This Month at the MHS

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.

This conference for Massachusetts history organizations is presented by Mass Humanities, Massachusetts Historical Society, University of Massachusetts Amherst Public History Program, and the University of Massachusetts Boston Public History and Archives Track. 

Join us on Monday, June 3rd at the Hogan Campus Center, College of the Holy Cross, for a thought-provoking day examining myth in Massachusetts history. Ray Raphael, author of the forth-coming Constitutional Myths: What We Get Wrong and How to Get it Right (March 2013), a companion volume to the earlier Founding Myths: Stories that Hide our Patriotic Past, will explore “Why Myths Persist” in his keynote address.

In sessions and round tables such as Massachusetts History beyond the Tea Party; Reinterpretation 101; Redefining Freedom on the Trail, and “It Never Happened Here”: Iconic Myth as Burden we will examine and present organizations, programs and projects that have successfully harnessed myths, expanded their narratives, and redefined their mission without losing their identity. In practical sessions/workshops we will explore “teaching the problem,” and how to use this model for programming purposes in exciting ways that successfully challenge audiences.

Registration Fees
Fee includes workshop, morning refreshments, buffet lunch (vegetarian option available), and afternoon snack.

• $85 Standard Fee per person
• $60 Student Fee (include copy of student ID with registration or bring ID to event if registering online)
• $75 Per person for 3 registrants from same organization at the same time
• $65 Per person for 4 registrants from same organization at the same time

For more information, or to register for the conference, visit the Mass Humanities website: http://masshumanities.org/history_conference.

When and why did The Federalist become The Federalist Papers? What role did the essays play in the ratification debates? Can Publius be considered an authoritative source for interpreting specific sections of the Constitution – or for discovering its inner meaning?

Ray Raphael’s latest book is Constitutional Myths: What We Get Wrong and How To Get It Right. His previous works include Mr. President: How and Why the Founders Created a Chief Executive, Founding Myths, A People’s History of the American Revolution, and The First American Revolution: Before Lexington and Concord.

The project traces the historical roots of contemporary concerns about college students' alcohol use. The brown bag session will specifically focus on college students and alcohol between 1820 and 1860. The diaries that antebellum college men kept reveal students' drinking behaviors, the meanings they made from alcohol, and their reactions to and involvement in the temperance movement. 

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.

To accommodate the MHS Annual Meeting, the Library will close at 4:00 PM on Wednesday, 12 June 2013.

MHS Fellows are invited to attend the Society's annual business meeting followed by a program and preview reception for The Object of History: 18th-Century Treasures from the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society. RSVP required.

5:00 PM
Annual Meeting for elected MHS Fellows

6:00 PM
Remarks by Stephen T. Riley Librarian Peter Drummey followed by a reception and exhibition preview for MHS Fellows and Members

Following the Society's annual business meeting, MHS Fellows and Members are invited to a special preview reception of The Object of History: 18th-Century Treasures from the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society. The evening will begin with remarks by Stephen T. Riley Librarian Peter Drummey. A reception and exhibition preview will follow. The exhibition highlights 18th-century treasures from the Society's collections including portraits, needlework, firearms, clothing, furniture, silver, documents, and books.

“Estlin Cummings Wild West Show” features a selection of E.E. Cummings’s childhood writings and drawings, showcasing the young poet’s earliest experiments with words and illustrations. Drawings and paintings include ink blots, watercolors, and sketches in pen and pencil of cowboys and Indians, boats, the “world’s tallest tower,” wild west shows, hunting expeditions, locomotives, zoos, circuses, elephants, and house plans.

Image: “Estlin Cummings Wild West Show,” drawing by E. E. Cummings. From the Cummings-Clarke family papers. Artwork by E.E. Cummings. Used by permission of the Trustees for the E. E. Cummings Trust.

From 13 June through 7 September, the Society will display letters written by John and Abigail Adams to each other, to their children, and to friends and family regarding their views on education.

In a letter to his wife, Abigail, dated August 28, 1774, John Adams writes: “The Education of our Children is never out of my Mind. Train them to Virtue, habituate them to industry, activity, and Spirit. Make them consider every Vice, as shamefull and unmanly: fire them with Ambition to be usefull-make them disdain to be destitute of any usefull, or ornamental Knowledge or Accomplishment. Fix their Ambition upon great and solid Objects, and their Contempt upon little, frivolous, and useless ones.”

What is the meaning of historical objects? Why are they preserved, and why have they survived? Are they valued for their associations with notable historical figures or landmark events, as objects of beauty, as the survival of relics from a distant past, or for the stories they convey? The exhibition explores these questions through the display of 18th-century portraits and objects from the Society's collections, along with rarely seen engravings, needlework, maps, weapons, furniture, clothing, scientific instruments, and silver.

J.L. Bell will discuss the provenance, history, and people connected with one of the fascinating items featured in The Object of History exhibition: Ephraim Moors's powder horn. Carvings on the horn icnlude a crude drawing of the Continental Army encampment on Winter Hill, five grenadiers, a mansion house, and the head of a beast. Aside from what the carving itself says and the name of the sea captain who donated it to the Society, almost nothing else is known about this object. Bell will discuss his investigation into the object's details, and what they tell us about the Siege of Boston.

J. L.Bell is a Massachusetts writer who specializes in (among other things) the start of the American Revolution in and around Boston. His blog, Boston1775.net, features "history, analysis, and unabashed gossip about the start of the American Revolution in Massachusetts."

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.

David Wood, the curator of the Concord Museum, and Peter Drummey, the Librarian for the Society, will discuss early works of art, artifacts, and documents on display at the MHS as part of The Object of History exhibition.

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.

In the 1880s, the field of sexology declared masculine women to be inverts—true homosexuals. Prior to this period, representations of gender crossings were more varied and common. Such representations shine a spotlight on some of the most obvious anxieties concerning women’s place in society as well as the constitutive relationships between sex, gender, and sexuality.

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.

At its height in the late eighteenth century, Jamaica was the most valuable and productive of Britain’s colonial possessions in the Atlantic world. Yet intertwined with Jamaica’s reputation for unparalleled profit was a growing apprehension of settler degeneration—in manners, morals, bloodlines, and especially life expectancy. The island, as one would-be colonist put it, offers “the most flattering prospect of pecuniary acquisition or death.” Such notions signify Britain’s ambivalent and contradictory relationship with Jamaica, and the West India colonies more generally, during the era of slavery.

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.