This Month at the MHS

In commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation on 1 January 1863, this exhibition features the pen Abraham Lincoln used to sign the document. Visitors can learn how the MHS acquired this extraordinary pen as well as view paintings, broadsides, engravings, and manuscripts that tell the story of how Boston celebrated Emancipation.

View documents and artifacts related to Abraham Lincoln. Featured items include Lincoln's letter to Joshua F. Speed explaining his evolving views on slavery as well as the casts of the life mask and hands of Lincoln made by Leonard Volk in the spring of 1860.

The exhibition will display many important manuscripts, photographs, and artifacts from the Society's collections related to the Abolitionist movement in Boston. Visitors can view items such as the imposing table for The Liberator that has not been on display in the Society's building for many years.

Join us for a tour of the Society's public rooms. Led by an MHS staff member or docent, the tour touches on the history and collections of the MHS and lasts approximately 90 minutes.

The tour is free and open to the public. No reservation is required for individuals or small groups. Parties of 8 or more should contact the MHS prior to attending a tour. For more information please contact Curator of Art Anne Bentley at 617-646-0508 or abentley@masshist.org.

Free and open to the public.

Recently scholars have pointed out links between the 1636-1637 Anglo-Indian conflict known as the "Pequot War" and the 1643-1645 Dutch-Indian conflict known as "Kieft's War." This paper unpacks the larger historiographic implications of seeing the two wars as tandem events, and viewing New England and New Netherland as part of a single contested region.

In Cape Cod, Henry David Thoreau describes using an early MHS publication as a sort of antiquarian travel guide -- a way of looking back on the landscape he traversed as it had been described almost 50 years earlier. What did the founders of the MHS set out to print and what have later generations made of our early publications?

The Object of History
A series of chats with MHS Librarian Peter Drummey about what documents and artifacts from the collections can tell us about the characters, events, and issues of the past, as well as the role of MHS in documenting the rich history of our state and nation.

Registration Required. Fee $25/$15 (F/M); Free for MHS Fund Giving Circle members. Please click on the ticket icon above, or contact the education department at 617-646-0557 / education@masshist.org.

Register for all three programs in “The Object of History” series and receive a registration discount! Series fee: $60/30 (F/M); Free for MHS Fund Circle members.

Join us at this two-day workshop as we explore eighteenth-century letters from the collections of the Revere House and the Massachusetts Historical Society! Teachers will learn more about the importance of letters as a communication tool in the eighteenth century, as well as their importance as historical sources today. Participants can also try their hand at writing letters using eighteenth-century technology and conventions and transcribing letters written by members of the Revere and Adams families.

Participants can earn 12 PDPs by attending both days of the course and writing one lesson plan, or One Graduate Credit (equal to 22.5 PDPs) from Framingham State (credit pending) by paying an additional fee of $75 and completing a more extensive project.

Registration Fee: $80. Includes course readings, morning snacks and one lunch. To Register: Please complete this registration form and send it with your check (payable to the Revere House) to:19 North Sq., Boston, MA 02113 by 31 January 2013.

Workshop Schedule

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2013
9:00 – 4:30 Paul Revere House 19 North Square, Boston, MA 02113

Morning Sessions:
Letter-writing in the 18th century: Who wrote letters and why?

Reading Between the Lines: What do surviving Revere letters tell us about the family? Small groups work together to note information gleaned from original and transcribed Revere family letters. A short tour of the Revere House is included to see a few Revere written items on display. Staff reveal the recent discovery of a missing Revere letter, how it came to light and how it has since been conserved.

Afternoon Sessions:
Composition Workshop: Write your own 18th c. style letter by following patterns & styles noted in examples shared in the morning sessions and required reading.

Penmanship: Quill Pen Writing Workshop: Copy out your own letter with a quill pen and ink. Proper 18th c. writing style & quill pen sharpening method will be taught by R. P. Hale, calligrapher and printer extraordinaire.

SATURDAY, MARCH 9, 2013
9:00 – 4:30 Massachusetts Historical Society 1154 Boylston Street, Boston, MA 02215

Morning Sessions
Making Sense of Manuscripts: Learn more about the challenges & rewards of working with eighteenth-century documents such as the Adams Family Papers.

Collections Tour: View examples of letters in the Massachusetts Historical Society’s extensive collections.

Afternoon Sessions:
Your turn: Try your hand at transcribing eighteenthcentury letters from the Society’s collections. After working in small groups, participants can share their own challenges and successes.

A Life in Letters: What does the correspondence between Abigail Adams and her husband and sisters tell us about life in the late eighteenth century? Participants will examine a series of letters in order to create a sketch of Adams family life at the time of the American Revolution.

For Further Information: Contact the Education Department: 617-646-0557 or education@masshist.org.

In 1909, Elizabeth Lowell Putnam formed the Massachusetts Milk Consumers’ Association with the intent of tackling what was then known as “the milk question.” Using the MMCA as a case study, this paper argues that Boston milk reformers’ understanding of the new science of bacteriology fundamentally shaped their perceptions of the relationship between the rural environment, the food city dwellers consumed, and the health of human bodies.

Prize-winning author and MHS Fellow Megan Marshall will read from Margaret Fuller: A New American Life, her biography of the 19th-century heroine who spent her last years in Rome and Florence as a war correspondent covering the early stages of Italy’s Risorgimento. How should we remember this period in Fuller’s life, particularly given the scandal of her love affair with Giovanni Ossoli? Folk ensemble Newpoli will conjure the vibrant music that Fuller came to love as emblematic of Italy. Ms. Marshall is the author of The Peabody Sisters: Three Women Who Ignited American Romanticism, winner of the Francis Parkman Prize, the Mark Lynton History Prize, the Massachusetts Book Award, and a Pulitzer Prize finalist. Newpoli performs southern Italian folk music from the Middle Ages to the 19th century.

Reservations requested. Please click on the ticket icon above, or contact the education department at 617-646-0560 / education@masshist.org.

New Fellows and Members are invited to a special reception and tour to learn more about the MHS and its collections. For more information, call 617-646-0543. RSVP required.

Curator of Art Anne Bentley will examine the nature and use of our set of William Lloyd Garrison’s banners, displayed circa 1840s to 1850s in local fairs and demonstrations sponsored by the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society.

This paper explores the paradox of bodybuilders such as Atlas espousing eugenics principles while highlighting their own allegedly innate weaknesses as a marketing strategy for their diet and exercise regimens. It also argues that both techniques functioned as assimilation strategies for the immigrant and ethnic bodybuilding community at a time when the U.S. was less than hospitable to foreigners.

Join us for a panel discussion featuring Carla Kaplan, who will talk about her forthcoming book on white women in the Harlem Renaissance; Diane McWhorter, who will discuss the civil rights struggle and the growth of the military-industrial complex in postwar Alabama; and Lois Rudnick, who will reflect on Mabel Dodge Luhan and her circle of friends in New Mexico.

Men and women 150 years ago grappled with information overload by making scrapbooks—the ancestors of Google and blogging. Mark Twain and Susan B. Anthony, abolitionists and Confederates, African American janitors and farmwomen cut out and pasted down their reading. Professor Garvey will discuss these various perspectives, covered in her recent book Writing with Scissors, including the findings she uncovered while doing research at the MHS. All scrapbook makers passed along their understanding that the press was not a simple record, but a set of voices and conversations.

Reservations requested. Please click on the ticket icon above, or contact the education department at 617-646-0560 / education@masshist.org.