This Week @ MHS

After three straight weeks with canceled programs or weather-induced closures, here is hoping that the last week of March lets us exit the month like a lamb. This is the slate of programs coming in the week ahead:

- Tuesday, 27 March, 5:15PM : First up this week is a seminar from the Modern American Society and Culture series with John Bezis-Selfa of Wheaton College, titled "La Villania Arizoniana: Disenfranchisement, Citizenship, and Defining the Body Politic in the Early 20th-Century US-Mexico Borderlands." In 1909 and 1912, the Arizona legislature enacted requirements that all voters be literate in English, sparking a storm of multilingual protests in the papers and the courts. How and why Anglo-Arizonans took the right to vote from thousands of Mexican-American men and how Spanish-speakers fought back shows how conflicting views of race and ethnicity have influenced citizenship in the U.S.’s southwestern borderlands. Alex Keyssar of the Harvard Kennedy School 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.

- Wednesday, 28 March, 12:00PM : Jaclyn Schultz of University of California at Santa Cruz leads this week's Brown Bag lunch talk, "Learning the Values of a Dollar: Childhood & Cultures of Economy, 1825-1900." Nineteenth-century children rarely had access to money, even when they worked. Yet, several forms of authority instructed children in specific expectations of spending, saving, and giving. This talk explores how and why children were taught to interact with and value financial resources as well as how these lessons were racialized. This talk is free and open to the public. 

- Thursday, 29 March, 6:00PM : Protest & Citizenship is a panel discussion with Stephen Kantrowitz, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Crystal Feimster, Yale University; John Stauffer, Harvard University; and Chad Williams, Brandeis University. Throughout American history many groups have struggled to establish their rights as citizens. While the United States was a grand experiment in republican government, in the beginning only a small percentage was allowed to participate. Over time, citizenship has grown, but this has often not been a simple or a smooth process. This talk explores this history of citizenship and protest. How have groups throughout American history used agitation to help change the dialog about their position as citizens? How can this history help inform our views and reactions to the changing political climate we see today?

This talk is open to the public, though registration is required. PLEASE NOTE - PEOPLE REGISTERING FOR THIS PROGRAM AFTER 3/15/18 MAY BE ASKED TO SIT IN OVERFLOW SEATING (The overflow seating is on the same floor, one room over with a live video feed).

This program is made possible by a grant from Mass Humanities. 

- Saturday, 31 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.