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Past Events
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…
This talk explores the economic and cultural exchange between New England and Zanzibar, the premier entrepôt of the Western Indian Ocean. This trade network linked the cotton magnates of…
Chateau Higginson is a vivid and absorbing account of one man’s efforts to construct a building that would create…
This talk examines three interrelated elements of Henry Adams’s literary output: his transnational focus, his reconsideration of subject/object relations, and his interest in the visual arts.…
Join us for an open house and a one-day display celebrating milestones on the road to the end of slavery. Featured items explore the 1783 abolition of slavery in Massachusetts; celebrations within…
The library closes at 4:00PM in preparation for the evening's Juneteenth Open House.
Guest curator and furniture conservator Robert Mussey will lead visitors through the exhibition’s highlights while giving deeper context to the life and work of two extraordinary Massachusetts…
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…
The origins of the United States are often framed as anti-monarchist, yet Americans entertain a fascination with monarchs and royalty. Is it possible to create a taxonomy of popular Orientalist…
The library closes at 3:00PM in preparation for a staff event.
American Cookery (1796) by Amelia Simmons is known as the “first American cookbook”and has attracted an…
MHS Fellows are invited to the Society's annual business meeting. RSVP by e-mailing dbeardsley@masshist.org or calling 617-646-0572.
In preparation for the Society's Annual Meeting, the library closes at 1:30PM.
This talk examines tobacco’s role in the agriculture, commerce, and political economy of New England. By the 18th-century, tobacco figured prominently in the region, and was exported in large…
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…
Few are familiar with Massachusetts’s role at the center of the national struggle for woman suffrage. Lucy Stone…
In the eighteenth century, the far northeastern coast of North America had more in common with the trans-Appalachian west than the white settler colonial east. This talk examines British and…
While the measurement of human intelligence is now fully in the purview of science, antebellum novelists and poets engaged in public debate over its meaning. Key to recovering this contentious…