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.

The MHS will join its neighboring cultural institutions for a day of free history, art, music, and cultural happenings in the Fenway neighborhood. With over 20 different museums, venues, colleges, and organizations participating, there will be something for everyone. View Fenway Connections, an exhibition put together by the MHS and the Fenway Studios, take part in a family-friendly art project that is part of our Remember Abigail celebration, and join us for a historic walking tour of the Fenway neighborhood. 

Click here to register for the 11am walking tour of the Fenway neighborhood.

Click here to register for the 2pm walking tour of the Fenway neighborhood.

Join MHS staff members Peter Drummey and Sarah Bertulli as they lead a tour of the historic Fenway neighborhood. The tour group will meet at the Massachusetts Historical Society and will leave off at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum so guests can take advantage of more Opening Our Doors activities.

Join MHS staff members Peter Drummey and Sarah Bertulli as they lead a tour of the historic Fenway neighborhood. The tour group will meet at the Massachusetts Historical Society and will leave off at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum so guests can take advantage of more Opening Our Doors activities.

Founded in 1917, the Syrian Ladies Aid Society of Boston (SLAS) provided food, shelter, education, and employment to Syrian workers. Volunteers understood the SLAS as both a women’s organization and a proletarian movement led by Syrian women. Drawing from SLAS club records, private family papers, activist correspondence, and the Syrian press, this essay calls attention to the role women played in working class formation in the Arab American diaspora, and argues for a class-centered reassessment of “ladies aid” politics.

This series is co-sponsored by the Boston Seminar on Modern American Society & Culture.

Mark (1725-1755), a blacksmith, husband, and father, might have slipped from public memory if not for his brutal end: his body gibbeted for decades on Charlestown Common for the poisoning of his enslaver, John Codman. This project, grounded in Mark’s testimony, approaches “legal” and other documents as crime scenes; attention to clues, connections, and seemingly insignificant details unlock important, previously unrecognized aspects of Mark’s world, thwarting their original intent: the enforcement of slavery’s status quo.

In the 1960s and 1970s Boston struggled to stem urban flight and a landscape of deteriorating housing stock. Massive redevelopment projects, such as the razing of the West End, sent shockwaves through the city. By the mid-1960s, the South End found itself the focus of redevelopment plans. A group of mostly Puerto Rican residents began to meet and then incorporated as the Emergency Tenants’ Council, which became Inquilinos Boricuas en Acción, Inc. (IBA). In 1969, following a widespread campaign, the IBA won the right to serve as the developer for their neighborhood and; using the architecture of Puerto Rico as inspiration, built Villa Victoria. A few years later and few blocks away, the Fenway neighborhood faced the Fenway Urban Renewal Plan (FURP), which planned to clear sections of the neighborhood. local residents sued the city to block FURP and won the right to have a neighborhood-elected board become part of the decision-making process. Out of these efforts came the Fenway CDC with a mission to develop and maintain affordable housing and advocate on behalf of a vibrant and diverse community.

Please note: This program will be held at Blackstone Community Center, 50 W. Brookline St, Boston, MA 02118.

This program is made possible by the generosity of Mass Humanities and the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University.

Based at UMass Lowell, this digital project provides an entry point to the immigrant and refugee history of Lowell with an eye toward greater New England. An interdisciplinary team of faculty and students created the website content and produced the motion graphics to present supporting photographs, maps, and links to additional resources. The site is designed to be a tool for educators and a resource for interested community members.

The Fenway Studios is the only purpose-built structure in the United States designed to provide work and living space for artists that is still used for its original intent. It was modeled after 19th-century Parisian atelier studios but took the additional step of encouraging studio-design suggestions from the founding artists. This temporary exhibition will celebrate the history and evolution of Fenway Studios by shining a light on contemporary work produced by current members alongside rarely shown paintings from the MHS collection created by past Fenway Studios artists.

The exhibition will run through 19 October and is free and open to the public. Gallery hours are: Mon., Wed., Thu., Fri., and Sat.: 10:00 am to 4:00 pm and Tue.: 10:00 am to 7:00 pm.

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.

Even before the arrival of enslaved Africans, Native Americans were forced into bondage and transported far from their homes in North America. Even as the Native populations were decimated and displaced, the communities that survived remained a refuge for African Americans. These distinct communities forged familial, social, and cultural bonds with each other over time. This program will explore the complex relationship between African Americans, Native Americans, the institution of slavery, and these groups’ attempts to seek equal rights in American society.

This program is part two of a four program series titled Legacies of 1619. The series is a production of the Massachusetts Historical Society and is co-sponsored by the Museum of African American History and the Roxbury Community College.

Edward J. Logue was a giant of 20th-century East Coast urban redevelopment. From the 1950s through the 1980s, he worked to revive a declining New Haven, became the architect of the “New Boston,” led New York State’s Urban Development Corporation, and ended his career working to turn around the South Bronx. Prizewinning historian Lizabeth Cohen analyzes Logue’s complicated legacy in urban renewal as a dramatic story of heart- break and destruction, but also of human idealism and resourcefulness.

What were the philosophical and intellectual ideas that Northern Republicans used to justify Reconstruction? This project analyzes the way that the Civil War and Reconstruction reshaped American ideas about democracy, nationalism, and race. Looking at works of political philosophy, popular pamphlets and polemics, and personal writing, this project demonstrates that, in order to justify Reconstruction, Northern thinkers had to remake their ideas about the nature of American sovereignty and what the American nation was.

This talk, given by Polly Putnam, Collections Curator for the Historic Royal Palaces, considers the development of Queen Victoria's public image over the course of her 63-year reign. Queen Victoria, Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and later Empress of India, is only second to Queen Elizabeth II as the longest ruling monarch in British history. Queen Victoria ruled from June 20, 1837 until her death on January 22, 1901. Ms. Putnam’s presentation reveals how Queen Victoria made a virtue of and shared her personal life with the people of Great Britain, which ensured not only her popularity but also an enduring public image.

Giving Circle donors* will be our complimentary guests at this special event. Following the presentation, donors will enjoy a lively reception and receive a special gift. Donate $500 or more now to receive your invitation!

*Giving Circle donors have given $500 or more to the MHS Fund in the past 12 months.

This event is co-sponsored by the Algonquin Club Foundation.

Today it seems you can't run for president without first putting out a memoir or autobiography. But biographies of presidential candidates - and presidents - are nothing new. Veteran political strategist, Washington insider, and author of the highly acclaimed multi-volume The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln, Sidney Blumenthal, returns to Boston, where he got his start as a journalist, to engage in a wide-ranging discussion of lives in politics—from 1860 to 2020—and the uses of biography and, more recently, autobiography in shaping successful campaigns.

Join an Adams Papers editor to explore how Abigail Adams has come to hold a unique place within the fabric of American life.

Sesame Street’s creators, audiences, and social activists all tried to use the popular television program as a tool to shape American society. The resulting discussions reveal that the sound of the spoken word played an important role in media representations of culture and community. People contested the messages conveyed by working-class accents, African American slang, and the Spanish language as they encouraged Sesame Street to embody Great Society liberalism or to engender a pluralistic society.

The VVitch (2015) visualizes historical oppression as an origin for present-day animalization and concordant disenfranchisement of women who operate outside of proscribed social norms. This talk connects MHS’s archives to The VVitch’s depiction of animality as both feminine and evil to demonstrate the legacy of patriarchal puritanism and possibilities for resistance.

MHS Fellows and Members are invited to the sneak preview reception for Fire! Voices from the Boston Massacre.

On March 5, 1770, British soldiers occupying the town of Boston shot into a crowd, killing five civilians. The incident quickly became known as the Boston Massacre. Through a selection of first-person accounts, artifacts, and trial notes, this exhibition explores what it meant to be living in an occupied city and how this flash point changed the course of American history.

Space is limited.

On the evening of March 5, 1770, soldiers occupying the town of Boston shot into a crowd, killing or fatally wounding five civilians.

In the aftermath of what soon became known as the Boston Massacre, questions about the command to “Fire!” became crucial. Who yelled it? When and why? Because the answers would determine the guilt or innocence of the soldiers, defense counsel John Adams insisted that “Facts are stubborn things.”

But what are the facts? The evidence, often contradictory, drew upon testimony from dozens of witnesses. Come learn about the Boston Massacre and “hear” for yourself—through a selection of artifacts, eyewitness accounts, and trial testimony—the voices of ordinary men and women, and discover how this flashpoint changed American history.

Learn more about the Massacre on our companion website.

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.

In the Early Republic, Americans pressed against the borders of the new nation to expand their control over Native lands. This panel examines these interactions between Native tribes and the land-hungry white settlers and speculators to discuss issues of agency, financial stability, and legal precedent. Emilie Connolly considers the 1797 Treaty of Big Tree between the Seneca and Founding Father Robert Morris in New York State. Franklin Sammons looks at the illegal “Yazoo Land Sales” in Georgia.

This project will examine the intimate lives of enslaved, servant, and poor women using cases in which their supposedly “deviant” bodies entered the historical record – in court cases, almshouse ledgers, and cheap print. Often overlooked in histories of New England, these women made up a crucial part of colonial society. Their bodies and labors (productive and reproductive) were used against their wills. Nonetheless, these sources reveal laboring women's everyday efforts to control their own bodies and sexualities.

Jessie Morgan-Owens tells the little-known story of Mary Mildred Williams—a slave girl who looked “white” and whose image transformed the abolitionist movement. Mary became the face of American slavery when Sen. Charles Sumner saw in her a monumental political opportunity for the abolitionist cause. Weaving together long-overlooked primary sources, including daguerreotypes found in the MHS collection, this history follows Mary through to her own adulthood, describing a life parallel to the antislavery movement. 

Over eight years of war, ordinary Americans accomplished something extraordinary. Far from the actions of the Continental Congress and the Continental Army, they took responsibility for the course of the Revolution. In villages, towns, and cities from Georgia to New Hampshire, Americans managed local affairs, negotiated shared sacrifice, and participated in a political system in which each believed they were as good as any other. Presenting hundreds of stories, T. H. Breen captures the powerful sense of equality and responsibility resulting from this process of self-determination.

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.