This Week @MHS

We have two seminars and a gallery talk scheduled at the MHS this week. 

- Tuesday, 13 November, 5:15 PM: Ditched: Digging Up Black History in the South Carolina Lowcountry with Caroline Grego, University of Colorado Boulder, with comment by Chad Montrie, University of Massachusetts--Lowell. For nearly three centuries, Black sea islanders enslaved and free have dug thousands of miles of ditches that channeled the South Carolina Lowcountry, for purposes from rice to phosphate to mosquito control. This piece explores the evolving projects of environmental use and management in the Lowcountry, through the conduit of ditches, and traces the history of how the environment, politics, and labor intersected in the miry ditches of the region from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries. This is part of the Boston Seminar on Environmental History series. Seminars are free and open to the public. 

- Thursday, 15 November, 5:15 PM: An “Organic Union”: Ecclesiastical Imperialism and Caribbean Missions with Christina Davidson, Harvard University, and comment by Greg Childs, Brandeis University. In 1880, hundreds of black clergy and lay delegates of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) gathered to discuss reunion with the British Methodist Episcopal Church of Canada. Factions within both denominations disputed the nature and procedure of the proposed organic union. This paper argues that the organic union debate was in fact crucial to AME expansion and the development of foreign missions in Haiti and the broader Caribbean. This is part of the Boston Seminar on African American History series. Seminars are free and open to the public. 

- Saturday, 17 November, 2:00 PM: Gallery Talk: Fashioning the New England Family with Kimberly Alexander, University of New Hampshire. Material culture specialist and guest curator, Dr. Kimberly Alexander will help viewers explore and contextualize rarely seen costumes, textiles and fashion-related accessories mined from the MHS collection. Representing three- centuries of evolving New England style, most of the pieces have never before been on view to the public.

Fashioning the New England Family is open Monday through Saturday, from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM. The exhibition explores the ways in which the multiple meanings of fashion and fashionable goods are reflected in patterns of consumption and refashioning, recycling, and retaining favorite family pieces. Many of the items that will be featured have been out of sight, having never been exhibited for the public or seen in living memory. The exhibition is organized as part of Mass Fashion, a consortium of cultural institutions set up to explore and celebrate the many facets of the culture of fashion in Massachusetts. 

Please note that the building is closed on Monday, 12 November. The library will close at 3:00 PM on Friday, 16 November. Take a look at our calendar page for information about upcoming programs.