This Week @ MHS

Join us today, Monday, 8 August at noon for an interesting brown bag lunch.  Listen and participate in the discussion as NERFC fellow Hannah Farber, of University of California, Berkeley, presents her research project "American Marine Insurers in the Napoleonic Era: Commerce, the Nation, and the Oceans."


On Saturday, 13 August, travel to George's Island to hear Christian Samito, of Boston College and Boston University School of Law present a lecture on "Citizenship Through Civil War Service."  This event is part of the Boston Harbor Islands Civil War History Series and is co-sponsered by the MHS. The lecture starts a 2:00 PM on Georges Island, part of the Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area. For directions to the Island, please visit http://bostonharborislands.org/.

And remember that our exhibition areas is open Monday through Saturday, 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM.  Our current exhibition, History Drawn with Light: Early Photographs from the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society has been drawing excellent reviews from visitors. 

This Week @ MHS

This week we continue to offer our exhibition History Drawn with Light: Early Photographs from the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society daily (except Sundays) 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM.  And anyone interested in 20th century environmental history should plan to be at the MHS at noon on Wednesday, 3 August, when research fellow Jared Taber of University of Kansas presents his work on his project "Reorganizing the Riverine Landscape: The Environmental History of Industrial Decline in the 20th Century" as part of our brown bag lunch series. 

For educators still hoping to earn a few PDPs this summer, there are still a few spots available in next week's workshop Ratification! The People Debate the Constitution, 1787-1788.  This two-day workshop (August 9 and 11) featuring author/historian Pauline Maier is presented by the Massachusetts Historical Society and the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, and is open to all educators in Massachusetts and Maine. The registration fee is $50.00 and includes a signed copy of Pauline Maier's book, Ratification, 12 PDPs, and a kit full of classroom resources that you can use with your own students for Constitution Day and beyond.  Contact Kathleen Barker for more information or to register. 

This Week @ MHS

Looking for something to do while on vacation this week?  Plan on visiting the MHS to attend one of the following events:

In partnership with The Forbes House Museum in Milton, the MHS is offering a three day workshop on July 12, 13, & 14.  The workshop, Three days, Three Viewpoints: The Worlds of Thomas Hutchinson, offers participants the opportunity to delve deep into the life of Thomas Hutchinson, the last civilian colonial governor of Massachusetts.  The workshop takes place at both the MHS and the Forbes House Mueseum on alternating days.  Learn more here.  The workshop is open to the public but registration and payment of the registration fee are required.  K-12 educators can earn 18 PDPs by attending the special classroom session from 2:30 to 3:30 each day. 

For those with less than three days to spare, on Wednesday, July 13, current research fellow Sean Patrick Adams, University of Florida, will present his research at a brown-bag lunch program.  Sean's project Home Fires Burning: Keeping Warm in the Industrial North explores the shifts in home heating from the rise of coal in the 1810s and 1820s, through the rise of steam and gas heating systems in the 1870s and 1880s. 

On Saturday, July 16 our ninety-minute building tour, The History and Collections of the MHS, departs the front lobby at 10:00 AM. 

And did you know that due to popular demand our exhibition History Drawn with Light: Early Photographs from the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society will remain open through September 17.  Gather the family together and stop by the MHS to check out the exhibition.  The gallery is open Monday through Saturday, 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM. 

July 2nd ... Come Celebrate Independence @ the MHS

Writing to his wife Abigail on 3 July 1776 John Adams noted:

The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America.—I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival.  It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty.  It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires, and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.

Many would argue that Adams had it right, and we -- celebrating on the 4th -- have it wrong.  The Second Continental Congress actually voted to declare our independence from Britain on July 2nd, making Saturday the anniversary of our true Independence Day. 

If you are in Boston on Saturday and are looking for something special to do, plan on stopping by the MHS to see John Adams' letter and a number of other special documents relating to America's independence on display in our exhibition hall.

In addition to Adams' letter visitors to the MHS can view a manuscript copy of the Declaration of Independence in the hand of Thomas Jefferson and a twentieth-century facsimile of John Dunlap's printing -- the first printing -- of the Declaration of Independence by the Lakeside Press.  The original broadside was completed by Dunlap, the official printer for the Congress, in the early morning of 5 July 1776, after which it was immediately disseminated throughout the colonies.

The exhibition halls will be open from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM on Saturday and are free and open to the public.  Call the MHS at 617-536-1608 if you have questions about planning your visit.

If you cannot visit the MHS in person on Saturday, be sure to explore the online display of many of your Indepedence Day related holdings.