When James Ogilvie arrived in America in 1793, he was a deeply ambitious but impoverished teacher. By the time he returned to Britain in 1817, he had become a bona fide celebrity known simply as Mr. O, counting the nation's leading politicians and intellectuals among his admirers. And then, like so many meteoric American luminaries afterward, he fell from grace. Ogilvie's career featured many of the hallmarks of celebrity we recognize from later eras: glamorous friends, eccentric clothing, scandalous religious views, narcissism, and even an alarming drug habit. Author Caroyln Eastman, along with Sara Georgini, will discuss Ogilvie’s history, which is at once a biography of a remarkable performer and a story of the United States during the founding era.

In 2015, the Boston Federal Reserve found the median net worth for Black families in Boston was $8, in stark contrast to $250,000 for white families. This discrepancy is largely driven by the gap in home ownership. Join community activists and urban planners as they discuss Boston’s history of redlining and discriminatory housing policies, the complicity of the banks and the real estate industry, and the consequent legacy of segregation and racial wealth disparity. We will also identify some specific actions we can take to address the inequities in home ownership.

Moderator:

Adrian Walker, Columnist, The Boston Globe

Speakers:

Lewis Finfer, Co-Director, Massachusetts Communities Action Network; Stephen Gray, Associate Professor of Urban Design, Harvard Graduate School of Design

Image courtesy of "Mapping Inequality":

Robert K. Nelson, LaDale Winling, Richard Marciano, Nathan Connolly, et al., “Mapping Inequality,” American Panorama, ed. Robert K. Nelson and Edward L. Ayers, accessed January 14, 2021, https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining/

Nathan Raab describes his years as the Sherlock Holmes of historical artifacts and he shows us what the past can tell us about the present. Raab shares some fascinating stories: spotting a letter from British officials that secured the Rosetta Stone; discovering a piece of the first electric cable laid by Edison; restoring a fragmented letter from Andrew Jackson that led to the infamous Trail of Tears; and locating copies of missing audio that had been recorded on Air Force One as the plane brought JFK’s body back to Washington. Every document and artifact uncovers a story—and offers new insights into a life we thought we knew.

The most exciting find in the records of puritan minister Thomas Shepard (Cambridge, 1638-1649) are the voices of the women who came to tell him their stories of spiritual seeking. Serving women, elderly widows, young wives and mothers, daughters of powerful men—all told stories of heroic seeking that feature their independent labor in reading, praying, listening, asking questions, and making meaning in a world narrowed down to just the seeker and her God. Heroic Souls, by Lori Rogers-Stokes, brings you these women’s stories—their lives and passions, and the super-charged energy for change, discovery, and meaning that they embrace.

Dr. Robert Krim, author of Boston Made: From Revolution to Robotics-Innovations that Changed the World, presents a fascinating journey through Boston’s innovation history. Looking at the range of Boston-born innovations that, over its 400-year history, have made Boston one of the world’s leading cities in innovation, Dr. Krim answers the question of why the city has remained innovative through its long history. He will describe in colorful detail the struggles the city—and its innovators—faced on their road to innovations which changed the nation or the world and will discuss how this unfettered innovative culture has helped the city reinvent itself after four devastating economic collapses.

The half-century before the Civil War was beset with conflict over equality as well as freedom. Many free states enacted laws that restricted African Americans' rights and movement. But over time, African American activists and their white allies built a movement to fight these racist laws. Pastors, editors, lawyers, politicians, ship captains, and countless ordinary men and women battled in the press, the courts, the state legislatures, and Congress, through petitioning, lobbying, party politics, and elections. When Congress began rebuilding the nation after the Civil War, Republicans installed the movement’s vision of racial equality in the 1866 Civil Rights Act and the Fourteenth Amendment. Kate Masur and Edward Ayers will discuss Masur’s book, Until Justice Be Done, a pathbreaking new history of this early civil rights movement and it’s landmark achievements.

Historian David Brown sheds light on the life and times of Henry Adams, perhaps the most eclectic  accomplished and important American writer of his time. His autobiography and modern classic The Education of Henry Adams was widely considered one of the best English-language nonfiction books of the 20th century. The last member of his distinguished family—after great-grandfather John Adams, and grandfather John Quincy Adams—to gain national attention, he is remembered today as an historian, a political commentator, and a memoirist. Presenting intimate and insightful details of a fascinating and unusual American life and a new window on nineteenth century US history, Brown offers us a more “modern” and “human” Henry Adams than ever before.

Author of the recently-published book Innovation Economy and longtime Boston Globe columnist, Scott Kirsner, will take you on a photographic tour of 11 places in the Boston area that have given birth to world-changing inventions, from the telephone to COVID vaccines to robots that vacuum your living room. Kirsner will be joined in conversation by iRobot co-founder Helen Greiner as they discuss the dynamics that make New England such a fertile place for invention and entrepreneurship and Greiner's journey in the innovation economy. 

In 1972, a group of African American parents sued city and state officials over segregation within the Boston Public Schools. After a trial, a federal court determined that the Boston School Committee had intentionally discriminated on the basis of race by operating a dual school system that extended to school assignments, facilities, and staffing. When officials failed to produce a timely remedy, the court ordered institutional reforms, including re-districting and the re-assignment of students. In this program, panelists will reflect on the lessons to be learned from Boston’s school desegregation experience.

Moderator:

Matthew F. Delmont, Sherman Fairchild Distinguished Professor of History, Dartmouth College

Speakers:

Martha Minow, 300th Anniversary University Professor, Harvard University, and Former Dean, Harvard Law School; Becky Shuster, Assistant Superintendent of Equity, Boston Public School; Rachel E. Twymon, whose family was profiled in J. Anthony Lukas’ Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Common Ground

Image courtesy of Spencer Grant.

The chain of green spaces and waterways that comprise the Emerald Necklace park system is an invaluable urban oasis. Described as “the lungs of the city” this parkland and its rivers and ponds clean the city air, provide habitats for birds and other wildlife, and greatly improve quality of life for Boston residents. Our panel will explore the past, present, and future of this urban wild, beginning with Olmsted’s vision, through the lens of social equity and environmental justice.