The Beehive: the official blog of the Massachusetts Historical Society

This Week @MHS

By @MHS
Join us for a program this week! Here is a look at what is going on: - Tuesday, 29 January, 5:15 PM: Better Teaching through Technology, 1945-1969, with Victoria Cain, Northeastern University, and comment by Heather Hendershot, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. [...] read more

comments: 0 | permalink | Published: Monday, 28 January, 2019, 1:00 AM

Founder to Founder

Series: From Our Collections
By Sara Georgini, The Adams Papers
Like so many good stories here at the Historical Society, it began with a reference question. Jeremy Belknap, hunting through his sources, asked Vice President John Adams for some help. Belknap, the Congregationalist pastor of Boston’s Federal Street Church, had spent [...] read more

comments: 0 | permalink | Published: Thursday, 24 January, 2019, 12:00 AM

"Great sights upon the water...": unexplained phenomena in early Boston

Series: From Our Collections , From the Reference Librarian 
By Daniel Tobias Hinchen, Reader Services
I hear you haue great sights upon the water seene betweene the Castle and the Towne: men walking on the water in the night euer since the shippe was blowen vp or fire in the shape of men. There are verie few do beleeue it yet here is a greate report of it, brought from [...] read more

comments: 0 | permalink | Published: Wednesday, 23 January, 2019, 8:00 AM

This Week @MHS

Series: Today @MHS
By @MHS
Please note that the Society is CLOSED on Monday, 21 Janaury. Normal hours resume on Tuesday. Here are the programs on the schedule for coming week: - Tuesday, 22 January, 5:30 PM: How to Be an American Housewife: American Red Cross “Bride Schools” in Japan [...] read more

comments: 0 | permalink | Published: Monday, 21 January, 2019, 1:00 AM

Images of the 1925 bombing of Damascus

Series: From Our Collections , From the Reading Room
By Adam Mestyan, Duke University and 2018-2019 MHS Andrew W. Mellon Fellow
These images are part of a series of 24 photographs of the October 1925 bombing of Damascus found at the MHS in the papers of Sheldon Leavitt Crosby,* a professional American diplomat in the interwar period. He was chargé d’affaires at the U.S. embassy in Istanbul [...] read more

comments: 0 | permalink | Published: Friday, 18 January, 2019, 1:00 AM

“Light, airy, and genteel”: Abigail Adams on French Women

Series: From Our Collections
By Gwen Fries, Adams Papers
When Abigail Adams arrived in France in August 1784, she must have felt like she had just landed on the moon. In all 39 years of her life, Abigail had never been south of Plymouth, north of Haverhill, west of Worcester, or east of Massachusetts Bay. Twelve years earlier, [...] read more

comments: 0 | permalink | Published: Wednesday, 16 January, 2019, 1:00 AM

This Week @MHS

Series: Today @MHS
By @MHS
We have two seminars and an evening talk scheduled at the MHS this week.  - Tuesday, 15 January, 5:15 PM: Camp Benson & the “GAR Camps”: Recreational Landscapes of Civil War Memory in Maine, 1886-1910 with Ian Stevenson, Boston University, [...] read more

comments: 0 | permalink | Published: Monday, 14 January, 2019, 1:00 AM

George Hyland’s Diary, January 1919

Series: From Our Collections
By Anna Clutterbuck-Cook, Reader Services
A new year means a new serialized diary here at The Beehive, where for the past four years we have showcased a diary from the collections written one hundred years ago (you can read the 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018 series in our archives!). In October 1913 a fifty-nine year [...] read more

comments: 0 | permalink | Published: Friday, 11 January, 2019, 1:00 AM

New and Improved: The Tufts Family Logbooks

Series: From Our Collections
By Susan Martin, Processing Archivist & EAD Coordinator
My work as a processing archivist here at the Massachusetts Historical Society involves not only cataloging new manuscript collections, but also improving descriptions and access for collections that have been sitting on our shelves for some time. Case in point: the Tufts [...] read more

comments: 0 | permalink | Published: Wednesday, 9 January, 2019, 1:00 AM

This Week @MHS

Series: Today @MHS
By @MHS
Happy 2019! Here is a look at what is going on at the MHS this week: - Tuesday, 8 January, 5:15 PM: The Consecration of Samuel Seabury & the Crisis of Atlantic Episcopacy, 1782-1807 with Brent Sirota, North Carolina State University, and comment by Chris Beneke, [...] read more

comments: 0 | permalink | Published: Monday, 7 January, 2019, 1:00 AM

Upcoming Education Events

Series: Education Programs
By Kate Melchior
Welcome to 2019!  This year, the Center for the Teaching of History at the MHS brings a whole slate of education programs for teachers, students, and history enthusiasts.    Become a Mass History Day Judge The MHS is proud to be the State Affiliate [...] read more

comments: 0 | permalink | Published: Wednesday, 2 January, 2019, 1:00 AM