Readers,
In an effort to make a blog that is more useful to the local history enthusiast community, I'm reconsidering my approach to the content here.
Initially, I was endeavoring to compiling all the history events in the area, but found that to be tedious and uninteresting. As nothing but the most complete and always timely list would do, once I fell off posting events weekly, it seemed unnecessary.
In the future, I will be posting featured events that I think are of particular interest to the Boston history community. I will also be adding a box in the left column with upcoming events. In the meantime, I encourage readers to check TheHistoryList.com for local history listings.
Upcoming subjects this blog will broach include Boston's celebration of the War of 1812, municipal monuments to World Wars I & II, and Italian-American struggles with cultural identity coinciding with the rise of Mussolini.
I apologize for the absence of content since the launch, and will be working to remedy it.
If you have any suggestions on topics on Boston history, or have questions you'd like to see answered, please feel free to comment below, or email me.
Thanks,
Matt W.
Monday, May 21, 2012
Thursday, March 22, 2012
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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 19th 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
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
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
Friday, March 16, 2012
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!
Watch the mash-up!
Monday, March 12, 2012
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.
Read more after the jump.
Sunday, March 11, 2012
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 19th- and early 20th-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
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
6:00-7:30 PM
Bussey Bridge Train Disaster: 125th 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
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
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.
Friday, March 9, 2012
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 13th-15th
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
Read more after the jump
Monday, March 5, 2012
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
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
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
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
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