By Jeremy Dibbell
Join us today (Wednesday) at 12 noon in the Dowse Library for a brown-bag lunch with Rachel Cope, Ph.D. candidate at Syracuse University and current Ruth R. and Alyson R. Miller Fellow at MHS. Cope will discuss her current project: “‘A New Course of Life was Begun’: The Religious Impact of Revivalism on Nineteenth-Century Women.”
This event is free and open to the public.
By Jeremy Dibbell
Join us this evening (Tuesday, 12 May) at 6:00 p.m. for a talk by Nina Zannieri, Executive Director of the Paul Revere House. Zannieri will speak on “Myth and Memory: The Legacy of Paul Revere.”
This event is co-sponsored by The Concord Free Public Library and Minute Man National Historical Park, as part of the Minute Man Anniversary Lecture Series to mark the 50th anniversary of Minute Man National Historical Park.
A mini-exhibit of Revere items from our collections will complement the talk. Light refreshments will be available beginning at 5:30 p.m.
Reservations for this event are requested.
By Jeremy Dibbell
Continuing with the departmental introductions (first installment here), let’s meet the Collections Services team! These are the good people who not only coordinate the acquisition of new materials, but also perform the wide range of tasks which make our collections of manuscripts, photographs and printed books available for researchers to use. They process the manuscript collections and write the guides (as well as put them online), maintain our online catalog (ABIGAIL), create and manage our digital collections, and make sure all components of our website are running smoothly. Members of this department also ensure that our collections are being stored properly, and carry out repairs when necessary.
Collections Services staff members include:
Brenda Lawson, Director of Collections Services
Mary Fabiszewski, Senior Cataloger
Laura Lowell, Manuscript Processor
Susan Martin, Manuscript Processor and EAD Coordinator
Nancy Heywood, Digital Projects Coordinator
Laura Wulf & Peter Steinberg, Digital Projects Production Specialists
Kathy Griffin, Nora Saltonstall Preservation Librarian
Oona Beauchard, Conservation Technician
Bill Beck, Web Development Specialist
Like Reader Services, Collections Services hosts one or two interns per semester, from Simmons College and other Boston-area institutions.
Complete contact information is available here.
By Jeremy Dibbell
I can’t resist posting a wonderful bit of good news just received this afternoon: Hobson Woodward, Associate Editor of the Adams Papers, has received the first review for his forthcoming book, A Brave Vessel: The True Story of the Castaways Who Rescued Jamestown and Inspired Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’ (Viking, July). It’s a starred review in Kirkus Reviews:
“In his debut, Woodward … recounts the tale of the beleaguered Sea Venture, which set out from England in 1609 for the colony of Jamestown in the New World. … Woodward extracts a striking richness of imagery from 400-year-old sources – life on Bermuda comes across as strange and beautiful; Jamestown, a hell on earth. The author’s acute sensitivity to the hardships of the settlers will help readers gain a new appreciation for their exceedingly difficult lives.
A skillfully written history of the trials of some the earliest American colonists.”
Congratulations, Hobson! What a great way to end the week.
Stay tuned for more details on a lunch talk and booksigning with Hobson to be held at the MHS in late July.
By Jeremy Dibbell
The MHS awards a wide variety of research fellowships each year. Those for the 2009-2010 season were recently announced. Please pardon the lengthy list (impressive, isn’t it?). For more information about each type of fellowship, click the link in the heading.
MHS-NEH Long-Term Research Fellowships:
– Crystal Feimster, Assistant Professor, Department of History, University of North Carolina, Sexual Warfare: Rape and the American Civil War (four-month award)
– Linford Fisher, Assistant Professor, Department of History, Brown University, The Indian Great Awakening: Religion and the Shaping of Native Cultures in Early America (ten-month award; deferred to 2010-2011)
– April Haynes, Post-Doctoral Fellow, Massachusetts Historical Society and American Antiquarian Society, Riotous Flesh: Gender, Physiology, and the Solitary Vice, 1830-1860 (four-month award)
MHS Short-Term Research Fellowships:
– Karen Woods Weierman, Associate Professor, Department of English, Worcester State College, The Case of the Slave-Child, Med: The Geography of Freedom in Antebellum Boston (African American Studies Fellow)
– Mazie Harris, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of the History of Art and Architecture, Brown University, “To Feast Our Bodily Eyes”: Nineteenth-Century American Portrait Vignettes and Card Albums (Andrew Oliver Research Fellow)
– Carol Bundy, Independent Scholar, McClellan’s Visit to Boston, January 28-February 8, 1863 (Andrew W. Mellon Fellow)
– Jan Cigliano, Independent Scholar, John Hay: Genius of Diplomacy (1838-1905) (Andrew W. Mellon Fellow)
– Lindsay DiCuirci, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of English, The Ohio State University, History’s Imprint: The Colonial Book and the Writing of American History in the Nineteenth Century (Andrew W. Mellon Fellow)
– Jim Downs, Assistant Professor, Department of History, Connecticut College, Sick from Freedom: The Unexpected Consequences of the American Civil War (Andrew W. Mellon Fellow)
– Caroline Frank, Visiting Lecturer, Department of American Civilization, Brown University, Native American Enslavement in Southern New England, 1630-1730 (Andrew W. Mellon Fellow)
– Elizabeth Kelly Gray, Assistant Professor, Department of History, Towson University, Worlds of Pain: Opium and Early America (Andrew W. Mellon Fellow)
– Matt Hudock, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of History, University of Delaware, African American Colonization and Identity (Andrew W. Mellon Fellow)
– Whitney Martinko, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of History, University of Virginia, Progress through Preservation: History on the American Landscape in an Age of Improvement, 1790-1860 (Andrew W. Mellon Fellow)
– Rachel Shapiro, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of History, University of Virginia, Washington Brotherhood: Friendship and Politics in the Civil War Era (Andrew W. Mellon Fellow)
– Lori Veilleux, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Religious Studies, Brown University, Religion, Science, and Boston’s 1832 Cholera Epidemic (Benjamin F. Stevens Fellow)
– Alea Henle, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of History, University of Connecticut, Preserving the Past, Making History: Historical Societies, Editors, and Collectors in the Early Republic (Malcolm and Mildred Freiberg Fellow)
– Matthew Hale, Assistant Professor, Department of History, Goucher College, The French Revolution and American National Identity (Marc Friedlaender Fellow)
– Jeffrey Kosiorek, Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of History, Hendrix College, The Power of Our Patriot Fathers: Memory, Commemoration, and the American Revolution in the Nineteenth Century (Massachusetts Society of the Cincinnati Fellow)
– Sara Lampert, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of History, University of Michigan, The Public Woman: Taking the Stage in Nineteenth-Century America (Ruth R. and Alyson R. Miller Fellow)
– Deborah McNally, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of History, University of Washington, Within Patriarchy: Puritan Women in Massachusetts’s Congregational Churches, 1630-1715 (Ruth R. and Alyson R. Miller Fellow)
– Derek Attig, Ph.D. Student, Department of History, University of Illinois, Race, Religion, and the Idea of America in Twentieth-Century Bookmobility (Twentieth Century History Fellow)
– Justin Pope, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of History, The George Washington University, Whispers and Waves: Insurrection, Conspiracy, and the Search for Salvation in the British Atlantic, 1729-1742 (W.B.H. Dowse Fellow)
– Richard Rath, Associate Professor of History, University of Hawai’i at Manoa, The Disenchantment of America: Mediating the Senses in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World (W.B.H. Dowse Fellow)
Suzanne and Caleb Loring Research Fellowship (with the Boston Athenaeum):
– Kathryn Shively Meier, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of HIstory, University of Virginia, “Under the Siege of the Blue”: Environmental Effects on Civil War Mental and Physical Health in Virginia, 1862
New England Regional Fellowship Consortium (NERFC) Awards (with 16 other institutions)*
– Elizabeth Blackmar, Professor, Department of History, Columbia University, Land, Capital, and the Ethos of Preserving Family Property
– Michael Block, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of History, University of Southern California, New England Merchants, the China Trade, and the Origins of California
– Eileen Botting, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Notre Dame, Reclaiming a Lost Text of Early American History and Political Thought: Hannah Mather Crocker’s “Reminiscences and Traditions of Boston” (Colonial Society of Massachusetts Fellow)
– Sean Harvey, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of History, College of William and Mary, American Languages: Indians, Ethnology, and the Empire for Liberty
– Alea Henle, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of History, University of Connecticut, Preserving the Past, Making History: Historical Societies, Editors & Collectors in the Early Republic
– Whitney Martinko, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of History, University of Virginia, Progress through Preservation: History on the American Landscape in an Age of Improvement, 1790-1860
– Amber Moulton-Wiseman, Ph.D. Candidate in African and African-American Studies, Harvard University, Marriage Extraordinary: Interracial Marriage and the Politics of Family in Antebellum Massachusetts (Bostonian Society/New England Women’s Club Fellow)
– Alan Rogers, Professor, Department of History, Boston College, Smallpox and Skeptics: The Battle Over Compulsory Vaccination in Massachusetts
– D. Jamez Terry, B.A. Candidate, Department of History, University of Maine at Farmington, Cultural Constructions of Charles Guiteau
– John Wong, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of History, Harvard University, Global Positioning: China Trade and the Hong Merchants of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries
– Helen York, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of History, University of Maine at Orono, Sound and Silence: Enfranchised and Disenfranchised Radio in New England
* Note: not all of the NERFC fellows will be researching at MHS as part of their NERFC award.
– Richard Gallagher, Hartford Memorial Middle School, White River Junction, VT (Adams Fellow)
– Adam Zilcoski, W. L. Chenery Middle School, Belmont, MA (Adams Fellow)
– Danielle Fernandex, North Quincy High School, Quincy, MA (Swensrud Fellow)
– Sean Irwin, Boston College High School, Boston, MA (Swensrud Fellow)
– Edward Davey, Jonas Clarke Middle School, Lexington, MA (Kass Fellow)
– Charles Newhall, St. John’s Preparatory School, Danvers, MA (Kass Fellow)
By Jeremy Dibbell
One of the things I’ll try to keep track of here at The Beehive is new and recent publications based on MHS collections. The only promise I can make about this is that I won’t be able to be comprehensive (I try to keep a pretty close eye on these things, but it would be a vast overstatement of my abilities to suggest that I could catch them all), so if you’re a current or former MHS fellow or researcher, please feel free to email me (beehive@masshist.org) with information on your work and I’ll be happy to mention it here as time and space permit.
Bryan Waterman, associate professor of English at NYU, was a 2007-08 Andrew W. Mellon research fellow at the MHS. His article “Elizabeth Whitman’s Disappearence and Her ‘Disappointment'” appears in the April 2009 issue of William & Mary Quarterly (3d Series, Volume LXVI, Number 2, pp. 325-364. Waterman’s research at the MHS included examinations of the diary and correspondence of Jeremy Belknap (who played a fascinating role in the dissemination of the Whitman story), the Nathan Webb diary, and other collections. Elizabeth Whitman, the subject of the article, is best known as the inspiration for Hannah Webster Foster’s 1797 The Coquette; Waterman explores the different, competing versions of Whitman’s story (including Foster’s, Belknap’s, and others).
Incidentally, Waterman is also the co-editor of the current special issue of the e-journal Common-place, “Who Reads an Early American Book?” His preface provides some background information on the Whitman story and the continuing vitality of both The Coquette and its historical inspiration.
Also in this issue of Common-place, two MHS connections are present, in a feature in which historians discuss books revelant to America that they teach or study. Current NEH long-term fellow Carolyn Eastman, assistant professor of History at the University of Texas at Austin, recommends Alexandre Exquemelin’s Bucaniers of America, while James Sidbury, professor of History also at UT-Austin, goes for John Kizell’s “Apology for For the Conduct of John Kezell And His associates Occasioned By the Strictures And Denunciations by the Rev. Daniel Coker In His Journall Letters and Informations In the fourth Annual Report,” a manuscript pamphlet in the Ebenezer Burgess papers here at MHS.
By Jeremy Dibbell
I’m very pleased to report that the Proceedings of the Massaschusetts Historical Society (1791-1997) and the Massachusetts Historical Review (1999- ) are now available digitally through the subscription database JSTOR. Most universities and large public libraries (including the Boston Public Library) offer access to JSTOR content, which means our publications are now much more widely accessible to scholars and researchers around the world.
The search capability provided by JSTOR is a real treat – just yesterday I was looking for something in the Proceedings and rather than browsing through several different index volumes, I just ran a full-text search across all the volumes and had the answer in no time.
Note: Many volumes of the Proceedings are also freely available via Google Books, but not in a systematic way.
By Jeremy Dibbell
Join us today (Wednesday) at 12 noon in the Dowse Library for a brown-bag lunch with Megan Kate Nelson, Assistant Professor of History at California State University, Fullerton. Nelson will discuss the cultural and environmental frameworks that inform her book project, Ruin Nation: The Destruction of the South and the Making of America during the Civil War Era. She will explain how and why Americans destroyed southern cities, plantations, forests, and men, and how both soldiers and civilians responded to these different kinds of ruins between 1861 and 1900. Dr. Nelson will also talk about the importance that letters and diaries of New Englanders play in her research, with examples drawn from the collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society.
Nelson received five fellowships – including the Suzanne and Caleb Loring Fellowship in the Study of the Civil War and the New England Regional Fellowship Consortium Award – to support the research and writing of Ruin Nation in 2008-2009 and has presented her work as part of the Boston Environmental History Seminar Series at the Massachusetts Historical Society (10 Februrary 2009) and the Weirding the War Conference at the University of Georgia.
This event is free and open to the public.
By Jeremy Dibbell
Over the next few weeks, I’ll be posting occasional pieces designed to introduce the various departments responsible for the wide range of activities that go on at 1154 Boylston Street. I thought it only fair to begin with my own department, since we in Reader Services are the folks you’re most likely to see when you come in to use the library. We’re the ones who staff the reception desk, the reading room and the reference desk, and who answer your reference questions by email, phone, or letter (yes, we still get a few). We’re responsible for retrieving and returning the materials our readers ask to see every day, and for enforcing the library’s policies and procedures. Reader Services staff also manage rights and reproduction requests submitted by authors, filmmakers and others who wish to cite material or use an image from our collections; coordinate incoming and outgoing loans; and curate the Society’s public exhibits.
Reader Services staff members include:
Peter Drummey, Stephen T. Riley Librarian
Anne Bentley, Curator of Art
Elaine Grublin, Reference Librarian
Tracy Potter & Jeremy Dibbell, Assistant Reference Librarians
Heather Merrill, Sara Georgini, Caitlin Corless, Anna Cook, & Rakashi Chand, Library Assistants
We also are frequently joined by an intern or two from the archives program at Simmons College. Our most recent, Jocelyn Gould and Daniel Hinchen, have just finished their semester with us.
If you have a general question for our department, or if you need to reach any one of us, you can find our complete contact information here.
By Jeremy Dibbell
Here’s a perfect example of the far-reaching influence of the MHS. Cuiyun Li, a professor at the College of Foreign Languages and Culture at Inner Mongolia University in China, has recently published a book which draws heavily on the collections and publications of the Historical Society: John Winthrop: A Pioneer of American Civilization (Inner Mongolia University Press, 2008). Li is at Harvard University on a Fulbright scholarship this academic year, and has paid several visits to the MHS in recent weeks. On her first visit, she presented us with a signed copy of her book, which will soon be among the books on display in the Saltonstall Reference Room (for those readers who can read Mandarin Chinese).
Li, who shares a birthday with Winthrop, told me that she will use her book in teaching graduate students at her home institution about John Winthrop and the important role he played in American history. “He is very special,” she said. “Too many people don’t know him.”
Li, holding a volume of John Winthrop’s journal