Welcome to Short-Term Fellow Laura Prieto

By Anna J. Cook

This spring, the MHS staff  welcomes short-term fellow Laura Prieto, one of our 2010-2011 Ruth R & Alyson R. Miller fellows in women’s history. Dr. Prieto is an Associate Professor of History and Women’s and Gender Studies at Simmons College here in Boston. She received her Ph.D. in History from Brown University in 1998, and her dissertation on professional women artists in the United States, 1830-1930, has been published as the book At Home in the Studio: The Professionalization of Women Artists in America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001).

In addition her work on women artists, Dr. Prieto has done extensive research on gender, race, and imperialism during the past ten years.  Her MHS fellowship project, “New Women, New Empire: 1898 and its Legacies for Women in the United States” is a part of this research.  During her fellowship, Dr. Prieto will be exploring the “real and imagined collection relationship between American and colonized women,” with a focus on the Spanish-American war and the immediate post-war period, as the U.S. began to realize imperial ambitions.  She will be reading the private writing of women (correspondence and diaries) on the “splendid little war”, as well as newspaper coverage and the more public responses to the war made by public figures such as Charles Francis Adams and by leaders in the Anti-Imperialist League.

Laura Prieto will give a brown bag lunch talk about her research at the MHS on Wednesday 4 May from 12:00-1:00pm. The event is free and open to the public.

The MHS staff is pleased to have Dr. Prieto with us throughout the spring and wishes her a fellowship period full of discoveries.

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This Week @ MHS

By Elaine Grublin

It is another week filled with exciting programs at the MHS.  There is a little something for everyone this week, so plan to stop in for at least one event.

On Wednesday, 6 April we have two events.  At noon current MHS/NEH long-term fellow Dr. Linford Fisher presents  “The Land of the Unfree: Africans, Indians, and the Varieties of Slavery and Servitude in Colonial New England,” a brown-bag lunch program centered on the research he has conducted while in residence at the MHS.  For those new to the MHS brown-bag series, the program is typically a 25 minute presentation followed by a question and answer session.  Attendees can bring their lunch and we provide the beverages.  The program is free an open to the public. 

Between lunch and dinner on Wednesday we make the long jump from Colonial America to the 20th & 21st centuries with the next installment in our “Dangers and Denials” Conversation Series.  James Kloppenberg of Harvard University will be discussing his latest book, Reading Obama: Dreams, Hope, and the American Political Tradition.  The conversation, facilitated by Steve Marini of Wellesley College begins at 6:00 PM. There will be a brief reception prior to the program beginning at 5:30. This program is also free and open to the public.

Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, 7 – 9 April, the MHS hosts the conference What’s New about the New Immigration to the U.S.? Traditions and Transformations since 1965, presented with the generous support of The Lowell Institute.  The conference begins with the keynote address “U.S. Refugee Policy in the Post-Cold War Era: Balancing Humanitarian Obligations and Security Concerns” delivered by Professor Maria Cristina Garcia, Cornell University, on Thursday at 6:00 PM and continues with full days of programming on Friday & Saturday.  Registration is required for conference attendance.

There is no Saturday tour this week.  The tour will return on Saturday, 16 April.

 

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Looking at the Civil War

By Elaine Grublin

Have you seen this month’s selection in Looking at the Civil War: Massachusetts Finds Her Voice, our monthly feature showcasing Civil War-era materials from the Massachusetts Historical Society’s rich collections?  If not, you should definitely take a look.

This month we feature an eight page letter written on 28 April 1861 by Charles Bower, a man from Concord, MA, who served protecting the federal capital with the Fifth Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Militia from May to July 1861.  The letter is a detailed description of Bowers’ journey from Concord to Washington — a journey that took nine days — with the Fifth.  Along the way Bowers’ travels by foot, train, and ship and makes a few interesting stops.  

If this is your first time visiting our Civil War feature, you can also browse the archive to see the items posted in January, February, and March.  

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History Drawn with Light

By Carol Knauff

Seth Eastman on Dighton RockIn 1840, almost as soon as photography arrived in America, the Massachusetts Historical Society began to collect images of notable figures, artifacts, and landscapes recorded with “the pencil of nature.” Examples of these early photographs will be on display through 3 June, 2011 in the Society’s exhibition, History Drawn with Light: Early Photographs from the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society. Visitors can view one of Boston’s oldest photographs, taken of the Old Feather Store by MHS Member Francis C. Gray, together with portraits and views by early daguerreotype artists such as Albert S. Southworth and Josiah J. Hawes, and the later work of professional and amateur photographers who documented 19th-century American history as it unfolded. The exhibition is free and open to the public, Monday through Saturday, 1 PM to 4 PM.

Read more in a recent review of the exhibition History Framed by New Technology by Mark Feeney of the Boston Globe.

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This Week @ MHS

By Elaine Grublin

Join us on Thursday, 31 March @ 12:15 at the Old South Meeting House for the final installment in the A Nation Born: The Battles of Lexington and Concord series.  In this session filmmaker Bestor Cram shares clips from his award-winning documentary Unfinished Symphony, as well as his experiences as part of the events on Memorial Day 1971 when nearly 500 Vietnam Veterans and townspeople were arrested for camping on Lexington Green, the very spot where the American Revolution began .

And on Saturday, 2 April, our weekly building tour begins in the front lobby at 10:00AM.  This 90 minute tour offers an opportunity to learn about the history and collections of the MHS. 

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Scholars Convene for M.H.S. Conference on Recent Immigration

By Kate Viens

On April 7-9, 2011, scholars from across the U.S. will gather at the MHS—the nation’s oldest historical society—to discuss a question of compelling current interest for American life: What is new about recent immigration? Representatives of city and state agencies, elected officials, and non-profit organizations that work with immigrants have also confirmed their attendance at “What’s New about the New Immigration to the U.S.? Traditions and Transformations since 1965.”

Our goal? To understand not only the current state of U.S. immigration but how we arrived at it. We want to ascertain what is truly new about the new immigration, both documented and undocumented, how it compares to earlier migration waves, and what its consequences have been.

Since 1968, when the Hart-Celler Act, which replaced national quotas with priorities that emphasized education, jobs, and professional skills, went into effect, its provisions have governed immigration at a time when the subject has been intensely controversial. The end of the Vietnam War brought waves of refugees from Southeast Asia. Later, large numbers of arrivals came from the Caribbean, Central and South America, South Asia, East Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and the former Soviet Union.

All of this is prelude to today’s public and political discourse on immigration in multiple contexts including public funding for education and services, national security, states’ rights, and civil and religious liberties. The importance of understanding America’s collective values and direction is keenly felt by a new generation of Americans who find themselves in the midst of emerging majority minority communities and media headlines over topics such as Arizona’s immigration law.

Thursday’s evening’s keynote address speaks to the heart of these issues. “U.S. Refugee Policy in the Post-Cold War Era: Balancing Humanitarian Obligations and Security Concerns” will be presented by Maria Christina Garcia of Cornell University, the author of Seeking Refuge: Central American Immigration to Mexico, the United States, and Canada (2006). This event is open to the public free of charge.

The public is also welcome to register to attend the scholarly sessions on Friday and Saturday. Presenters will include Thomas Adams of Tulane University, Caroline Brettell of Southern Methodist University, Marc S. Rodriguez of the University of Notre Dame, and Xiao-huang Yin of Michigan State University. All told, the conference includes nearly two dozen scholars from across the nation and from half a dozen fields—history, political science, sociology, urban planning, anthropology, and ethnic studies—researchers who are some of the leading commentators on this topic today.

For more information, including a list of presenters and their topics and a detailed schedule, please visit. http://www.masshist.org/events/conferences.cfm.

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2010 National Humanities Medals Awarded

By Carol Knauff

Earlier this month, President Barack Obama presented the 2010 National Humanities Medals to ten individuals honored for their outstanding achievements in history, literature, education, and cultural policy. We offer our congratulations to the five MHS Fellows to be honored:

  • – MHS Trustee Bernard Bailyn for illuminating the nation’s early history and pioneering the field of Atlantic history;
  • – Daniel Aaron for his contributions to American literature and culture;
  • – Jacques Barzun for his distinguished career as a scholar, educator, and public intellectual;
  • – Stanley Nider Katz for a career devoted to fostering public support for the humanities; and
  • – Gordon S. Wood for scholarship that provides insight into the founding of the nation and the drafting of the U.S. Constitution.
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Spotlight on Collections: Henry Cabot Lodge, Part V

By Tracy Potter

Over the last few segments of Spotlight on Collections, I focused on the life and career of Henry Cabot Lodge (HCL). Now I turn to his grandson Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. (HCL II) who left just as big a footprint on United States and world history as his grandfather.

HCL II was born on 5 July 1902 in Nahant, Massachusetts. He was the son of the well known poet George Cabot Lodge and Matilda Elizabeth Frelinghuysen Davis. After the death of his father, the family moved to Paris for two years, from 1912 until the beginning of World War I in 1914. To escape the war, the family returned to Massachusetts. Like his grandfather, HCL II attended Harvard University, graduating in 1924. In 1926 he married Emily Sears and they had two sons.

Seven years after his marriage to Emily Sears, in 1933, the people of Massachusetts elected HCL II to the Massachusetts legislature, where he served until 1936. In 1936 he was elected to the United States Senate. He served in the Senate until 1944 at which time he met with President Franklin Roosevelt to ask the President’s blessing for him to join the war. The President gave his consent and HCL II was on a plane to England when the Senate heard of his resignation. HCL II’s decision to join the army to fight in World War II made him the first senator to resign his seat in the Senate for battle since the Civil War.

After his return from serving in Europe, HCL II ran for and won a seat in the United States Senate in 1946. His time serving in WWII gave him a new perspective on life and politics. During the remainder of his time in the Senate, HCL II became a moderate Republican often voting against the Republican Party line (an estimated 40% of the time). He also found it easy to gather support for bills he introduced into the Senate from members of the Democratic Party. In 1952 HCL II decided to back General Dwight D. Eisenhower as the next U.S. President. He was involved in Eisenhower’s campaign from the beginning. He convinced the General he should run in the first place then became his manager during the 1952 Republican convention. Throughout the year he focused all his attention on the presidential campaign leaving little room for his own campaign to keep his seat in the Senate. By November 1952, HCL II lost his Senate seat to an up and coming Democrat named John F. Kennedy.

In 1953, Eisenhower began HCL II’s international career by appointing him a U.S. representative to the United Nations. HCL II remained in this position until 1960 when he ran as vice president on Richard Nixon’s presidential ticket. In an interesting coincidence, Nixon and HCL II lost to the young and charismatic senator that replaced HCL II in the Senate in 1952, John F. Kennedy. Kennedy, understanding the value of HCL II’s experience both in politics and in foreign relations, appointed him Ambassador to the Republic of Vietnam in 1963. HCL II arrived in South Vietnam in the midst of very turbulent times. Over the next four years he served under Kennedy and then Lyndon B. Johnson in Vietnam helping Johnson plan and execute the troop escalation until 1967.

Between 1968 and his retirement in 1977, three U.S. presidents called on HCL II to serve his country on the international stage including Lyndon B. Johnson who appointed HCL II as Ambassador to Germany in 1968, and Richard Nixon who appointed HCL II as the leader to the unsuccessful American delegation to the Vietnam peace negotiations in Paris in 1969. Both Nixon and Gerald Ford appointed HCL II as an occasional special envoy to the Vatican. In 1977 HCL II quietly retired to his home in Beverly, Mass.

Republican to the core, HCL II had the knack of crossing political and international lines always in an attempt to better the lives of the people of the United States and of Massachusetts. Following in his grandfather’s footsteps, he was never afraid to speak his mind or fight for what he believed in even if it was against the status quo. These qualities helped him excel as a senator and as an ambassador.

For more information about HCL II see:

Lodge, Henry Cabot. The Storm has Many Eyes. (New York: W.W. Norton & Company Inc., 1973).

Miller, William J. Henry Cabot Lodge: A Biography. (New York: James H. Heineman, Inc., 1967).

Richardson, Elliot L. “Memoirs: Henry Cabot Lodge” Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 97, (1985): 149-152.

Join me on April 6th as I discuss HCL II’s connection with the MHS.

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This Week @ MHS

By Elaine Grublin

We have another week of exciting events happening both at the MHS and at Old South Meeting House. 

Tuesday, 22 March, at 6:00 PM, Walt Woodward, State Historian of Connecticut presents a talk focused on his recent publication Prospero’s America: John Winthrop, Jr., Alchemy, and the Creation of New England Culture, 1606-1676. A pre-event reception begins at 5:30 PM.

And again on Thursday, 24 March, we have two events.  The daytime event, which begins at 12:15 PM, takes place at Old South Meeting House.  This lunchtime lecture features Jayne Gordon and Kathleen Barker of the Massachusetts Historical Society presenting Grandfathers; Grandsons: Parkers, Emersons and the Legacy of Revolution.  This lecture is the fourth installment of the A Nation Born: The Battles of Lexington and Concord series co-sponsered by Old South Meeting House. 

On Thursday evening at 5:15, you can join us back at 1154 Boylston Street as Mary Anne A. Trasciatti, Hofstra University, presenting her paper “Athens or Anarchy? Soapbox Oratory and the Early Twentieth-Century American City” as part of the Boston Immigration and Urban History Seminar.  Michael Willrich, Brandeis University, will give the comment. 

Posted in This Week @MHS

Brian Gratton Presents @ Brown Bag Lunch Talk

By Anna J. Cook

On Wednesday, March 16, short-term fellow Brian Gratton presented the preliminary results of his research here at the MHS, working with the papers of Massachusetts politician Henry Cabot Lodge (1850-1924). Dr. Gratton is a Professor of history at Arizona State University, specializing in the history of immigration and ethnicity in the United States, Latin America, and Europe. His work at the MHS explores Lodge’s role within the Republican party in late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century debates about race and immigration restriction.

Dr. Gratton used the formal portion of his talk to describe how the rhetoric of immigration restriction in Lodge’s political and personal writing (and speaking) shifted between the late-1880s and the mid-1890s from a near-total silence on the question of race, which Gratton describes as “not eerie — scary! … [an] almost pure form of political correctness,” to an argument for immigration restriction that relies on “good” and “bad” immigrants based on race and ethnicity.

During the late 1880s, Lodge relied on a primarily economic rationale for immigration restriction, attempting to persuade working-class constituents in Massachusetts that immigration restriction, like tariffs on imported goods, protected their jobs and their wages. Among working class voters, even those who had themselves immigrated or were the children of immigrants, the economic justification for immigration restriction had some limited success. However, the economic frame became problematic because it offered politicians, and their supporters, no way to differentiate between “good” and “bad” immigrants, and ultimately lost them support of those who feared their own ethnic communities would be targeted for restriction.  In the early 1890s, the language shifted subtly to distinguish between groups of immigrants understood to be part of the “founding” or “native” American ethic groups – Anglo-Saxon groups that, with some fancy footwork was amended to include Irish-Americans – and groups of immigrants deemed suspect.  The suspect groups, during this period, would have included Italians, Poles, European Jews, Eastern Europeans, and immigrants from Japan and China.

Dr. Gratton suggest that, on a national scale, the frame shifted from economics to race in stages, whereby first target groups were identified based on their willingness to accept lower wages (at least on its face an economic rationalization), and then gradually the discussion shifted to emphasize the group’s citizenship potential (or lack thereof) and questions of character.  Literacy tests proved a useful way of implementing de facto exclusion by race and ethnicity because the majority of Irish and German immigrants, by the late 1800s, were able to pass the tests, while Southern and Eastern Europeans and Chinese and Japanese immigrants were much less likely to meet the requirements.

Conversation following the presentation focused on the way these shifting discourses concerning race and ethnicity operated within the framework of Massachusetts state politics and on the national stage. Audience members also suggested possible avenues in to discovering the less public version of Lodge’s views on race and ethnicity, perhaps through reading the private writings of family and friends.

If you missed this brown-bag lunch, mark your calendar for April 6, when Dr. Linford Fisher will present “The Land of the Unfree: Africans, Indians, and the Varieties of Slavery and Servitude in Colonial New England.”

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