The Beehive: the official blog of the Massachusetts Historical Society

A Boylston Family Mystery

Series: From Our Collections
By Susan Martin, Collection Services
Boylston Street, the address of the MHS, is named for Boston philanthropist Ward Nicholas Boylston (1749-1828). No full-length biography of Boylston has been written, but what we know about his life is intriguing. He was born Ward Nicholas Hallowell and changed his surname [...] read more

comments: 0 | permalink | Published: Wednesday, 30 May, 2012, 8:00 AM

New Biography Illuminates Life of Clover Adams

Series: Research Published
By Emilie Haertsch, Publications
For all the importance and notoriety of Henry Adams’s book The Autobiography of Henry Adams, it contains one glaring omission: Henry’s wife Clover Adams is not mentioned once. Natalie Dykstra’s new biography, Clover Adams: A Gilded and Heartbreaking Life, [...] read more

comments: 0 | permalink | Published: Friday, 25 May, 2012, 8:00 AM

Excursion to the Pacific: Rail Travel Then and Now

Series: From Our Collections
By Andrea Cronin, Reader Services
  On 23 May 1870, the first transcontinental train left Boston for San Francisco. Here are a few of George Gordon Byron DeWolfe’s words celebrating its departure, as captured on a broadside held by the MHS: The train left St. James Park in the “Hub,” [...] read more

comments: 1 | permalink | Published: Wednesday, 23 May, 2012, 8:00 AM

A Classroom with an Ocean View

Series: Education Programs
By Kathleen Barker, Education Department
Summer is an exciting season for the MHS education department. Over the next three months, hundreds of teachers from nearly 40 states and the United Kingdom will visit the Society to take part in workshops on topics including the American Revolution, anti-slavery and abolition [...] read more

comments: 0 | permalink | Published: Tuesday, 22 May, 2012, 12:00 PM

A Yankee in King George’s Court

Series: From Our Collections
By Amanda A. Mathews, Adams Papers
This year Great Britain celebrates Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee year, and here at the Adams Papers our forthcoming volumes, Adams Family Correspondence, Volume 11 and Papers of John Adams, Volume 17, provide a glimpse at America’s earliest diplomatic [...] read more

comments: 1 | permalink | Published: Wednesday, 16 May, 2012, 8:00 AM

2012-2013 Research Fellows Announced!

Series: Around MHS
By Elaine Grublin & Kate Veins
Each year the MHS grants a number of research fellowships to scholars from around the country. For more information about the different fellowship types, click the headings below.  Our fellowship programs bring a wide variety of researchers working on a full range [...] read more

comments: 0 | permalink | Published: Friday, 11 May, 2012, 10:00 AM

Anatomy of a Pun: 1813 Edition

Series: Exhibitions News , From Our Collections
By Emilie Haertsch
  Humor, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. This colorful broadside will be featured in the MHS’s upcoming War of 1812 exhibition, Mr. Madison’s War, which opens on June 18. A broadside such as this would have been posted on the side of a building [...] read more

comments: 1 | permalink | Published: Wednesday, 9 May, 2012, 8:00 AM

Stephen Greenleaf Bulfinch, Post 13

Series: Civil War 
By Elaine Grublin
The following excerpt is from the diary of Stephen Greenleaf Bulfinch. May 11th 1862 Meantime public news has come in rapid succession. New Orleans surrendered, Fort Mason soon followed, - Yorktown has been abandoned, and the rebels have been defeated at Williamsburg [...] read more

comments: 0 | permalink | Published: Friday, 4 May, 2012, 8:00 AM

Guide to the Catharine Maria Sedgwick Papers Now Online

Series: Collections News
By Susan Martin
The MHS is pleased to announce that the collection guide to the Catharine Maria Sedgwick papers is now online. This is a very heavily used collection, and we hope the new guide will encourage even more scholarship about this interesting woman, her work, and her family. Catharine [...] read more

comments: 1 | permalink | Published: Wednesday, 2 May, 2012, 10:00 AM