sessions:
Composition Workshop: Write your own 18th c. style letter by following patterns & styles noted in examples shared in the morning sessions and required reading.

Penmanship: Quill Pen Writing Workshop: Copy out your own letter with a quill pen and ink. Proper 18th c. writing style & quill pen sharpening method will be taught by R. P. Hale, calligrapher and printer extraordinaire.

SATURDAY, MARCH 9, 2013
9:00 – 4:30 Massachusetts Historical Society 1154 Boylston Street, Boston, MA 02215

Morning Sessions
Making Sense of Manuscripts: Learn more about the challenges & rewards of working with eighteenth-century documents such as the Adams Family Papers.

Collections Tour: View examples of letters in the Massachusetts Historical Society’s extensive collections.

Afternoon Sessions:
Your turn: Try your hand at transcribing eighteenthcentury letters from the Society’s collections. After working in small groups, participants can share their own challenges and successes.

A Life in Letters: What does the correspondence between Abigail Adams and her husband and sisters tell us about life in the late eighteenth century? Participants will examine a series of letters in order to create a sketch of Adams family life at the time of the American Revolution.

For Further Information: Contact the Education Department: 617-646-0557 or education@masshist.org.

In 1909, Elizabeth Lowell Putnam formed the Massachusetts Milk Consumers’ Association with the intent of tackling what was then known as “the milk question.” Using the MMCA as a case study, this paper argues that Boston milk reformers’ understanding of the new science of bacteriology fundamentally shaped their perceptions of the relationship between the rural environment, the food city dwellers consumed, and the health of human bodies.

Prize-winning author and MHS Fellow Megan Marshall will read from Margaret Fuller: A New American Life, her biography of the 19th-century heroine who spent her last years in Rome and Florence as a war correspondent covering the early stages of Italy’s Risorgimento. How should we remember this period in Fuller’s life, particularly given the scandal of her love affair with Giovanni Ossoli? Folk ensemble Newpoli will conjure the vibrant music that Fuller came to love as emblematic of Italy. Ms. Marshall is the author of The Peabody Sisters: Three Women Who Ignited American Romanticism, winner of the Francis Parkman Prize, the Mark Lynton History Prize, the Massachusetts Book Award, and a Pulitzer Prize finalist. Newpoli performs southern Italian folk music from the Middle Ages to the 19th century.

Reservations requested. Please click on the ticket icon above, or contact the education department at 617-646-0560 / education@masshist.org.

New Fellows and Members are invited to a special reception and tour to learn more about the MHS and its collections. For more information, call 617-646-0543. RSVP required.

Curator of Art Anne Bentley will examine the nature and use of our set of William Lloyd Garrison’s banners, displayed circa 1840s to 1850s in local fairs and demonstrations sponsored by the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society.

Join us for a tour of the Society's public rooms. Led by an MHS staff member or docent, the tour touches on the history and collections of the MHS and lasts approximately 90 minutes.

The tour is free and open to the public. No reservation is required for individuals or small groups. Parties of 8 or more should contact the MHS prior to attending a tour. For more information please contact Curator of Art Anne Bentley at 617-646-0508 or abentley@masshist.org.

Free and open to the public.

Join us for a panel discussion featuring Carla Kaplan, who will talk about her forthcoming book on white women in the Harlem Renaissance; Diane McWhorter, who will discuss the civil rights struggle and the growth of the military-industrial complex in postwar Alabama; and Lois Rudnick, who will reflect on Mabel Dodge Luhan and her circle of friends in New Mexico.

Join us for a tour of the Society's public rooms. Led by an MHS staff member or docent, the tour touches on the history and collections of the MHS and lasts approximately 90 minutes.

The tour is free and open to the public. No reservation is required for individuals or small groups. Parties of 8 or more should contact the MHS prior to attending a tour. For more information please contact Curator of Art Anne Bentley at 617-646-0508 or abentley@masshist.org.

Free and open to the public.

Men and women 150 years ago grappled with information overload by making scrapbooks—the ancestors of Google and blogging. Mark Twain and Susan B. Anthony, abolitionists and Confederates, African American janitors and farmwomen cut out and pasted down their reading. Professor Garvey will discuss these various perspectives, covered in her recent book Writing with Scissors, including the findings she uncovered while doing research at the MHS. All scrapbook makers passed along their understanding that the press was not a simple record, but a set of voices and conversations.

Reservations requested. Please click on the ticket icon above, or contact the education department at 617-646-0560 / education@masshist.org.

Join us for a tour of the Society's public rooms. Led by an MHS staff member or docent, the tour touches on the history and collections of the MHS and lasts approximately 90 minutes.

The tour is free and open to the public. No reservation is required for individuals or small groups. Parties of 8 or more should contact the MHS prior to attending a tour. For more information please contact Curator of Art Anne Bentley at 617-646-0508 or abentley@masshist.org.

Free and open to the public.

This case study focuses on how Americans understood the workings of the natural world as they imperfectly made gunpowder for the Continental Army. It argues that paying attention to the interactions between humans and the natural environment leads to a richer understanding of the war, and that modern American attitudes towards the environment have important roots in the Revolutionary period.

Reading private letters and journals, this book-in-progress investigates personal responses to Lincoln’s assassination, encompassing Union and Confederate, black and white, men and women, soldiers and civilians, rich and poor, the well-known and the unknown. What can these responses to such a cataclysmic event tell us about the aftermath of the Civil War, and what can we learn about understanding a transformative event on a human scale?

Prof. Stauffer’s lecture on Thursday evening will open a conference that will consider almost every major aspect of Massachusetts’ participation in the war: reform activities and the origins of the war; military life; the war, politics, and the economy; slavery and emancipation; and how the citizens of Massachusetts came to terms with the consequences of the conflict. It will feature established scholars as well as up-and-coming historians who will tackle new areas of emphasis, including the radical intellectual tradition, health and the environment, and the memory of the war.

Conference papers will be made available in advance to those who preregister. In six sessions on Friday and Saturday, panelists and commentators will offer brief remarks; a discussion with the audience will follow. Registration fee required to attend sessions. Registration available in late 2012. For information, contact kviens@masshist.org.

View the conference program.

Prof. Stauffer is a member of Harvard’s English Department and the chair of the university’s graduate program on the History of American Civilization. He will speak on the contribution of the Bay State’s black and white abolitionists and political leaders to secession, freedom, and equality under the law. He will also discuss briefly how the state responded to the "counter-Revolution" that stripped away these new rights after Reconstruction. This lecture and the reception that will follow will be free and open to the public. This program is also the keynote address for the MHS conference Massachusetts and the Civil War: The Commonwealth and National Disunion.

The search for a heterogeneous menu of game animals allowed northeastern Indians a flexible pattern of winter mobility. After 1704, however, English soldiers patrolled Indians’ winter hunting grounds, interfering with native reliance on wild animals. Political ecology—how power affects people’s access to routes and resources—mattered more than environmental degradation to the fate of the winter hunt on the Maritime Peninsula.

Children aged seven to seventeen made up a significant portion of the American military until recently. This project, co-authored with Rebecca Jo Plant (UCSD), aims to study the relationship between childhood and militarism in American history, tracing debates over the enlistment of minors from the Revolution to the modern era and analyzing shifting representations and experiences of child soldiers.

How did the marriages to Benedict Arnold and Henry Knox change the lives and personal development of their brides, Peggy Shippen and Lucy Knox? Nancy Rubin Stuart’s talk reveals the contradictory paths two young women followed subsequent to their passionate marriages to patriotic men during the American Revolution and the early Federal era. Using historical correspondence and historical drawings and portraits, Ms. Stuart will shed light on how these defiant brides affected the course of the Revolution. Ms. Stuart is an award-winning author and journalist who specializes in women and social history.

Reservations requested. Please click on the ticket icon above, or contact the education department at 617-646-0560 / education@masshist.org.

MHS Associate Members are invited to the second Historical Happy Hour. Following the talk by Nancy Rubin Stuart, we will continue the conversation while enjoying a cocktail at The Back Bay Social Club located at 867 Boylston Street.

Associate Members and their guests will receive priority admission to the program as well as complimentary appetizers and a drink at the Happy Hour. A cash bar will also be available. The program is open to the public, but the Historical Happy Hour is only for Associate Members and their guests.

Registration is required. Please contact Katy Capó at 617-646-0518 with any questions. 

Evening Lecture

Defiant Brides of the American Revolution
6:00 PM
Nancy Rubin Stuart

How did the marriages to Benedict Arnold and Henry Knox change the lives and personal development of their brides, Peggy Shippen and Lucy Knox? Nancy Rubin Stuart’s talk reveals the contradictory paths two young women followed subsequent to their passionate marriages to patriotic men during the American Revolution and the early Federal era. Using historical correspondence and historical drawings and portraits, Ms. Stuart will shed light on how these defiant brides affected the course of the Revolution. Ms. Stuart is an award-winning author and journalist who specializes in women and social history.

Focusing on the text of the August 1855 letter Lincoln wrote to his friend Joshua Fry Speed, Elaine Grublin, MHS Head of Reader Services, will discuss Lincoln’s early thoughts on slavery in America and his reaction to the rise of the American (“Know-Nothing”) Party.

Join us for a tour of the Society's public rooms. Led by an MHS staff member or docent, the tour touches on the history and collections of the MHS and lasts approximately 90 minutes.

The tour is free and open to the public. No reservation is required for individuals or small groups. Parties of 8 or more should contact the MHS prior to attending a tour. For more information please contact Curator of Art Anne Bentley at 617-646-0508 or abentley@masshist.org.

Free and open to the public.

Join us for a tour of the Society's public rooms. Led by an MHS staff member or docent, the tour touches on the history and collections of the MHS and lasts approximately 90 minutes.

The tour is free and open to the public. No reservation is required for individuals or small groups. Parties of 8 or more should contact the MHS prior to attending a tour. For more information please contact Curator of Art Anne Bentley at 617-646-0508 or abentley@masshist.org.

Free and open to the public.

This special event is open to Members of the MHS Fund Paine through Adams Circles. Enjoy a special lunch and behind-the-scenes tour of the Museum of World War II with Founder and Director Kenneth Rendell. The museum houses the most comprehensive collection of WWII artifacts on display anywhere in the world. A bus will leave from the MHS at 11 AM and return by 5 PM.  Space is limited. RSVP required. Fee: $50. Part of the MHS Local Travel Series.

For more information or to register, contact Katy Capó at kcapo@masshist.org or 617-646-0518.

Slavery was the great social and moral issue of the 19th century, and Concord was a hotbed of abolitionist sentiment. Residents Emerson, Thoreau, and the Alcotts confronted slavery head-on in their writings and actions, as indignation turned to outrage. This leisurely two-mile walking tour explores the involvement of these authors and their neighbors in antislavery efforts in Concord and beyond. It begins and ends at the Concord train depot (an easy ride out from Boston and Cambridge) and is coordinated with the Sunday train schedule. Walk leader Jayne Gordon, MHS Director of Education and Public Programs, is a resident of Concord who has worked at most of the town’s historic sites. She teaches the Concord history course required for all town guides.

Registration Required. Fee $25/$15 (F/M); Free for MHS Fund Giving Circle members. Light refreshments included. Please click on the ticket icon above, or contact the education department at 508-577-4599 / education@masshist.org.

This discussion will focus on two papers, “Honorable Citizens, Ethnic Militias in Chicago, 1855-1879,” by Mimi Cowan of Boston College, and "African American and Irish Political Coalitions in Boston, Massachusetts, 1881-1890,” by Millington Bergeson-Lockwood of George Mason University. Cowan’s paper highlights the ways in which participation in volunteer military groups sometimes helped immigrants to combat nativism and, at other times, fueled nativists’ concerns about foreigners. Bergeson-Lockwood’s paper identifies three areas where African Americans and Irish immigrants established coalitions and laid claim, not only to a historic resistance to oppression, but also to participation in the founding events of the United States.