This Week @ MHS

Welcome back to another events round-up! Here is what is happening at the Society in the week ahead:

- Tuesday, 6 February, 5:15PM : Join us for an Early American History seminar with current MHS-NEH Fellow Laurel Daen, and commenter Cornelia Dayton of the University of Connecticut. Between 1790 and 1840, Americans deemed to be cognitively disabled lost the right to vote, marry, immigrate, obtain residency, and live independently. "'We all agree to exclude...those of unsound mind': Disability, Doctors, and the Law in the Early Republic" charts these legal developments in Massachusetts as well as how disabled people used the courts to negotiate these contraints. 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 February, 12:00PM : This week's Brown Bag talk is titled "John Winthrop, Benjamin Martin, & Worlds of Scientific Work." Pierce Williams of Carnegie Mellon University relates how Benjamin Martin was regarded by natural philosophers of his age as a showman and peddler of pseudo-scientific trinkets. At the same time, John Winthrop was working to elevate the North American colonies in the topography of learned culture. This project attempts to understand Winthrop's puzzling choice of Martin to refurbish Harvard's scientific instrument collection after the college laboratory burned to the ground in 1764. This talk is free and open to the public. 

- Wednesday, 7 February, 6:00 PM : In "Reconsidering King Philip's War," two historians reexamine the narrative of one of colonial America’s most devastating conflicts. Lisa Brooks, Amherst College, recovers a complex picture of war, captivity, and Native resistance during the “First Indian War." Christine DeLucia, Mount Holyoke College, offers a major reconsideration of the war, providing an alternative to Pilgrim-centric narratives that have dominated the histories of colonial New England. The program will include short presentations by both scholars followed by a conversation. This talk is open to the public, registration required with a fee of $10 (no charge for MHS Members and Fellows, and EBT cardholders). We have exceeded the seating in our main room. Audience members registering on or after February 1st will be seated in overflow seating.

- Thursday, 8 February, 6:00PM : The second author talk this weak features Douglas Egerton, Le Moyne College, and his recent work Thunder at the Gates: The Black Civil War Regiments that Redeemed America. One of the most treasured objects belonging to the Society’s collection is the battle sword of Robert Gould Shaw, the leader of the courageous 54th Massachusetts infantry, the first black regiment in the North. The prominent Shaw family of Boston and New York had long been involved in reform, including antislavery and feminism, and their son, Robert, took up the mantle of his family’s progressive stances, though perhaps more reluctantly. In this lecture, historian Douglas R. Egerton focuses on the entire Shaw family during the war years and how following generations have dealt with their legacy. This talk is open to the public, registration required with a fee of $10 (no charge for MHS Members and Fellows, and EBT cardholders).

- Saturday, 10 February, 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

It's time, once again, to see what public programs are coming in the week ahead here at the MHS:

- Monday, 29 January, 6:00PM : Martha McNamara of Wellesley College and Karan Sheldon of Northeast Historic Film discuss the selection of essays they recently edited titled Amateur Movie Making: Aesthetics of the Everyday in New England Film, 1915-1960, which illustrates how early twentieth-century amateur filmmaking produced irreplaceable records of peoples' lives and beloved places. In this converation, McNamara and Sheldon highlight three examples: the comedies of landscape architect Sidney N. Shurcliff, depictions of pastoral family life by Elizabeth Woodman Wright, and the chronicles of Anna B. Harris, an African American resident of Manchester, Vermont. This talk is open to the public, though registration is required with a fee of $10 (no charge for MHS Members/Fellows or EBT Cardholders). Pre-talk reception begins at 5:30PM, followed by the speaking program at 6:00PM.

- Tuesday, 30 January, 5:15PM : The seminar this week comes from the Modern American Society and Culture series, and features the work of Anne Gray Fischer of Brown University, with Brandeis University's Michael Willrich providing comment. "'Momentum Toward Evil Is Strong': Poor Women, Moral Panics, and the Rise of Crime-Fighting Policing in Depression-Era America" explores the dramatic shift in public perception of American law enforcement between Prohibition and World War II by studying the changing practices of Depression-era morality policing in boston and Los Angeles -- specifically, the police enforcement of moral misdemeanors, including vagrancy, disorderly conduct, lewdness, and prostitution, which disproportionately targeted poor women on city streets. 

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

- Wednesday, 31 January, 12:00PM : Stop by at noon for a Brown Bag talk with short-term research fellow Angela Hudson of Texas A&M University. "Indian Doctresses: Race, Labor, and Medicine in the 19th-century United States" focuses on women who worked as Indian doctresses and the clients who sought their care. They study strives to more fully integrate indigeneity into fields of study from which it is often absent, most notably labor history and the history of medicine. This talk is free and open to the public 

- Saturday, 3 February, 10:00AM : The History and Collections of the MHS is a 90-minute, docent-led walk through the public spaces of the Society's home at 1154 Boylston St. The tour is free and open to the public with no need for reservations for individuals and small groups. Those wishing ot bring a larger party (8 or more), please contact Curator of Art Anne Bentley in advance 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

First things first in this weekly round-up: The Society is CLOSED on Monday, 15 January, in observance of Martin Luther King, Jr., Day. Normal hours resume on Tuesday, 16 January.

Now that we have that out of the way, on to the programs scheduled for the coming week:

- Tuesday, 16 January, 5:15PM : The seminar this week is part of the Environmental History series. In this program Jeffrey Egan of the Unviersity of Connecticut and commenter Karl Haglund of the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation discuss "The Fight before the Flood: Rural Protest and the Debate over Boston's Quabbin Reservoir, 1919-1927." In 1919, state engineers proposed solving Boston’s water supply crisis by damming the Swift River, flooding a western Massachusetts valley and evicting 2,500 people. The contentious six-year debate that followed does not fit the standard story of urban conservationists versus rural peoples, as many valley residents defined themselves as rural and conservationist, and thus offers scholars a chance to see fresh nuances in early twentieth-century land management, rural life, and urban development. 

Seminars are free and open to the public; RSVP required. Subscribe to receive advance copies of the seminar papers.

- Wednesday, 17 Janauary, 12:00PM : "Skulls, Selves, and Showmanship: Itinerant Phrenologists in 19th-Century America" is a Brown Bag talk with research fellow Katherine Duffy of Brown University. Proponents of phrenology — a controversial, influential science — believed that the shape of one’s cranium revealed one’s character. This talk explores the world of phrenological lecture-demonstrations and the circulation of materialist ideas about the self. This talk is free and open to the public. 

- Wednesday, 17 January, 6:00PM : Join us for the Pauline Maier Memorial Lecture - Madison's Hand: Revising the Constitutional Convention. In this talk and recent book with the same name, Mary Sarah Bilder of Boston College Law School reveals that James Madison revised his famed Notes on the 1787 Constitutional Convention to a far greater extent than previously thought. With this work, Bilder offers a biography of a document that, over two centuries, developed a life and character all its own. This talk is open to the public; registration required with a fee of $10 (No charge for MHS Members or Fellows, or EBT Cardholders). 

- Saturday, 20 January, 10:00AM : The History and Collections of the MHS 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

It is a very quiet week here at the Society as we await the thaw following last week's storm. Here are the calendar notes for the coming days:

- The Exhibition Galleries are CLOSED on Monday, 8 January and Tuesday, 9 January. Normal hours resume on Wednesday, 10 January.

- Saturday, 13 January, 10:00AM : The History and Collections of the MHS is a 90-minute docent-led tour of the Society's public spaces. The tour is free and open to the public with no need for reservations for indivudals or small groups. 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.