MHS Calendar of Events - April 2021

APRIL CALENDAR

2021

Our mission is to promote understanding of the history of Massachusetts and the nation by collecting and communicating materials and resources that foster historical knowledge.

LOCATION 1154 Boylston Street Boston, MA 02215 CONTACT Tel: 617.536.1608 Fax: 617.859.0074 VISITOR INFORMATION Our building is temporarily closed to the public due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Working remotely, we are offering an engaging selection of online programs, building a virtual community of scholars, delivering online resources to educators, providing access to our collection, and continuing to publish.

While the library is closed to the public, members of our Reader Services team are working remotely and are available to assist you. Please visit www.masshist.org/library/reference for more information about the resources available to all researchers.

SOCIAL AND WEB

@MHS1791 @MassachusettsHistoricalSociety

www.masshist.org 2

Cover: Paul Revere’s deposition, fair copy, circa 1775.

APRIL PROGRAMS

This winter, the MHS offers an engaging roster of online special events, author talks, panel discussions, brown-bag lunches, and seminars. For a complete schedule, visit www.masshist.org/events.

RSVP Information

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April Programs at a Glance

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April Program Descriptions

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A Look Ahead: Spring Programs

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Generous support provided by

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RSVP Information

Past Programs

Visit www.masshist.org/events for additional event information, updates, cancellations, and registration.

If you missed a program, would like to revisit the material presented, or are interested in viewing past programs, visit www.masshist.org/video. A selection of past programs is just a click away.

EVENTS, AUTHOR TALKS & SERIES For more information or to register for an online program, visit www.masshist.org/events.

WORKSHOPS Visit www.masshist.org/teaching-history for more information. Register online at www.masshist.org/events.

BROWN-BAG LUNCH PROGRAMS Brown-bags provide an informal opportunity for visiting researchers to discuss their work, field questions, and receive new ideas. Please visit www.masshist.org/events for more information or to register for an online brown-bag.

SEMINARS Seminars bring together a diverse group of scholars and members of the public to workshop a pre-circulated paper. After brief remarks from the author and an assigned commentator, the discussion is opened to the floor. There is a subscription fee for advance access to supporting materials. For more information, please visit www.masshist.org/research/seminars; register online at www.masshist.org/events.

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Become a Member The MHS welcomes Members from near and far to join its community of history lovers.

Members enjoy invitations to enhanced Memberonly events; free or discounted admission to special programs; and access to publications such as our calendar of events, newsletter, and Annual Report. Join today or give the gift of membership to the history enthusiast, amateur historian, or history professional in your life.

Join at www.masshist.org/support.

All programs will take place online unless otherwise noted.

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THURSDAY |

5:15 | VIRTUAL SEMINAR

“Fighting the Dogs”: Fugitivity, Canine Hunters & Slave Resistance in the Rural South Tyler Parry, University of Nevada, Las Vegas Comment: Harriet Riveto, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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TUESDAY |

5:30 | VIRTUAL PROGRAM

Until Justice Be Done: America’s First Civil Rights Movement, from the Revolution to Reconstruction Kate Masur, Northwestern University, and Edward Ayers, University of Richmond

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THURSDAY |

5:30 | VIRTUAL PROGRAM

The Last American Aristocrat: The Brilliant Life & Improbable Education of Henry Adams David S. Brown, Elizabethtown College

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MONDAY |

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TUESDAY |

5:30 | VIRTUAL PROGRAM

11 Places That Have Shaped Innovation in Boston, 1636–2021 Scott Kirsner, The Boston Globe, and Helen Greiner, co-founder of iRobot

5:15 | VIRTUAL SEMINAR

Kaleidoscope Metropolis: Autonomy & Integration in the Fractured City Garrett Nelson, Norman B. Leventhal Map & Education Center Comment: Lizbeth Cohen, Harvard University

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THURSDAY |

5:30 | VIRTUAL PROGRAM

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TUESDAY |

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THURSDAY |

5:15 | VIRTUAL SEMINAR

Contesting Domesticity Kwelina Thompson, Cornell University; Shoniqua Roach, Brandeis University; Laura Puaca, Christopher Newport University; and Allison Horrocks, Lowell National Historical Park

5:30 | VIRTUAL PROGRAM

Clean Water, Green Space & Social Equity Karen Mauney-Brodek, Emerald Necklace Conservancy; Rep. Nika Elugardo; and Chris Reed, Harvard Graduate School of Design Moderator: Sarah Glazer This program is in partnership with the Muddy Water Initiative

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MONDAY |

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TUESDAY |

5:30 | VIRTUAL PROGRAM

Bound by War: How the United States & the Philippines Built America’s First Pacific Century Christopher Capozzola, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

5:15 | VIRTUAL SEMINAR

The “Other” Illegals: Unauthorized European Immigration to New York City & Boston in the 20th Century Danielle Battisti, University of Nebraska Omaha; Carly Goodman, La Salle University

APRIL PROGRAMS AT A GLANCE

April

Comment: Christopher Capozzola

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THURSDAY |

5:15 | VIRTUAL SEMINAR

Fashioning a Life: How Style Matters in Biography Caroline Weber, Barnard College, and Channing Joseph, University of Southern California Moderator: Natalie Dykstra, Hope College

Confronting Racial Injustice series Boston School Desegregation through the Rearview Mirror Martha Minow, Harvard Law School; Becky Shuster, Boston Public Schools; and Rachel E. Twymon Moderator: Matthew F. Delmont, Dartmouth College 5

Founded in 1791, the MHS is an invaluable resource for American history, life, and culture. Our extraordinary collections tell the story of America through millions of rare and unique documents, artifacts, and irreplaceable national treasures. All programs are virtual unless otherwise noted.

APRIL

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THURSDAY |

5:15 | VIRTUAL SEMINAR

“Fighting the Dogs”: Fugitivity, Canine Hunters & Slave Resistance in the Rural South Tyler Parry, University of Nevada, Las Vegas Comment: Harriet Riveto, Massachusetts Institute of Technology As slavery expanded in the Americas, canine attacks were used as a particularly sadistic aspect of racist dehumanization. Through linked processes of breeding and training, slave hunters believed they had developed “natural” enemies between black people and the canines trained to hunt them. This paper investigates how fugitives responded to this interspecies violence by using various techniques of environmental resistance outside the plantation’s confines. By analyzing how fugitives used herbal combinations, waterways, and offensive weapons to subvert the canine’s sensory advantage, this paper argues that enslaved communities should be understood as knowledge producers who studied their environments and used scientific awareness in their resistance. This program is part of the African American History Seminar series. Seminars bring together a diverse group of scholars and interested members of the public to workshop a pre-circulated paper.

To reserve: This is an online program. Please register at www.masshist.org/events.

APRIL

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TUESDAY |

5:30 | VIRTUAL PROGRAM

Until Justice Be Done: America’s First Civil Rights Movement, from the Revolution to Reconstruction Kate Masur, Northwestern University, and Edward Ayers, University of Richmond The half-century before the Civil War was beset with conflict over equality as well as freedom. Many free states enacted laws that restricted the rights and movements of African Americans.

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 its landmark achievements.

To reserve: This is an online program. Please register at www.masshist.org/events.

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THURSDAY |

5:30 | VIRTUAL PROGRAM

The Last American Aristocrat: The Brilliant Life & Improbable Education of Henry Adams David S. Brown, Elizabethtown College 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 19th-century US history, Brown offers us a more modern and human Henry Adams than ever before.

To reserve: This is an online program. Please register at www.masshist.org/events.

APRIL

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MONDAY |

5:30 | VIRTUAL PROGRAM

11 Places That Have Shaped Innovation in Boston, 1636–2021 Scott Kirsner, The Boston Globe, and Helen Greiner, co-founder of iRobot 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 and robots that vacuum your living room. Kirsner will be joined in conversation by iRobot co-founder Helen Greiner. Join us as they discuss the dynamics that make New England such a fertile place for invention and entrepreneurship as well as Greiner’s journey in the innovation economy.

APRIL PROGRAM DESCRIPTIONS

APRIL

To reserve: This is an online program. Please register at www.masshist.org/events.

APRIL

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TUESDAY |

5:15 | VIRTUAL SEMINAR

Kaleidoscope Metropolis: Autonomy & Integration in the Fractured City Garrett Nelson, Norman B. Leventhal Map & Education Center Comment: Lizbeth Cohen, Harvard University By the 1950s, just as technocratic consensus settled on the opinion that Boston’s metropolitan problems demanded municipal consolidation, meaningful regional integration became a political dead letter. This paper examines how conflicting pressures towards both spatial integration and disintegration shaped the postwar city, with ecological concepts about environmental management jostling against demands for community autonomy coming from both right and left. Struggle over geographic units thereby became a key axis 7

of conflict between different ideological strands of the politics of place. This program is part of the Environmental History Seminar series. Seminars bring together a diverse group of scholars and interested members of the public to workshop a pre-circulated paper.

To reserve: This is an online program. Please register at www.masshist.org/events.

APRIL

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THURSDAY |

5:30 | VIRTUAL PROGRAM

Confronting Racial Injustice Series Boston School Desegregation through the Rearview Mirror Martha Minow, Harvard Law School; Becky Shuster, Boston Public Schools; and Rachel E. Twymon Moderator: Matthew F. Delmont, Dartmouth College

Image courtesy of Spencer Grant

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 redistricting and the re-assignment of students. In this program, panelists will reflect on the lessons to be learned from Boston’s school desegregation experience.

To reserve: This is an online program. Please register at www.masshist.org/events.

APRIL

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TUESDAY |

5:15 | VIRTUAL SEMINAR

Contesting Domesticity Kwelina Thompson, Cornell University; Shoniqua Roach, Brandeis University; Laura Puaca, Christopher Newport University; and Allison Horrocks, Lowell National Historical Park The domestic realm has long captivated feminist scholars who have sought to understand the lives of women and the workings of gender. How have women experienced, challenged, leveraged, and shaped the domestic? This panel will consider such questions and discuss the domestic as a contested site of constraint and possibility. Shoniqua Roach theorizes the meanings of Black domesticity as a deeply fraught space marked by anti-Black sentiment and yet full of insurgent potential. Kwelina Thompson explores the history of the La Leche League—a Catholic mothers group that organized to support breastfeeding mothers in the mid-20th century. Finally, Laura Puaca tells the story of the expansion of post-WWII vocational rehabilitation programs to include disabled homemakers in the US. This program is part of the History of Women, Gender, & Sexuality Seminar series. Seminars bring together a diverse group of scholars and interested members of the public to workshop a pre-circulated paper.

To reserve: This is an online program. Please register at www.masshist.org/events.

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THURSDAY |

5:30 | VIRTUAL PROGRAM

Clean Water, Green Space & Social Equity Karen Mauney-Brodek, Emerald Necklace Conservancy; Rep. Nika Elugardo; and Chris Reed, Harvard Graduate School of Design Moderator: Sarah Glazer 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. This program is in partnership with the Muddy Water Initiative.

To reserve: This is an online program. Please register at www.masshist.org/events.

APRIL

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MONDAY |

5:30 | VIRTUAL PROGRAM

Bound by War: How the United States & the Philippines Built America’s First Pacific Century Christopher Capozzola, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Ever since US troops occupied the Philippines in 1898, generations of Filipinos have served in and alongside the US armed forces.

Historian Christopher Capozzola reveals this forgotten history, showing how war and military service forged an enduring, yet fraught, alliance between Americans and Filipinos. As the US military expanded in Asia, American forces confronted their Pacific rivals from Philippine bases and Filipinos became crucial partners in the exercise of US power. Their service reshaped Philippine society and politics and brought hundreds of thousands of Filipino immigrants to America, including WWII veterans who fought a decades-long battle to win equitable rights to citizenship and veterans benefits. Drawing on research across the US and Asia, Bound by War tells the epic story of the US and the Philippines through the wars the two nations fought together.

APRIL PROGRAM DESCRIPTIONS

APRIL

To reserve: This is an online program. Please register at www.masshist.org/events.

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APRIL

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TUESDAY |

5:15 | VIRTUAL SEMINAR

The “Other” Illegals: Unauthorized European Immigration to New York City & Boston in the 20th Century Danielle Battisti, University of Nebraska Omaha; Carly Goodman, La Salle University Comment: Christopher Capozzola Since 1965, US political and social discourse about immigration has been dominated by concerns over undocumented immigration, a legal and social category understood to apply almost exclusively to non-white immigrants. This panel will examine a now obscure part of 20th century immigration history: the migration of unauthorized white Europeans.

The session will complicate current understandings of the period to demonstrate that early in the 20th century southern and eastern European immigrants were in fact stigmatized as “criminals” and “illegals.” However, by mid-century southern and eastern Europeans were able to draw upon their social and political capital to change public perceptions and state policies. Legal status provided relief from the threat of deportation or exclusion and reinforced the racialized category of undocumented immigrant. These papers will bring the stories to light of these “other” illegal immigrants and reinsert them into the conversations and policy debates surrounding unauthorized immigration. This program is part of the Dina G. Malgeri Modern American Society & Culture Seminar series. Seminars bring together a diverse group of scholars and interested members of the public to workshop a pre-circulated paper.

To reserve: This is an online program. Please register at www.masshist.org/events.

APRIL

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THURSDAY |

5:15 | VIRTUAL SEMINAR

Fashioning a Life: How Style Matters in Biography Caroline Weber, Barnard College, and Channing Joseph, University of Southern California Moderator: Natalie Dykstra, Hope College Is fashion art or commerce? Frivolous or full of meaning? Is fashion evidence? This panel brings together Caroline Weber, author of Queen of Fashion: What Marie-Antoinette Wore to the Revolution and Proust’s Duchess, and Channing Joseph, whose forthcoming book recovers the untold story of formerly enslaved William Dorsey Swann, who in the 1880s became a progenitor of ballroom and drag culture. They will join Natalie Dykstra, author of Clover Adams: A Gilded and Heartbreaking Life and now at work on a biography of Isabella Stewart Gardner, in a conversation about the ways biographers use fashion to decode lives and historical contexts. This program is part of the New England Biography series.

To reserve: This is an online program. Please register at www.masshist.org/events.

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On Monday, May 3, at 5:30 PM: The Invention of Miracles: Language, Power, & Alexander Graham Bell’s Quest to End Deafness with Katie Booth in conversation with Jaipreet Virdi, University of Delaware.

On Tuesday, May 4, at 5:15 PM: Pauline Maier Early American History Seminar, Honoring Bernard Bailyn: A Master Historian, An Inspiring Teacher with Mary Bilder, Boston College; Alison Games, Georgetown University; Jonathan Gienapp, Stanford University; and moderator Richard D. Brown, University of Connecticut.

On Monday, May 17, at 5:30 PM: The First Reconstruction: Black Politics in America from the Revolution to the Civil War with Van Gosse, Franklin and Marshall College.

On Wednesday, May 19, at 6:00 PM: Confronting Racial Injustice series, The War on Drugs in Massachusetts: The Racial Impact of the School Zone Law and Other Mandatory Minimum Sentences with Sen. William N. Brownsberger; Abrigal Forrester, Center for Teen Empowerment; Rahsaan D. Hall, ACLU of Massachusetts; Deborah A. Ramirez, Northeastern University School of Law; and moderator Hon. Sydney Hanlon.

On Wednesday, May 26, at 5:30 PM: Of Thee I Sing: The Contested History of American Patriotism with Ben Railton, Fitchburg State University.

A LOOK AHEAD SPRING PROGRAMS

Take a look at our upcoming slate of online author talks, panel discussions, workshops, seminars, and brown-bag lunch programs.

Please visit www.masshist.org/events for updates and to register.

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Mon, 4/19 at 9pm on GBH 2 Fri, 4/23 at 9:30pm on GBH 44