This Month at the MHS

In 1794, the first public theater in Boston opened on Federal Street despite strong legal and public opposition. The First Seasons of the Federal Street Theatre, 1794-1798 documents the battle over the Federal Street Theatre through playbills from early performances as well as the letters and publications of supporters and opponents of public theater in Boston. The MHS show is a satellite display of an exhibition titled Forgotten Chapters of Boston's Literary History on display at the Boston Public Library (BPL). Created by Professor Paul Lewis of the Boston College English Department and his students, the exhibition tells stories about Boston's literary history through letters, manuscripts, and early editions from the collections of the MHS, the BPL, the American Antiquarian Society, and Boston College. Divided into six “chapters,”  the exhibition follows the rise and fall of reputations, recovers out-of-print materials, and walks the streets of Boston in its literary heyday. The materials at the MHS will be on view 28 March through 30 July.

In 1812, Massachusetts was bitterly divided along partisan political lines and a wave of popular protests greeted the declaration of war on 18 June. The MHS is commemorating the bicentennial with the exhibition Mr. Madison's War: The Controversial War of 1812. The exhibition showcases a number of letters, broadsides, artifacts, and images from the Society's rich collections including a midshipman's log of the USS Constitution describing the ship's first great victory, letters written by John Quincy Adams to his mother while serving as the American minister to Russia, and a brass cannon captured from the British at the Battle of New Orleans in 1815.

In this gallery talk, Peter Drummey will explain why John Adams believed July 2, 1776 would be the most memorable day in the history of America.

On 2 July 1776, the Continental Congress resolved "That these United Colonies are, and of right, ought to be, Free and Independent States." In a letter written to Abigail Adams on 3 July 1776, John Adams reflected on the event and summed up what it meant for Americans of his own time and in the future. He writes that the day will be celebrated with, "Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other." Adams seems to have understood more clearly than any other member of the Continental Congress the momentous importance of the vote for independence on 2 July, 1776 and how it should be celebrated. He was right about everything except the date. On 2 July, in celebration of America's independence, the MHS will open an exhibition of letters and documents relating to this important moment in United States history. The exhibition will be on display through 31 August.

In this gallery talk, Stephen T. Riley Librarian Peter Drummey will discuss why John Adams believed July 2, 1776 would be the most memorable day in the history of America.

This project explores the legal and historical parameters of the corporation as it developed in New England during the English colonial period through the initial years of the new republic. Gillis seeks to identify certain thematic developments relating to the incorporation, operation and regulation of such corporations, whether municipal, charitable, religious, educational or commercial. She will compare this New England corporate experience, as well as those of Virginia, New York and Pennsylvania, with their English counterpart to understand the degree to which the pre-modern American corporation was a unique legal creature rather than a mere offspring of its English corporate parent. 

This talk will examine the visual culture of the woman suffrage movement. Lange’s research shows that images, from engravings and lithographs to photographs and halftones, shaped Americans' conceptions of gender and women's relationships to politics.  Her project analyzes how suffrage supporters and detractors used these powerful visuals to promote their political causes.

Wright’s research explores the connections between religious conversion and antislavery activism in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. It argues that the Americans and Britons who attacked slavery prior to 1830 did so primarily out of a desire to convert the colonies, the new American republic, and eventually the world. This study demonstrates how ideologies of conversion directed the tactics of early antislavery reformers and how changes in these ideologies transformed antislavery into abolitionism. 

This program investigates two concurrent stories: the wars plaguing New England’s northern frontier around the turn of the eighteenth century and, in the same years, the rise of the press. Between the 1670s and 1710s, the borderlands of northern New England were repeatedly convulsed by violence.  French and Indian raiders doggedly punished English towns, snatched captives, ambushed farmers in their fields. And, for better or worse, the news spread widely. Although printing had been present in New England since the 1630s, it was only in the latter part of the century—as the most terrific frontier violence was unfolding—that it truly took off. To what extent did the appetite for news of imperial warfare drive the rise of print publication? What appeared in print concerning the border raids—and how did these items circulate? Following the spread of terror in early New England suggests new ways to gauge the effects of imperial warfare in early America.

This project focuses on popular celebrations and the use of "celebrities" as symbols of the changing dynamics of American nationalism from settlement through the Civil War. George’s research focuses on three main idols, the Pope, Benedict Arnold, and Crispus Attucks, each representing a major transition in American national identity.