Event

MHS Film Club: A Civil Action

Public Program Film Club Online Event

Thursday, September 8, 2022 6:00 PM - 7:00 PM EST

At MHS

Johnathan Williams, Boston University

Register to attend online

Join Johnathan Williams as we discuss 1998’s A Civil Action, starring John Travolta, Robert Duvall, James Gandolfini, and more. The movie tells the true story of a court case about environmental pollution that took place in Woburn, Massachusetts in the 1980s. Watch the film at home and discuss your thoughts with us! A Civil Action is available through Amazon Prime, YouTube, DIRECTV, Redbox, Hoopla, and other streaming sites.

Online event.

Upcoming Events

Social Reform and Identity Formation in the 17th Century - A Panel Discussion

Social Reform and Identity Formation in the 17th Century - A Panel Discussion

Hybrid / NOTE: times are shown in EST

Tuesday, April 1, 2025 5:00 PM - 6:15 PM EST

This panel investigates forms of social control in 17th century New England. Arthur George Kamya’s paper examines the regulation of distilled liquor in 17th century Massachusetts Bay Colony, exploring how authorities navigated competing moral, economic, and security imperatives. Initially targeting a cross-section of colonists, liquor laws evolved to focus on servants, Native Americans, and eventually African Americans. The colony's approach shifted from moral censure to pragmatic revenue generation, with officials using fines and licenses to fund government operations. Kamya’s study illuminates how alcohol regulation became a tool of social control, state-building, and the construction of racial hierarchies in colonial New England, offering insights into the complex interplay between commerce, governance, and identity formation in early America. As discussed in Alice King’s work, Connecticut adopted a notable strategy towards certain Indigenous populations during the initial decades of settlement, attempting to control and exploit Native communities by turning them into colonial tributaries who would provide essential supplies, wampum, and military aid. King’s paper considers the evolution of tributary politics at the end of the seventeenth century after the Dominion of New England and Glorious Revolution had destabilized colonial authority and left colonists vulnerable to attack by French and Native forces, including the Wabanaki Confederacy during King William’s War, 1689-1697, when Connecticut leaders sought to raise soldiers for New England’s defense from these historic tributary communities.

Seminar Pauline Maier Early American History Hybrid Event

“The Permanent Prize for Nerve”: Examining Women's Postwar Battles with the US Veteran's Bureau

“The Permanent Prize for Nerve”: Examining Women's Postwar Battles with the US Veteran's Bureau

Online / NOTE: times are shown in EST

Thursday, April 3, 2025 5:00 PM - 6:15 PM EST

This paper considers the postwar experiences of disabled or chronically ill veterans of the First World War through an examination of pension files kept by the US Bureau of War Risk Insurance and the Veteran's Bureau. While this work will demonstrate how gendered notions of service, suffering, and recovery influenced the treatment available to both men and women, it will specifically focus on the treatment of women veterans, caretakers, and widows as documented in these files. The pension and insurance system tended to obscure the physical and emotional labor performed by women in the war and postwar period. At the same time, individual investigations frequently made spectacles of women whose behavior transgressed imagined prewar gender norms, or whose testimony disrupted dominant narratives of victory and resilience. These stories challenge familiar historical narratives of war and recovery, while drawing connections to our own postwar present.

Seminar History of Women, Gender and Sexuality Online Event

1775: A Society on the Brink of War and Revolution - Day 1

1775: A Society on the Brink of War and Revolution - Day 1

In Person (not at MHS) / NOTE: times are shown in EST

Thursday, April 10, 2025 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM EST

The Concord Museum, the David Center for the American Revolution at the American Philosophical Society, and the Massachusetts Historical Society will hold a conference on 10-11 April 2025 on the theme “1775”. The conference will be convened at the Concord Museum and marks the 250th anniversary of the battles of Lexington and Concord. There will be opportunities for attendees to visit historic sites and view objects and collections significant to the Revolution.

Hybrid Event American Revolution 250

1775: A Society on the Brink of War and Revolution - Day 2

1775: A Society on the Brink of War and Revolution - Day 2

In Person (not at MHS) / NOTE: times are shown in EST

Friday, April 11, 2025 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM EST

The Concord Museum, the David Center for the American Revolution at the American Philosophical Society, and the Massachusetts Historical Society will hold a conference on 10-11 April 2025 on the theme “1775”. The conference will be convened at the Concord Museum and marks the 250th anniversary of the battles of Lexington and Concord. There will be opportunities for attendees to visit historic sites and view objects and collections significant to the Revolution.

Hybrid Event American Revolution 250

Raising Bail, Critiquing the State: SNCC, the Civil Rights Movement and Cash Bail

Raising Bail, Critiquing the State: SNCC, the Civil Rights Movement and Cash Bail

Online / NOTE: times are shown in EST

Tuesday, April 15, 2025 5:00 PM - 6:15 PM EST

This paper re-examines the relationship between civil rights activists and the system of cash bail in the 1960s. Historians have largely considered cash bail as a legal hassle, an obstacle that naturally arose as a consequence of civil disobedience. Aside from the “jail, no bail” practice of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), little attention has been paid to the questions of how activists critiqued and organized around bail. Yet, as this paper shows, SNCC innovated a range of strategies and understood bail as a very specific mechanism of racialized state repression.

Seminar African American History Online Event

Black Intellect in the Wake of the American Revolution

Black Intellect in the Wake of the American Revolution

Online / NOTE: times are shown in EST

Thursday, April 17, 2025 5:00 PM - 6:15 PM EST

This chapter from Aston Gonzalez's book manuscript examines black geniuses recognized in mathematics and the natural sciences in the decades after the American Revolution. Gonzalez analyzes how domestic and transatlantic print culture authored by African Americans and British abolitionists contributed to the conceptual development of “black genius.” Journalists, medical professionals, and antislavery activists turned a public spotlight onto three Black men – the mental calculator Thomas Fuller, doctor James Derham, and astronomer Benjamin Banneker – whose skills, they argued, directly contradicted widespread assertions that people of African descent possessed innately and unchangeably inferior intellectual faculties.

Seminar African American History Online Event

Gallery Talk: Rebels, Rights & Revolution: Battles of Lexington and Concord

Gallery Talk: Rebels, Rights & Revolution: Battles of Lexington and Concord

Saturday, April 19, 2025 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM EST

Join Reference Librarian Lauren Gray for a gallery talk on the exhibition "1775: Rebels, Rights & Revolution," which charts major Massachusetts events in the first year of the American Revolution. Lauren will delve into the impact of the Battles of Lexington and Concord using related exhibition items. Visitors are invited to explore the rest of the exhibition and ask questions.

American Revolution 250 In Person Public Program

Gallery Talk: Rebels, Rights & Revolution: Battles of Lexington and Concord

Gallery Talk: Rebels, Rights & Revolution: Battles of Lexington and Concord

Saturday, April 19, 2025 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM EST

Join Reference Librarian Lauren Gray for a gallery talk on the exhibition "1775: Rebels, Rights & Revolution," which charts major Massachusetts events in the first year of the American Revolution. Lauren will delve into the impact of the Battles of Lexington and Concord using related exhibition items. Visitors are invited to explore the rest of the exhibition and ask questions.

American Revolution 250 In Person Public Program

Left on Broadway: Pins and Needles and the Cultural Work of Labor Unions

Left on Broadway: Pins and Needles and the Cultural Work of Labor Unions

Online / NOTE: times are shown in EST

Tuesday, April 22, 2025 5:00 PM - 6:15 PM EST

This paper is an excerpt from a book project that examines the musical revue Pins and Needles—a production of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union (ILGWU) which became the longest running Broadway show of the 1930s. Specifically, the paper examines how the unique feminist nature of the ILGWU and the emphasis on social justice shaped the cast of workers’ experiences during the rehearsals, as well as the content of the show, and how they navigated their unexpected stardom status to claim their place in American culture, celebrating working-class ideology of gender equality and solidarity.

Seminar Malgeri Modern American Society and Culture Online Event

The Book of the Body: The 19th-Century Flap Anatomy as Body/Text

The Book of the Body: The 19th-Century Flap Anatomy as Body/Text

Online / NOTE: times are shown in EST

Tuesday, April 29, 2025 5:00 PM - 6:15 PM EST

This chapter analyzes the use of “flap anatomies”, or layered, printed illustrations of human anatomy, in three sites of medical training in the late 19th century: Harvard University, the University of Edinburgh, and the Université de Paris. In an era characterized by rampant anxiety concerning both physical and moral ‘degeneration’, the role of flap anatomies in disseminating anatomical knowledge and helping shape public opinion regarding the medical profession was especially crucial in matters related to human reproduction. How was the flap anatomy – with its nudity, references to sexuality, and exploration of the body’s interior – able to reconcile these competing tensions?

Seminar History of Women, Gender and Sexuality Online Event

Around the World with John Quincy Adams

Around the World with John Quincy Adams

Wednesday, April 30, 2025 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM EST

John Quincy Adams (1767–1848) went everywhere, and he left an incredible paper trail to show for it. Go around the world with the Adams Papers editors in one history-filled night at the MHS. Visit the moments and manuscripts that cemented JQA as a statesman, a president, an anti-slavery crusader, and a public servant in the family tradition. Join us for JQA’s guide to a world gone by.

Public Program In Person

Creating Culture in America, AAPI Diaspora Lives

Creating Culture in America, AAPI Diaspora Lives

Hybrid / NOTE: times are shown in EST

Wednesday, May 7, 2025 6:00 PM - 7:00 PM EST

Join us for a performance and panel considering cultural practices the Asian American and Pacific Islander diaspora have created in Massachusetts. Speakers will discuss what traditions their families brought to Massachusetts and how these intermingled with other cultures to form new rituals. They will also examine what has been lost and the challenges that prevented certain customs from continuing in new environments.

Public Program Hybrid Event

Breaking Silences: Using Intimate Biography to Uncover the Lives of Thomas Wen Yi Liao and Mary Mon Toy

Breaking Silences: Using Intimate Biography to Uncover the Lives of Thomas Wen Yi Liao and Mary Mon Toy

Hybrid / NOTE: times are shown in EST

Thursday, May 15, 2025 5:00 PM - 6:15 PM EST

This program’s guests—a first-time author and a veteran novelist—spent decades researching family histories shadowed by war, global politics, and anti-Asian racism. Kim Liao discovered a many-layered story suppressed both in her family and by the Taiwanese government featuring her grandfather, a leader of the Taiwanese independence movement after World War II. Marnie Mueller, born in a Japanese American concentration camp in 1942 and later befriended by Mary Mon Toy, a talented “showgirl” incarcerated in a different camp, became her friend’s executor. After Mon Toy’s death in 2009, a hidden life story emerged that begged to be told alongside Mueller’s own long-concealed history. Learn about “intimate biography” from two authors who are inventing the form.

Seminar New England Biography Series Hybrid Event

Annual Fiori Lecture: French Material Culture in the Revolutionary Atlantic

Annual Fiori Lecture: French Material Culture in the Revolutionary Atlantic

Hybrid / NOTE: times are shown in EST

Monday, May 19, 2025 6:00 PM - 7:00 PM EST

Lafayette’s tour of the United States in 1824-5 resulted in the production of objects—ceramics, textiles, prints, among others—all emblazoned with his name and visage. But like Lafayette himself, French impact on material culture dates to the American Revolution. Join us as Ashli White examines the influence of various French things on political movements throughout the revolutionary Atlantic world and considers how diverse populations turned to these items as part of their attempts to realize liberty and equality.

Public Program Annual Fiori Lecture Hybrid Event American Revolution 250

Monday, June 2, 2025 12:00 AM - 12:00 AM EST

Gallery Talk: Rebels, Rights & Revolution: Battle of Bunker Hill

Gallery Talk: Rebels, Rights & Revolution: Battle of Bunker Hill

Friday, June 13, 2025 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM EST

Join Chief Historian, Peter Drummey, for a gallery talk on the exhibition, 1775: Rebels, Rights & Revolution, which charts major Massachusetts events in the first year of the American Revolution. Peter will discuss the impact of the Battle of Bunker Hill using related exhibition items. Visitors are invited to explore the rest of the exhibition and ask questions.

American Revolution 250 Public Program In Person

Gallery Talk: Rebels, Rights & Revolution: Battle of Bunker Hill

Gallery Talk: Rebels, Rights & Revolution: Battle of Bunker Hill

Friday, June 13, 2025 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM EST

Join Chief Historian, Peter Drummey, for a gallery talk on the exhibition, 1775: Rebels, Rights & Revolution, which charts major Massachusetts events in the first year of the American Revolution. Peter will discuss the impact of the Battle of Bunker Hill using related exhibition items. Visitors are invited to explore the rest of the exhibition and ask questions.

American Revolution 250 Public Program In Person

Revolutionary Kinship: Sustaining Family Through Wartime Divisions

Revolutionary Kinship: Sustaining Family Through Wartime Divisions

Hybrid / NOTE: times are shown in EST

Monday, June 16, 2025 6:00 PM - 7:00 PM EST

The American Revolution had a profound impact on families, with some ideas and experiences dramatically altered and some surprisingly durable. Conflicting beliefs about the future of the nation caused familial rifts, and many lost friends and loved ones to battle and plunder. Enslaved people simultaneously broadened ideas about family in response to the violence of slavery and evaluated whether independence would keep their kin safer from future violence. Gender roles were both everchanging in the circumstances of war as women ran businesses, handled material needs of war, and faced new childcare situations, but also remained constant in many ways. As a result of change and continuity, families included stepfamilies and single parents, relationships across plantations, and transcended biological connections. In this program, panelists will consider how the American Revolution both disrupted family arrangements and brought new formations of kinship while retaining many of the same structures.

Public Program Hybrid Event American Revolution 250

We Refuse: A Forceful History of Black Resistance

We Refuse: A Forceful History of Black Resistance

Hybrid / NOTE: times are shown in EST

Tuesday, June 24, 2025 6:00 PM - 7:00 PM EST

In her book We Refuse, historian Kellie Carter Jackson examines the breadth of Black responses to white oppression, particularly those pioneered by Black women. Force—from work stoppages and property destruction to armed revolt—has played a pivotal part in securing freedom and justice for Black people since the days of the American and Haitian Revolutions. In conversation with Kanisorn Wongsrichanalai, Carter Jackson will discuss force alongside other vital tactics that have shaped the Black struggle, from the restorative power of finding joy in the face of suffering to the quiet strength of simply walking away.

Public Program Hybrid Event Speakers Fund

Committeemen: Local Government and the Popular Politics of Revolution

Committeemen: Local Government and the Popular Politics of Revolution

Online / NOTE: times are shown in EST

Monday, July 14, 2025 6:00 PM - 7:00 PM EST

Over the spring and summer of 1775, revolutionary committees in small towns and rural communities took charge of the revolutionary movement. In the chaos that followed the battles of Lexington and Concord, thousands of farmers, lawyers, ministers, shopkeepers, and artisans all over British North America reluctantly took up the reins of power in their communities. Exercising emergency civil powers, they established a rudimentary form of revolutionary government in place of the ousted colonial regimes. Local committeemen organized and equipped vast new revolutionary armies, collected taxes, drove out perceived enemies, and maintained what semblance they could of legal procedure. By the end of 1775, the local committees had succeeded in establishing a fragile but effective revolutionary authority that supplanted imperial government in all but a few isolated pockets of the thirteen now-former colonies.

American Revolution 250 Online Event Public Program

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