Events

The Boston Harbor Islands have been called Boston's "hidden shores." Previously home to prisons, asylums, and sewage treatment plants, this surprisingly diverse ensemble of islands has existed on the urban fringe over the last four centuries. Pavla Šimková…

This project explores the role of the Committees in Massachusetts communities during the American Revolution, particularly the role they played in punishing community dissent and compelling ideological allegiance to the Revolutionary cause. This chapter highlights…

Writing History with H.W. Brands 
Our First Civil War: Patriots and Loyalists in the American Revolution

Presented in partnership with American Ancestors/NEHGS…

One-hundred and fifty years ago, in the autumn of 1871, Alexis Romanov, the fourth son of Tsar Alexander II of Russia, set sail for an extended journey through the United States and Canada. The first Russian royal ever to visit the United States, Alexis in…

Massachusetts Superior Court of Judicature records represent one of the fullest collections of colonial court documents in North America, covering the entirety of the eighteenth century. This seminar explores the process of transcribing, annotating, and presenting…

Bancroft Prize winning author Robert Gross presents a fresh view of the Transcendentalists; thinkers whose impact on philosophy and literature would spread from Concord, Mass, to all corners of the earth. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne…

This dissertation chapter examines a lecture by Boston man-midwife Walter Channing. The lecture is meant to offer his (male) midwifery students the skills to serve as expert witnesses in infanticide trials. However, Channing also uses the lecture to promote his…

The Boston market garden district was a national leader in vegetable production from 1870 to 1930.  Suburban market gardeners' practices both countered and anticipated broader trends in the US food system.  For example, intercropping  (though long-known) stood well…

This paper considers coercive political practices among early historic southern New England Algonquians and their historical function in the success of early English colonies. In the spring of 1623, the settlement of Wessagusset, a rag-tag band of starving would-be…

Useful Objects examines the history of American museums during the nineteenth century through the eyes of visitors, writers, and collectors. Museums of this period included a wide range of objects, from botanical and zoological specimens to antiquarian…

Announcing the MHS Film Club!

MHS will feature a movie a month and then invite experts on the topic to lead a discussion on the film. Topics could include historical accuracy,…

When did Americans begin using the term “the marriage market,” and what does that tell us about society at the time? This article-in-progress traces the emergence of the concept of marriage as a market subject to supply and demand to the early nineteenth century.…

Exploring American Healthcare through 50 Historic Treasures presents a history of health and medicine in the United States, tracing paradigm shifts such as the introduction of anesthesia, the adoption of germ theory, and advances in public health. The book…

New England is more seismically active than most would expect. Several notable earthquakes shook the northeast in the past, such as in 1638, 1663, 1727, 1755, or 1783, to name but a few. In early America, earthquakes were rare enough, however, to be perceived as…

Boston National Historical Park is one of America's most popular heritage destinations, drawing in millions of visitors annually. Tourists flock there to see the site of the Boston Massacre, to relive Paul Revere's midnight ride, and to board Old Ironsides—all of…

Black Reconstruction by W. E. B. Du Bois stands as one of the most groundbreaking books in American history. Scholars have acknowledged how the book, published in 1935, and Du Bois’s arguments in it, pioneered the study of Reconstruction today. This paper explores…

This panel discussion will consider two papers on the history of money from the mid-18th through the early 19th centuries. Katie Moore’s essay will examine the political, economic, and monetary preconditions that informed the colonial Massachusetts land bank "…

Please join us for a special evening in which Professor of English Abram Van Engen will receive the 2021 Gomes Prize for City on a Hill: A History of American Exceptionalism. Van Engen will join historian Adrian Weimer to discuss the stories often told…

Everyone knows Benjamin Franklin—the thrifty inventor-statesman of the Revolutionary era—but not about his love life. Poor Richard’s Women reveals the long-neglected voices of the women Ben loved and lost during his lifelong struggle between passion and…

Join the current and former Editor in Chief of the Adams Papers to discuss the 1997 film Amistad. The film explores the history of the slave ship, Amistad, which set sail from Cuba to America in 1839. During the trip the enslaved people on board held an…

Geographies of Flight: Phillis Wheatley to Octavia Butler provides the first comprehensive treatment of the ways in which African American authors across three centuries have confronted the predicament of inhabiting space under conditions of bondage and…

In 1911, civilian workers at the Army’s Watertown Arsenal struck against the arrival of management engineers with stopwatches, leading Congress to ban certain Taylorist methods in military and other federal workplaces. After three decades, however, the ban was…

We confess: the idea came to us last October. Why not talk about the curious and creepy, eerie and inspiring enterprise of hunting up one’s subject’s final resting place? The NEBS steering committee members, Dobrow, Dykstra, and Marshall, all have stories to tell—…

 In-Person Event
Fairmont Copley Plaza
138 St. James Ave. | Boston

5:30 pm
Sponsor Reception with Heather Cox Richardson