Public Programs and Special Events

Why did most of Great Britain’s intellectual and artistic class sympathize with the Confederacy, either overtly or covertly, during the Civil War? This presentation examines the cultural conflict that erupted between New England poets and intellectuals and their British counterparts as a result of tensions arising out of the Civil War. Prof. Gougeon is a Distinguished University Fellow at the University of Scranton, where he teaches American literature. He is the author of Virtue’s Hero: Emerson, Antislavery, and Reform and Emerson and Eros: The Making of a Cultural Hero.

This event is co-sponsored by The New England Quarterly.

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

Edward Everett is known to history as the “other” speaker at the commemoration of the National Cemetery at Gettysburg – the man who, by his own admission, in two hours could not accomplish what Lincoln did in two minutes. Learn more about who said what—and why—at Gettysburg, and view letters exchanged by Lincoln and Everett.

From the beginnings of the MHS, George Washington has been the subject of fascination and veneration. What does the Society’s early collection of Washington artifacts and documents say about the founding of the MHS—and the image of Washington in the early Republic?

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 March 1861, when Lincoln delivered his First Inaugural, neither he nor many in the audience envisioned that four years later, at his Second, the eradication of slavery would be imminent. What events led to the Emancipation Proclamation? And what would follow as Lincoln led the nation toward his “king’s cure for all the evils,” the Thirteenth Amendment? On the eve of Lincoln’s birthday, William Martin will explore Lincoln’s passage from the careful Constitutional lawyer of the First Inaugural to the almost messianic figure of the Second. An MHS Fellow,  Mr. Martin has written novels that appear on the New York Times bestsellers list, as well as scripts for television and film.

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

Librarian Peter Drummey will discuss materials in the new exhibition that illustrate the life and career of William Lloyd Garrison, editor of the Liberator, and a central figure in the antislavery movement in Boston.

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.

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.

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.