This Week @ MHS

It is a fairly quiet week ahead, so this round-up will be brief:

- Wendesday, 14 March, 6:00PM : Between 1638 and today, the Browns of Rhode Island have provided community leaders, endowed academic institutions, and transformed communities through art and architecture. However, they also have wrestled with society’s toughest issues slavery, immigration, child labor, inequality and with their own internal tensions. Sylvia Brown, of the family’s 11th generation and author of Grappling with Legacy, explores this story in conversation with Edward Widmer.

This event is open to the public, though registration is required with a fee of $10 (no charge for MHS Members or Fellows, and EBT cardholders). 

- Saturday, 17 March, 9:00AM : "Monuments & Historical Memory" is a teacher workshop that explores how monuments can help students understand history, historical memory, and how national symbols play a critical role in articulating culture and identity. Highlights include looking at WWII and Holocaust commemoration across the globe; learning about the history of Confederate monuments in America; and a tour of Reconstruction-era Boston monuments. 

This program is open to all K-12 educators, and registration is required with a fee of $25 per person. 

- Remember to come in and view our current exhibition, Yankees in the West, before it ends on 6 April. 

There is no Saturday tour this week.

This Week @ MHS

As of this writing, it is a very dreary and soggy day outside. After you dry your bones this weekend, consider visiting the MHS in the week ahead for one or more of these upcoming events:

- Tuesday, 6 March, 5:15PM : We start our programs this week with a seminar combo, bringing together Environmental History and Early American History into one neat package. "Common Spaces: Environmental History and the Study of Early America" is a panel discussion with Christopher Pastore, State University of new York at Albany; Nancy Shoemaker, University of Connecticut at Storrs; and Conevery Bolton Valencius, Boston College; with Matthew McKenzie of University of Connecticut at Avery Point moderating. Environmental historians are concerned with concepts such as ecological imperialism and non-anthropocentric empires, built and natural environments, controlling and organizing space, and the relationship between borders and frontiers. How does or might this influence scholarship on early America? How can work on early American history enrich environmental historians’ understanding of empire, metropoles and borderlands, movement and colonization?

Seminars are free and open to the public; RSVP required. Subscribe to receive advance copies of the seminar papers.To RSVP: email seminars@masshist.org or call (617) 646-0579.

- Wednesday, 7 March, 12:00PM : The Brown Bag discussion this week features G. Patrick O'Brien of University of South Carolina, who presents "A Massachusetts Family's Exile & Return, 1775-1790." After being forced to flee Marblehead in May 1775, the Robie family joined fellow refugees in Halifax, Nova Scotia. In exile, each family member developed a unique perspective on his or her new home and outlook for the future. Repatriation further complicated these understandings and divided the family between two nations. This project explores how a family in exile struggled to maintain kinship networks while its members adapted to a new social environment. This talk is free and open to the public. 

- Wednesday, 7 March, 6:00PM : Join us for an author talk with Liesl Olson of the Newberry Library as she discusses her recent work, Chicago Renaissance: Literature and Art in the Midwest Metropolis. From the 1893 World’s Fair through mid-century, Chicago writers revolutionized literary forms during the first half of the 20th century, a period of sweeping aesthetic transformations all over the world. Olson’s enthralling study bridges the gap between two distinct and equally vital Chicago-based artistic “renaissance” moments: the primarily white renaissance of the early teens and the creative ferment of the “Black Metropolis” of Bronzeville. This talk is open to the public, registration required with a fee of $10 (no charge for MHS Fellows and Members or EBT cardholders). 

- Saturday, 10 March, 10:00AM : The History and Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society Tour is a 90-minute docent-led walk through our public rooms. The tour is free, open to the public, with no need for reservations. If you would like to bring a larger party (8 or more), please contact Curator of Art Anne Bentley at 617-646-0508 or abentley@masshist.org.

While you're here you will also have the opportunity to view our current exhibition: Yankees in the West.

This Week @ MHS

Here is a look at events taking place at the Society in the week ahead as the calendar turns another page:

- Monday, 26 February, 6:00PM : Starting things off this week is an author talk with Pual Finkelman of Gratz College. Supreme Inustice: Slavery in the Nation's Highest Court examines the careers of three important antebellum Supreme Court Justices: John Marshall, Roger B. Taney, and Joseph Story, who all upheld the institution of slavery in multiple rulings. Finkelman establishes an authoritative account of each justice's proslavery position, the reasoning behind his opposition to black freedom, and the incentives created by his private life. This talk is open to the public, registration required with a fee of $10 (no charge for MHS Fellows and Members, or EBT cardholders). Pre-talk reception begins at 5:30PM, followed by the speaking program at 6:00PM. 

- Tuesday, 27 February, 5:15PM : This week's seminar is part of the Modern American Society and Culture series and is a panel discussion. In "Capitalism and Culture," Jonathan Cohen of University of Virginia and Davor Mondom of Syracuse University examine the reaction against welfare state capitalism in the mid-20th century U. S., looking at two companies that promoted themselves as bastions of free enterprise or as a solution to high state taxes. Sven Becker of Harvard University provides comment. 

Seminars are free and open to the public; RSVP required. Subscribe to receive advance copies of the seminar papers. To RSVP: email seminars@masshist.org or call (617) 646-0579.

- Thursday, 1 March, 6:00PM : MHS Fund Giving Circle members are invited to Dinner with Dolley, a festive evening with good food, fine wine, and lively conversation inspired by Dolley Madison. During dinner, MHS President Catherine Allgor, who is known for her published work on Dolley Madison, will provide history and fun facts about dining with Mrs. Madison. 

This event is open only to MHS Fund Giving Circle Members. Join a Giving Circle today at www.masshist.org/support/mhsfund. 

- Saturday, 3 March, 10:00AM : The History and Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society Tour is a 90-minute docent-led walk through our public rooms. The tour is free, open to the public, with no need for reservations. If you would like to bring a larger party (8 or more), please contact Curator of Art Anne Bentley at 617-646-0508 or abentley@masshist.org.

While you're here you will also have the opportunity to view our current exhibition: Yankees in the West.

This Week @ MHS

The Society is CLOSED on Monday, 19 February, for Presidents Day. 

It is a holiday-shortened week but there is still plenty of action happening here at the Society. Below are details for what we have on tap.

- Tuesday, 20 February, 6:00PM : Kendra Field's epic family history, Growing Up with the Country, chronicles the westward migration of freedom's first generation in the 50 years after emancipation. Fields traces the journey of her ancestors out of the South to Indian Territory, where they participated in the development of black towns and settlements. When statehood, oil speculation, and segregation imperiled their lives, some launched a back-to-Africa movement while others moved to Canada and Mexico. Interweaving black, white, and Indian histories, Field's narrative explores how ideas about race and color powerfully shape the pursuit of freedom. 

This talk is open to the public. Registration is required with a fee of $10 (no charge for MHS Members and Fellows or EBT cardholders). Pre-talk reception begins at 5:30PM, followed by the program at 6:00PM. 

- Wednesday, 21 February : All K-12 educators are invited to register for Yankees in the West, an all-day teacher workshop. Using the Society's current exhibition as a guide, participants will investigate how writers, artists, and photographers sensationalized the frontier experience for eastern audiences and conceptualized the West for Americans who increasingly embraced the nation's manifest destiny. 

Registration is required for this program with a fee of $25 per person. 

- Wednesday, 21 February, 12:00PM : "Billets & Barracks: The Quartering Act & the Coming of the American Revolution" is a Brown Bag talk with John McCurdy of Eastern Michigan University. The arrival of British soldiers in the 1750s forced Americans to ask “where do soldiers belong?” This project investigates how they answered this question, arguing that it prompted them to rethink the meaning of places like the home and the city, as well as to reevaluate British military power.

This talk is free and open to the public. 

- Thursday, 22 February, 6:00PM : After the Civil War, artists and writers from Boston faced a question that haunted America: what’s next? For cultural leaders like Charles Eliot Norton and Isabella Stewart Gardner, Reconstruction left them feeling directionless and betrayed. Shunning the Whig narrative of history, these “Boston Cosmopolitans” researched Europe’s long past to discover and share examples of civil society shaped by high ideals. "For the Union Dead: Bostonians Travel East in Search of Answers in the Post-Civil War Era" is a public talk with Mark Rennella.

This program is open to all, free of charge, though registration is required. Click on the link and look for the Register button. 

- Saturday, 24 February, 9:00AM : The second teacher workshop this week examines how the personal and political philosophies of Justices John Marshall, Roger B. Taney, and Joseph Story influenced their proslavery positions. In "Slavery & the U.S. Supreme Court," Paul Finkelman, President of Gratz College, will discuss why these three influential justices upheld the institution of slavery and continued to deny black Americans their freedom. Participants will connect these federal rulings to local court cases, as well as antislavery and abolitionist efforts to undermine these unpopular decrees. 

This program is open to all K-12 educators. Registration is required with a fee of $25 per person. 

There is no public tour this week.