This Week @ MHS

After a week void of public events here at the MHS, this week the Society offers a slew of public events to satisfy your historical curiosities.

First, beginning on Monday, 15 July, the MHS hosts a two-day workshop titled "Old Towns/New Country: The First Years of a New Nation." The workshop will concentrate on the period just after the Revolution and the concerns and conflicts, hopes and fears, experiences and expectations of the people living in the Boston area at a time of uncertainy, fragility, and possibility, using local resources to examine historical issues with a national focus. The program investigates such questions as: What was it like to live in a town that had been around for a long time in a country that was new? What were people in our town worried about as the nation was forming after the Revolution? How were these concerns influenced by geography, economy, culture, and social makeup of the region? What resources and pieces of evidence exist in our town that can help us find these things out? How is this evidence best presented to allow people of all ages to discover the answers to such questions and how does local focus add to our understanding of national history? The workshop is open to teachers, librarians, archivists, members of lcoal historical societies, and all intersted local history enthusiasts. The workshop faculty will include MHS staff members as well as historian Benjamin Park and MHS Teacher Fellow Betsy Lambert. The program takes place on Monday, 15 July, and Tuesday, 16 July, 8:30am-3:30pm  To Register: Please complete this registration form and send it with your payment to: Kathleen Barker, Massachusetts Historical Society, 1154 Boylston Street, Boston, MA 02215. For Additional Information: Contact the Education Department: 617-646-0557 or education@masshist.org.

Also on Monday, research fellow Anna Bonewitz, University of York, will present a Brown Bag discussion of her research titled "Fashion Across Borders and Seas: Print Culture, Women's Networks, and the Creation of Feminine Identities in the British Atlantic World, 1750-1900." Ms. Bonewitz's reserach examines the diverse media through which women learned about fashion and how ideas of fashion were circulated around and between Britain and the United States, from the time of the engimatic fashion doll to the birth of modern advertising. Her project also considers how the circulation of visual and material sources for fashion information such as fashion dolls, portraits, and advertisements, was as much a process of learning as it was of sharing. The circulation of these objects enabled women to form valuable networks whereby ideas of femininity, politics, national identity and imperialism were created, solidified and challenged. Brown bag lunch talks are free and open to the public and begin at 12:00pm.

On Wednesday, 17 July, the MHS will host another Brown Bag lunch talk. This time, Denise Gigante of Stanford University will present "The Book Madness: Charles Deane and the Boston Antiquarians." Ms. Gigante's research looks at a hub of bibliomaniacs associated with the early years of the MHS. Among the circle of learned historians were George Livermore, Charles Deane, Alexander Young, and Edward Crowninshiled. Together, these amateur men of letters provide a unique look outlook on the culture of book collecting and the formation of private and public libraries in mid-19th-century America.

Then, on Thursday, 18 July, at 12:00pm, the MHS presents "Lest We Forget: The Massachusetts 54th," a commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the Massachusetts 54th Regiment's attack against Fort Wagner, South Carolina, and featuring guest speaker Noah Griffin. Visit his website to learn more about his work. Learn more about the Massachusetts 54th, as well as the Society's manuscripts and photograph collections related to the regiment at our 54th Regiment! site. This event is free and open to the public

And on Saturday, 20 July, the Society will host The History and Collections of the MHS, a 90-minute docent-led tour that explores all of the public rooms in the building while touching on the art, architecture, history, and collections of the Society. 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.

This Week @ MHS

This week is a very quiet one here at the Historical Society. There are no special events on the calendar but that does not mean that there is no reason to pay the Society a visit. The MHS has three current exhibitions that are free and open to the public. The "headlining" exhibition is "The Object of History: 18th Century Treasures from the Massachusetts Historical Society," which features portraits, needlework, firearms, clothing, furniture, silver, scientific instruments, documents, and books from the Society's collections.

Complementing the main exhibition is a smaller display called "The Education of Our Children is Never Out of My Mind." On view here are letters written by John and Abigail Adams to each other, to their children, and to friends and family regarding their views on education.These two exhibits will be viewable until 7 September 2013.

The third exhibition, unrelated to the other two, is "Estlin Cummings Wild West Show," featuring a selection of E.E. Cummings’s childhood writings and drawings, showcasing the young poet’s earliest experiments with words and illustrations. This display will be available until 30 August 2013.

All of these exhibitions are free and open to the public six days a week, Monday-Saturday, 10:00am - 4:00pm.

Finally, on Saturday, 13 July, the Society will host The History and Collections of the MHS, a 90-minute docent-led tour that explores all of the public rooms in the building while touching on the art, architecture, history, and collections of the Society. 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.

This Week @ MHS

It is a holiday week and there are plenty of goings-on here at the Massachusetts Historical Society to celebrate our nation's independence. Please note that the library of the Historical Society will be closed on Thursday, July 4, in observance of Independence Day.

Kicking off the week on Monday, 1 July, come by at noon for a Brown Bag Lunch talk. This installment features Jen Staver of University of California, Irvine, presenting "Navigating the Other North American Coast: New England Merchants and Sailors Approach the North American Pacific, 1780s-1820s." Ms. Staver's project investigates social and environmental change along the far Pacific coast of North America from 1760 through 1820 by focusing on knowledge of and labor in the region's oceanic and littoral landscapes. Brown bag lunch talks are free and open to the public, so pack up a midday snack and come on by.

On Wednesday, 3 July, another brown bag lunch talk will take place. This time, short-term fellow Lo Faber, Loyola University of New Orleans, presents "The Spirit of Enterprise Excited by the Acquisition of Louisiana: New Englanders and the Orleans Territory, 1803-1812." In 1803 and 1804 New Englanders warily eyed their country's vast new acquisition. Some worried that Louisiana was a “savage,” uncivilized land that would corrupt the new nation; others that it would reduce the already-declining political importance of New England; others that it would become a new addition to the “empire of slavery.” Still others, however, especially Jeffersonian republicans, dismissed these and other concerns and celebrated the Purchase and the economic opportunities it would bring. A few went so far as to move south in search of fortunes in the Orleans Territory. This event is free and begins at 12:00pm.

And on Thursday, 4 July, the MHS will host a special Independence Day Exhibition. Though the library is closed, the gallery spaces will be open from 12:00pm to 4:00pm, currently displaying three exhibitions. Also included on Thursday is a special exhibition of materials related to the Declaration of Independence. Exhibits are free and open to the public six days per week, Monday-Saturday.

Finally, on Saturday, 6 July, the Society will host The History and Collections of the MHS, a 90-minute docent-led tour that explores all of the public rooms in the building while touching on the art, architecture, history, and collections of the Society. 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.

This Week @ MHS

As summer gets into full swing, things are pretty quiet at the MHS with only two items on the calendar for this week. First, on Wednesday, 26 June, the Society will host the next installment of the Brown Bag Lunch series. Come by at 12:00pm to hear Brooke Newman, Virginia Commonwealth University, present "Island Masters: Gender, race, and power in the eighteenth-century British Caribbean." At its height in the late eighteenth century, Jamaica was the most valuable and productive of Britain’s colonial possessions in the Atlantic world. Yet intertwined with Jamaica’s reputation for unparalleled profit was a growing apprehension of settler degeneration—in manners, morals, bloodlines, and especially life expectancy. The island, as one would-be colonist put it, offers “the most flattering prospect of pecuniary acquisition or death.” Such notions signify Britain’s ambivalent and contradictory relationship with Jamaica, and the West India colonies more generally, during the era of slavery. This event is free and open to the public so pack a lunch and stop on by.

Then, on Saturday, 29 June, visit the Society for The History and Collections of the MHS, a 90-minute docent-led tour that explores all of the public rooms in the building will touching on the art, architecture, history, and collections of the Society. 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.