History Events: Remainder of March

I missed some events earlier this week, for which I apologize. Particularly, MHS had a talk on the Bread & Roses strike, while JP's BPL branch had a talk on ARSNICK. To remedy this for the future, I'm going to post month posts, and update as the month goes on. So without further ado, the rest of March...

Thursday, March 22, 2012

12:15-1:15 PM

Boston Neighborhoods: Roxbury

Thomas Plant, President of the Roxbury Highlands HistoricalSociety, will discuss the history of the neighborhood, including the Shirley Eustis House. $6; free for OSMH members.

Old South Meeting House, 310 Washington St., Boston

OldSouthMeetingHouse.org

5:30-7:30 PM

Formidable Families: Writing about Famous Brothers and Sisters

A panel of writers, including George Howe Colt, Paul Fisher, and Louise W. Knight, moderated by Megan Marshall, will explore the process of developing collective biographies, specifically research and writing about siblings. RSVP Required. Free.

Massachusetts Historical Society, 1154 Boylston St., Boston

MassHist.org

Saturday, March 24, 2012

10:00-11:30 AM

Tour: The History and Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society

Join an MHS staffer on a tour of the Society’s public rooms, touching on the organization’s history and collections. Free.

Massachusetts Historical Society, 1154 Boylston St., Boston

MassHist.org

1:00-3:00 PM

Hands-on Historic Preservation

In an effort to spark an interest in preservation among children and families, West End Museum and the Otis House will open their doors for interactive preservation activities.

Otis House, 141 Cambridge St., Boston, and West End Museum, 150 Staniford St. Suite 7, Boston

HistoricNewEngland.org / TheWestEndMuseum.org

Sunday, March 25, 2012

2:00-3:30 PM

Women of Beacon Hill: Women’s History Month Series

Beacon Hill tour will recount stories of women who shaped Beacon Hill over the centuries of all classes, races, and political stripes. $7 for HNE members, $15 for nonmembers.

Otis House, 141 Cambridge St., Boston

HistoricNewEngland.org

3:00-5:00 PM

The Greatest Events of the Present Era: Collecting History at the Concord Museum

Concord Museum curator David Wood will provide an illustrated presentation of the Concord Museum’s collection, including artifacts associated with the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War.

Minute Man Visitor Center, 250 North Great Road, Lincoln, MA

NPS.gov

Monday, March 26, 2012

5:30-7:00 PM

The Presidency of LBJ

Mark Updegrove, director of the Lyndon B. Johnson Library and Museum, will discuss his new book, Indomitable Will: LBJ in thePresidency.

Registration required. Free.

John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Columbia Point, Boston

JFKLibrary.org

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

7:30-9:00 PM

A History of Henry Beston's Outermost House

Henry Beston Society co-founder and this bloggers dad (yeah, Dad!) Don Wilding will discuss Henry Beston's Cape Cod with visual accompaniment. Free. Sponsored by the Foxborough Historical Society.

Foxboro Senior Center, 75 Central St., Foxboro, MA

HenryBeston.org

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

5:30-7:00 PM

Author Talk: Christopher Klein

Christopher Klein, author of Discovering the Boston Harbor Islands, will present a talk on the little-known history of Boston’s 34 Harbor Islands, including their roles in the Revolutionary and Civil wars, and the “real Shutter Island.” This program presented by the Boston Preservation Alliance. $10; free for members of the BPA or OSMH. Reservations available.

Old South Meeting House, 310 Washington St., Boston

OldSouthMeetingHouse.org / BostonPreservation.org

6:00-7:30 PM

A French Affair: Restoring the 1652 Manoir de Berthouville

Designer Charles Spada will speak about his restoration efforts to his seventeenth-century country manor in Normandy, France, which was recently featured in Veranda Magazine. $25; free for Codman Design Group members. Registration required.

Hampshire House, 84 Beacon St., Boston

HistoricNewEngland.org

7:00-8:30 PM

The Old Corner: How a Modest Bookstore Defined a Boston Literary Epoch

Author Matthew Pearl will speak on Boston’s Old Corner Bookstore, a staple of the city’s 19^th century literary community, once owned by American publishers Tickner & Fields and frequented by literary giants such as Emerson, Thoreau, and Dickens.

Boston Public Library, Rabb Lecture Hall, Copley Square, Boston

BPL.org

Thursday, March 29, 2012

12:15-1:15 PM

Boston Neighborhoods: Charlestown

Historian Carl Zellner of the Charlestown Historical Society will conduct a talk on Charlestown’s history, covering settlement, the Revolution and the burning of the original town in 1775, its annexation by Boston in 1874, and into the modern day. $6; free for OSMH members.

Old South Meeting House, 310 Washington St., Boston

OldSouthMeetingHouse.org

6:00-7:30 PM

Author Series: Harlow Giles Unger on The Boston Tea Party

Historian Harlow Giles Unger, author of the action-packed AmericanTempest: How the Boston Tea Party Sparked a Revolution will discuss the subject of his book, revealing little-known truths behind the legendary event and the consequences of it. Free.

Boston Public Library, Abbey Room, Copley Square, Boston

BPL.org

Saturday, March 31, 2012

10:00-11:30 AM

Tour: The History and Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society

Join an MHS staffer on a tour of the Society’s public rooms, touching on the organization’s history and collections. Free.

Massachusetts Historical Society, 1154 Boylston St., Boston

MassHist.org

South Boston Historical Society visits local schools

The South Boston Historical Society and Mt. Washington Bank put together a "history slam" presenting historical education programming to five city schools in just one day!



Watch the mash-up!

History Magazine Staffers to Walk the Knox Trail

In early winter of 1775, a young Boston bookseller and colonel in the Continental Army named Henry Knox made a risky proposition to General George Washington in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He offered to march with a small group of men to retrieve over 50 tons of cannon and other arms from Fort Ticonderoga in New York and bring them back through the cold, perilous countryside to Boston’s Dorchester Heights.

The plan was crazy; it’s success unlikely. Naysayers within the fledging American army said it couldn’t be done, but Washington was ready to take a risk. Boston was occupied by the military arm of locally-perceived tyrants, and nothing short of a miracle could pry them away.

In January, 1776, Knox delivered that miracle. Cannon brought over almost 200 icy miles were placed on Dorchester Heights. The threat of bombardment drove the British out of America’s Cradle of Liberty quickly and bloodlessly, marking an early and unlikely victory for the American upstarts.

The story of General Knox’s cannon is little known outside the American Northeast, and that of his heritage trail, the Knox Cannon Trail is less so. Established starting in 1926, this collection of 56 monuments in New York and Massachusetts quietly commemorates the American heroism of the “noble train of artillery.”

Unlike Boston’s Freedom Trail, the Knox Cannon Trail is infrequently walked. The reason is easy to see: It’s really long. Spanning two states, it was designed to be visited in pieces. That isn’t stopping Patriotsof the American Revolution’s editorial staff though.

PAR Managing Editor Benjamin Smith and Copyeditor Alex Culpepper are taking a rather untraditional vacation together, walking the entire Knox Cannon Trail from Fort Ticonderoga to Dorchester Heights, just as Knox and his men did. While they won’t be dragging cannon over frozen river any time soon, the intend to maintain a clip that would make Knox proud, with their shoe leather slated to walk up the Dorchester Heights Monument on Saturday, April 21. In their journey, they intend to raise money for Knox-associated sites Fort Ticonderoga, The New York State Military Museum, The General Henry Knox Museum, and the Boston National Historical Park.

Read more after the jump.

See History Live: Boston History Events March 13-19, 2012

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

5:15-7:15 PM

Immigration and Urban History Seminar: Policing Migrants and Militants – In Defense of Nation and Empire in the U.S.-Canadian Borderlands

Kornel S. Chang of Rutgers University will discuss the Canadian-U.S. border in the late 19^th- and early 20^th-centuries through the lense of keeping Asiatic peoples out of self-proclaimed “white man’s countries.” Chang will argue that Asiatic exclusion was as much about defending and preserving the Anglophone empire as it was about keeping out undesirable and inassimilable foreigners. Free. RSVP required.

Massachusetts Historical Society, 1154 Boylston St., Boston

MassHist.org

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

6:00-7:30 PM

Author Talk: Where We Worked – A Celebration of America’s Workers and the Nation They Built

Historian Jack Larkin of Clark University and Old SturbridgeVillage will discuss American work and life. Pre-talk reception at 5:30 PM. Free. RSVP requested. Call (617) 646-0560

Massachusetts Historical Society, 1154 Boylston St., Boston

MassHist.org

6:00-7:30 PM

Bussey Bridge Train Disaster: 125^th Anniversary Panel Discussion

Josef Porteleki will moderate a discussion with Cathy Slade (Roslindale Historical Society), writer Ed Sweeney, and writer Jeremy Fraine about the Bussey Bridge Train Disaster of 1887. Free.

Boston Public Library – Roslindale Branch, 4238 Washington St., Roslindale, MA

Roslindale.net

Thursday, March 15, 2012

12:15-1:15 PM

Boston Neighborhoods: Chinatown

Professor Wing-Kai To of the Chinese Historical Society ofNew England will discuss the history and growth of Boston’s Chinatown, the third largest community of its kind in the United States, from the 1870s settlement of Chinese laborers to the present day. $6; free for OSMH members.

Old South Meeting House, 310 Washington St., Boston

OldSouthMeetingHouse.org

6:00-7:30 PM
Washington's Artillery
J.L. Bell (Boston1775 Blog) will present an illustrated talk on the strengthening of Continental Artillery during the Revolutionary War. Free. Reservations suggested. (617) 876-4491
Longfellow House, 105 Brattle St., Cambridge, MA
NPS.gov

More events after the jump

Boston Massacre Reenactment 2012

If you were unable to attend the Boston Massacre reenactment on State Street tonight, outside the Old State House, here's some raw footage of the recreated riot.

 

James McPherson delivered at Lowell Lectures

Historian James McPherson (Princeton University) didn’t set out to be a Civil War expert. Presenting his talk “Why the Civil War Still Matters” at the Boston Public Library as part of the Lowell Lectures series, Prof. McPherson explained that upon entering graduate school at Johns Hopkins in the late 1950s, he had an interest in studying southern history, which as a Midwesterner, he found “exotic and mysterious.”

It was the Civil Rights movement of his era that brought him to study the Civil War and Reconstruction. In the midst of forced school desegregation, McPherson wanted to learn more about how the 13^th-15^th amendments that were called on came to be, and how they hadn’t been properly implemented for almost 100 years.

With this introduction, McPherson spoke for just over a half hour about the legacy and significance of the Civil War in the modern world. Citing the conflict as the most popular history subject among Americans due to its closeness to them, its drama and death toll, and its larger-than-life characters, he touched on a greater, more subtle significance: The Civil War was a fight over two different kinds of liberties.

Read more after the jump

See History Live: Boston History Events March 6-12, 2012

FEATURED EVENT OF THE WEEK

Saturday, March 10

7:00 PM

Boston Massacre Reenactment

Join the mob and become a part of the infamous Boston Massacre as it is reenacted in front of the Old State House, in the very place where it took place in 1770. Decide for yourself if the soldiers fired into the crowd in self-defense or cold-blooded murder. Before the action unfolds, hear from patriots, loyalists, and moderates who will talk about the events and attitudes that led to that fateful night. Free

Outside the Old State House, 206 Washington St., Boston

Bostonhistory.org

More event listings after the jump

Why a Boston History Blog?

First, welcome to the Boston History Blog: an online space dedicated to historical events, tours, reviews, and original articles pertaining to the Boston area.

Why do this? I've found that there isn't one good source for Boston-area history that is regularly updated. While individual sites like the JFK Library, the USS Constitution Museum, and many others do an excellent job of providing content and event details on their specific sites, it's hard to get all the listings together. Additionally, sites like The Freedom Trail and Boston1775.net are full of great stuff, but limited to specific eras in history. My object is not to replace these sites, but instead to have an aggregate of all the great historical stuff in one place.

This site will provide weekly lists of upcoming events, announcements and reviews of them, book reviews, articles on an array of different historical topics ranging from colonial Boston to the modern day, and guest posts from movers and shakers in Boston's history community.

I look forward to providing useful information to history enthusiasts in the community, and I'd love to hear from you. If you have any article or book review ideas, would like events in the area on our lists, or have any general events or feedback, please email me!

Best,

Matt Wilding

BostonHistoryBlog (at) GMail (dot) com

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