Even before the arrival of enslaved Africans, Native Americans were forced into bondage and transported far from their homes in North America. Even as the Native populations were decimated and displaced, the communities that survived remained a refuge for African Americans. These distinct communities forged familial, social, and cultural bonds with each other over time. This program will explore the complex relationship between African Americans, Native Americans, the institution of slavery, and these groups’ attempts to seek equal rights in American society.

This program is part two of a four program series titled Legacies of 1619. The series is a production of the Massachusetts Historical Society and is co-sponsored by the Museum of African American History and the Roxbury Community College.

Edward J. Logue was a giant of 20th-century East Coast urban redevelopment. From the 1950s through the 1980s, he worked to revive a declining New Haven, became the architect of the “New Boston,” led New York State’s Urban Development Corporation, and ended his career working to turn around the South Bronx. Prizewinning historian Lizabeth Cohen analyzes Logue’s complicated legacy in urban renewal as a dramatic story of heart- break and destruction, but also of human idealism and resourcefulness.

This talk, given by Polly Putnam, Collections Curator for the Historic Royal Palaces, considers the development of Queen Victoria's public image over the course of her 63-year reign. Queen Victoria, Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and later Empress of India, is only second to Queen Elizabeth II as the longest ruling monarch in British history. Queen Victoria ruled from June 20, 1837 until her death on January 22, 1901. Ms. Putnam’s presentation reveals how Queen Victoria made a virtue of and shared her personal life with the people of Great Britain, which ensured not only her popularity but also an enduring public image.

Giving Circle donors* will be our complimentary guests at this special event. Following the presentation, donors will enjoy a lively reception and receive a special gift. Donate $500 or more now to receive your invitation!

*Giving Circle donors have given $500 or more to the MHS Fund in the past 12 months.

This event is co-sponsored by the Algonquin Club Foundation.

Join an Adams Papers editor to explore how Abigail Adams has come to hold a unique place within the fabric of American life.

MHS Fellows and Members are invited to the sneak preview reception for Fire! Voices from the Boston Massacre.

On March 5, 1770, British soldiers occupying the town of Boston shot into a crowd, killing five civilians. The incident quickly became known as the Boston Massacre. Through a selection of first-person accounts, artifacts, and trial notes, this exhibition explores what it meant to be living in an occupied city and how this flash point changed the course of American history.

Space is limited.

Jessie Morgan-Owens tells the little-known story of Mary Mildred Williams—a slave girl who looked “white” and whose image transformed the abolitionist movement. Mary became the face of American slavery when Sen. Charles Sumner saw in her a monumental political opportunity for the abolitionist cause. Weaving together long-overlooked primary sources, including daguerreotypes found in the MHS collection, this history follows Mary through to her own adulthood, describing a life parallel to the antislavery movement. 

Over eight years of war, ordinary Americans accomplished something extraordinary. Far from the actions of the Continental Congress and the Continental Army, they took responsibility for the course of the Revolution. In villages, towns, and cities from Georgia to New Hampshire, Americans managed local affairs, negotiated shared sacrifice, and participated in a political system in which each believed they were as good as any other. Presenting hundreds of stories, T. H. Breen captures the powerful sense of equality and responsibility resulting from this process of self-determination.

By the 1980s the Dudley Square neighborhood of Roxbury was facing significant challenges. Absentee landlords had allowed property to deteriorate, left units vacant, or had used arson to raze buildings and make insurance claims. Facing what many considered insurmountable obstacles, the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative was formed to create a comprehensive plan for “development without displacement.” The first non-governmental organization in America to be granted eminent domain authority, they began purchasing vacant land, protecting affordable housing and creating a community land trust. Meanwhile, the nearby housing project Orchard Park became notorious for crime and drugs. The Orchard Park Tenants Association lobbied for years for improvements and by the mid-1990s began to see a path forward partnering with the police and using community organizing to reduce crime and linking the redevelopment to the new federal HOPE VI program which was meant to revitalize the worst housing projects in America. HOPE VI was in part modeled on the redevelopment of Columbia Point and encouraged partnerships with private developers and a mixture of incomes among the residents. Through community action and smart development, Orchard Park was redeveloped as Orchard Gardens and became a safe, stable neighborhood.

This program is made possible by the generosity of Mass Humanities and the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University.

Few American cities possess a history as long, rich, and fascinating as Boston’s. The Atlas of Boston History traces the history of Boston from late prehistoric times to the present using thematic maps that are drawn from the latest scholarship and supplemented with historical images, maps, illustrations, and graphs as well as explanatory text. The subjects of the maps and atlas plates were determined by a board of noted scholars. The editor will present the project and then discuss the process of determining the contents of the atlas with three of the consulting scholars.

Facing the hegemonic force of slavery, discrimination, and disenfranchisement, communities of color have resisted and presented radical models of empowerment. Along with countless and often unknown stories of personal courage, large scale resistance, such as Nat Turner’s Rebellion, go back to the very beginnings of the United States. This program will explore the different forms African Americans have taken to assert their agency and autonomy.

This program is part three of a four program series titled Legacies of 1619. The series is a production of the Massachusetts Historical Society and is co-sponsored by the Museum of African American History and the Roxbury Community College. 

David Silverman explores the history of the Wampanoag people to reveal the distortions of the Thanksgiving Myth, a persisting story that promotes the idea that Native people willingly ceded their country to the English to give rise to a white, Christian, democratic nation. Silverman traces how the Wampanoags have lived—and told—a different history over the past four centuries

As neighborhoods across Boston face enormous development pressure, there is a risk that low-income residents will be forced out of the city. Social disruption due to gentrification, shifting government policies and programs, and the challenges of climate change make the future of affordable housing in Boston precarious. In the past, Boston modeled creative and successful solutions to dire housing problems, and there is hope that the city can continue to deploy innovative policies that will brighten the future for all city residents. Our final panel in this series will look at the future of affordable housing in Boston, taking stock of past lessons learned.

Join an Adams Papers editor to explore how Abigail Adams has come to hold a unique place within the fabric of American life.

William Monroe Trotter was an unlikely American hero. With the stylistic verve of a newspaperman and the unwavering fearlessness of an emancipator, he galvanized black working- class citizens to wield their political power despite the violent racism of post- Reconstruction America. For more than 30 years, the Harvard-educated Trotter edited and published the Guardian, a weekly Boston newspaper that was read across the nation. Defining himself against the gradualist politics of Booker T. Washington and the elitism of W. E. B. Du Bois, Trotter advocated for a radical vision of black liberation that prefigured leaders such as Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther king, Jr.

During the American Revolution, printed material played a crucial role as a forum for public debate. Joseph Adelman argues that printers—artisans who mingled with the elite but labored in a manual trade—used their commercial and political connections to directly shape Revolutionary political ideology and mass mobilization. Moving through the era of the American Revolution to the war’s aftermath, this history details the development of the networks of printers and explains how they contributed to the process of creating first a revolution and then the new nation.

Archival collections held in local institutions can help historians uncover the untold stories of historic houses in Massachusetts. The library of the New Bedford Whaling Museum documents the homes of the great whaling families, while Harvard documents the Ward House and the American Antiquarian Society welcomes us into the Salisbury Mansion in Worcester. The Mary Baker Eddy library documents the many houses where she lived, and, of course, the Massachusetts Historical Society brings the Adams family and their houses to life.

For 400 years, Africans and African Americans carved out a distinctive culture for themselves even as they sought equal rights in American society. This program will consider how African Americans struggled to gain equal access to political and social rights, all the while making the American experience their own.

This program is part four of a four program series titled Legacies of 1619. The series is a production of the Massachusetts Historical Society and is co-sponsored by the Museum of African American History and the Roxbury Community College.