This Week at the MHS - 18 December

Time Flying Away

Portrait painter Sarah Gooll Putnam (1851–1912) kept diaries from the age of nine. Her early proclivity towards art is evident, as many of her diary pages have illustrations of what she saw or imagined, such as the clock with wings flying away from 1862 in the image above. Later, on 1 January 1863, she writes, “...and now it is January 1863. Well, time does fly any way, and I wish it wouldn’t go so fast.”

The diaries of Sarah Gooll Putnam are part of our digital volunteer transcription project. Volunteer to help with this project. Learn more about it here.

View the collection guide for the diaries here.

MHS News

Listen to the Object of History Podcast on Disability History

Listen to Season 3, Episode 2, Gouverneur Morris and the History of Disability, in which we discuss the field of Disability History and how it relates to items in the MHS collection. Jenny Reiss, a PhD candidate at the University of Pennsylvania, introduces us to Gouverneur Morris, a founding father of the United States who lived with disabilities. We then take a look at several relevant objects in the collection from the 19th and 20th century.

Listen to the podcast here.

Upcoming Events

Tuesday, 16 January | 5:00 PM

Seeing the Forest as the Key: Lumbermen, Foresters & Racial Power in the Early Twentieth-Century South & the West

Evan Bonney, Centre d'histoire de Sciences Po and Perri Meldon, Boston University, with comment by Megan Kate Nelson, historian and writer.

Tuesday, 23 January | 5:00 PM

Prostitutes in Private: Sexual & Consumer Culture in Early 20th-Century New York Tenements

Deena Ecker, CUNY Graduate Center, with comment by Kathy Peiss, University of Pennsylvania.

Wednesday, 24 January | 6:00 PM

A History of Boston

Daniel Dain

Tuesday, 30 January, 5:00 PM: Deported Americans: US Citizens & the Expanding Global Deportation Regime During the Interwar Era with Emily Pope-Obeda, Lehigh University, with comment by Kunal Parker, University of Miami School of Law.

Tuesday, 6 February, 5:00 PM: The Social World of Revolutionary New England with Nicole Breault, University of Texas, El Paso, and Christopher Walton, Southern Methodist University, with comment by Mark Peterson, Yale University.

Thursday, 8 February, 5:00 PM: “A New Witch Hunt in Salem”: The Rise & Fall of Low-Cost Birth Control Clinics During the Great Depression with Jeanna Kinnebrew, Boston University, with comment by Lauren MacIvor Thompson, Kennesaw State University.

Tuesday, 13 February, 5:00 PM: Farm, Factory, & Mine: Worcester Coal & the Role of Extractive Industries in Early 19th-Century New England with Katheryn Viens, Independent Scholar, with comment by Brian C. Black, Pennsylvania State University.

See full calendar.

Looking for More?

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Exhibition and Library Hours

Now Open! “The Dye is cast”: Interests & Ideals That Motivated the Boston Tea Party. The exhibition is open through 29 February 2024. Learn more about the exhibition and explore items from our collection related to the Tea Party.

Our galleries and library are open Monday and Wednesday through Friday, from 9:30 AM to 4:45 PM, Tuesday from 9:30 AM to 7:45 PM, and Saturday from 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM (the galleries and library open at 12:00 PM the second Tuesday of the month). Please note that the last admission is 45 minutes prior to closing.

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