This Week @ MHS

There are no public programs scheduled for this week, but there are a few things to take note of:

- The library closes at 3:30PM on Monday, 19 December, and the building closes at 4:00PM.

- The library is closed from Friday, 23 December, through Monday, 2 January. Normal hours resume on Tuesday, 3 December. 

- Exhbition galleries are open Tuesday, 27 December through Friday, 30 December, 10:00AM-4:00PM. Stop by to check out Turning Points in American History. 

Please check our online calendar for a full listing of our upcoming closures. 

This Week @ MHS

This week is your final chance to take part in some public programs here at the MHS for the year 2016. Please note that the library closes at 3:30PM on Monday, 12 December. Here are the progams ahead:

- Monday, 12 December, 6:00PM : Building Old Cambridge: Architecture and Development, is an author talk with Susan Maycock and Charles Sullivan, centered on their book Building Old Cambridge. In this talk the authors explore Old Cambridge’s architecture and development in the context of its social and economic history; the development of Harvard Square as a commercial center and regional mass transit hub; the creation of parks and open spaces; and the formation of a thriving nineteenth-century community of booksellers, authors, printers, and publishers that made Cambridge a national center of the book industry. This program is open to the public, registration required with a fee of $10 (no charge for MHS Members or Fellows). A pre-talk reception begins at 5:30PM and the talk begins at 6:00PM.

- Tuesday, 13 December, 5:15PM : The final seminar of 2016 is a panel discussion from the Environmental History series. "Recreation and Regional Planning" features Elsa Devienne of the Universite Paris Ouest Nanterre La Defense and Princeton University, and Garret Nelson of Dartmouth College. Brian Donahue of Brandeis University provides comment. Seminars are free and open to the public; RSVP required. Subscribe to receive advance copies of the seminar papers. 

- Wednesday, 14 December, 6:00PM : Join Tamara Thornton of SUNY Buffalo as she discusses her new book, Nathaniel Bowditch and the Power of Numbers. Fleshing out the multiple careers of Nathaniel Bowditch, this book is at once a lively biography, a window into the birth of bureaucracy, and a portrait of patrician life, giving us a broader, more-nuanced understanding of how powerful capitalists operated during this era and how the emerging quantitative sciences shaped the modern experience. Pre-talk reception begins at 5:30PM and the program starts at 6:00PM. This talk is open to the public free of charge, registration required. 

- Saturday, 17 December, 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: Turning Points in American History.

This Week @ MHS

It's that time, once again, for our weekly round-up of programs to come. Here's what's happening at the Society in the week ahead:

- Monday, 5 December, 6:00PM : Join us for an author talk with Jane Kamensky of Harvard University. A Revolution in Color: The World of John Singleton Copley is a bold new history that recovers an unknown American Revolution as seen through the eyes of Boston-born painter John Singleton Copley. In her new work, Kamensky untangles the web of principles and interests that shaped the age of America's revolution. This talk is open to the public and registration is required with a fee of $20 (no charge for MHS Members and Fellows). A pre-talk reception begins at 5:30PM, followed by the program at 6:00PM. 

- Tuesday, 6 December, 10:15AM : "Slavery and Freedom in the Cradle of Liberty: An Exhibit of Objects and Documents from the Massachusetts Historical Society" is a virtual exhibit presented by students from Boston University's HI-190, The History of Boston. Their project presents more than 20 rare artifacts and documents from the MHS collection, and explores the contentious and powerful history of nineteenth-century Boston as its residents grappled with questions of slavery, freedom, and civil war. This event is open to the public; registration is required at no cost.

- Tuesday, 6 December, 5:15PM : This week's first seminar, part of the Early American History series, is a panel discussion with Liam Riordan of the University of Maine at Orono and Christina Carrick of Boston University." The discussion, "Loyalism," will focus on Riordan's essay "Revisiting Thomas Hutchinson: The Strengths and Weaknesses of Loyalist Biography," and Carricks' "'The earlier we form good Connections the better': David Greene's Loyalist Merchant Network in the Revolutionary Atlantic." Steve Bullock of Worcester Polytechnic Institute will provide comment. Seminars are free and open to the public; RSVP required. Subscribe to receive advance copies of the seminar papers.

- Wednesday, 7 December, 12:00PM : Stop by at lunch time for a Brown Bag talk with Manisha Sinha of the University of Connecticut. "The Abolitionist Origins of Radical Reconstruction: Charles Sumner, Thaddeus Stevens, and Black Citizenship" examines how Radical Republicans like Sumner and Stevens helped convert a radical social movement into a program for political change. This talk is free and open to the public. 

- Wednesday, 7 December, 6:00PM : MHS Fellows and Members are invited to celebrate the season at the Society's annual MHS Fellows and Members Holiday Party. Enjoy an evening of holiday cheer along with the annual tradition of reading the anti-Christmas laws. Registration is required. 

- Thursday, 8 December, 5:30PM : The second seminar of the week is a part of the History of Women and Gender series and is another panel discussion. "The History of Black Feminisms" is a conversation among Francoise Hamlin of Brown University, Tanisha C. Ford of the University of Delaware, and Treva Lindsey of Ohio State University and the Hutchins Center for African & African America Research. Kali Nicole Gross of Wesleyan University moderates this conversation that encompasses issues of identity, class, and culture and pays tribute to the scholarship of Leslie Brown of Williams College. Seminars are free and open to the public; RSVP required. Subscribe to receive advance copies of the seminar papers.

This Week @ MHS

Thanksgiving is in the rearview mirror and the new year looms on the horizon. But if we focus on the present, we can learn a lot about the past. Here are the public programs on offer in the week to come:

- Tuesday, 29 November, 5:15PM : Join Patrick Lacroix of the University of New Hampshire, with commentor Edward O'Donnell of the College of the Holy Cross, as they discuss "French Canadians and the Transnational Church: The Landscape of North American Catholicism, 1837-1901." This Modern American Society and Culture seminar explores the influence of immigration on larger demates over North American Catholicism and examines the response of the New England episcopacy, whose Americanism helped to preserve the structure and ideas of the Irish-American religious establishment. Seminars are free and open to the public; RSVP required. Subscribe to receive advance copies of the seminar papers.

- Wednesday, 30 November, 12:00PM : Stop by at noon for a Brown Bag talk with Louis Gerdelan of Harvard University as he presents "Calamities and the Conscience: Religion, Suffering, and Intellectual Change in the Face of Disasters in the Late Seventeenth and Early Eighteenth Centuries." This talk is free and open to the public. [N.B.: The date of this event has changed from December 14.] 

- Thursday, 1 December, 6:00PM : In a public author talk, John Kaag of the UMass-Lowell discusses his recent book American Philosophy: A Love Story. After stumbling upon the personal library of past Harvard philosopher William Ernest Hocking, Kaag undertakes the cataloging of the collection, which includes notes from Whitman, inscriptions from Frost, and first editions of Hobbes, Descartes, and Kant. In so doing, Kaag rediscovers the very tenets of American philosophy - self-reliance, pragmatism, the transcendent - and sees them in  a twenty-first century context. This talk is open to the public for a fee of $10 (no charge for MHS Fellows or Members) and registration is required. A reception precedes the talk at 5:30PM and the program begins at 6:00PM.

- Saturday, 3 December, 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: Turning Points in American History.

- Saturday, 3 December, 1:00PM : "A Plentiful Country - Letters from Maine's Thomas Gorges" is the next installment of the Begin at the Beginning series of public conversations. Join Abby Chandler in exploring rare first-hand accounts contained in Gorges' forthright, vivid, and dynamic letters that provide a unique window onto colonial New England at a time when England was moving toward civil war. This talk is open to the public, registration is required at no cost.