Stay engaged with the MHS this year.

“This whole Country, then so rough, is now beautifully cultivated, Handsome Houses, Orchards, Fields of Grain and Grass, and the Roads as fine as any except the Turnpikes, in the State.”
Featured Item from the MHS Collection

Written on the day she finished her now famous antislavery novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s letter to educator and reformer Horace Mann confesses the novel was written with her “hearts blood.” Expressing gratitude for Mann's suggestions, Stowe inquires about sending presentation copies of her novel “to several distinguished persons in England” including Thomas Babington Macaulay, George William Frederick Howard Carlisle, Charles Dickens, and Prince Albert. Read a transcription of the letter.
This Week’s Online Programs

On Tuesday, 2 March, at 5:15 PM, Molly Nebiolo, Northeastern University, and Camden Elliott, Harvard University, presents Health, Disease & Early American Environments with comment by Thomas Wickman, Trinity College. This panel discussion brings together the histories of health, disease, and the environment to cast new light on key sites of Colonial American history. Molly Nebiolo’s research highlights how health and medical knowledge impacted the creation of early Atlantic cities. By examining the colonial history of promotional narratives, both written and spatial, her paper argues that health and well-being were fundamental ideas for the settlement of Philadelphia and Charleston. Camden Elliott’s paper recasts the history of the Stono Slave Rebellion through the lens of environmental history. Placing mosquitoes (and their pathogens) in a supporting role to a slave war in South Carolina, he investigates how yellow fever helped set the stage for resistance and how malaria shielded maroons in the rebellion’s aftermath. This program is part of the Pauline Maier Early American History Seminar series. Seminars bring together a diverse group of scholars and interested members of the public to workshop a pre-circulated paper. Register for this online seminar.

On Wednesday, 3 March, at 5:30 PM, Carolyn Eastman, Virginia Commonwealth University, and Sara Georgini, MHS, present The Strange Genius of Mr. O: The World of the United States’ First Forgotten Celebrity. When James Ogilvie arrived in America in 1793, he was a deeply ambitious but impoverished teacher. By the time he returned to Britain in 1817, he had become a bona fide celebrity known simply as Mr. O and counted the nation’s leading politicians and intellectuals among his admirers. And then, like so many meteoric American luminaries afterward, he fell from grace. Ogilvie’s career featured many of the hallmarks of celebrity we recognize from later eras: glamorous friends, eccentric clothing, scandalous religious views, narcissism, and even an alarming drug habit. Author Caroyln Eastman, along with Sara Georgini, will discuss Ogilvie’s history, which is at once a biography of a remarkable performer and a story of the United States during the founding era. Register for this online program.

On Thursday, 4 March, at 5:15 PM, Danielle Wiggins, California Institute of Technology, presents From Jobs & Freedom to Jobs & Opportunity: Andrew Young, Growth & the Illusion of Job Creation with comment by Brenna Greer, Wellesley College. This paper considers Atlanta mayor Andrew Young’s shifting ideas about job creation and economic opportunity to investigate how Democrats abandoned their 1970s goal of full employment in favor of policies that promoted private sector job creation via economic growth in the 1980s. By conflating growth with opportunity, Andrew Young sought to stake a middle path between development interests and anti-poverty coalitions, between white and Black voters, and between civil rights liberalism and supply-side liberalism. However, economic growth and its promise of opportunity proved to be an inadequate solution for the range of issues its proponents intended it to address. 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. Register for this online seminar.

Upcoming March Programs
On Tuesday, 9 March, at 5:15 PM, Joyce Chaplin, Harvard University, presents Climate in Words & Numbers: How Early Americans Recorded Weather in Almanacs.

On Thursday, 11 March, at 6:00 PM, Lew Finfer, Massachusetts Community Action Network, and Stephen Gray, Harvard Graduate School of Design, present Redlining: From Slavery to $8 in 400 Years, with moderator Adrian Walker, Boston Globe. This is the first program in the Confronting Racial Injustice Series.


On Tuesday, 16 March, at 5:30 PM, Cynthia Van Zandt, University of New Hampshire, presents Women of the Underground: Political Repression, Kinship Networks, & the Transatlantic Resistance to Restoration Politics with comment by Adrian Weimer, Providence College.

On Wednesday, 17 March, at 12:00 PM, join us for our Visionary Circle Virtual Launch Event.

On Thursday, 18 March, at 5:30 PM, Lori Rogers-Stokes presents Heroic Souls: Records of Trial from Thomas Shepard’s Church in Cambridge, 1638–1649.

On Wednesday, 24 March, at 5:30 PM, Robert Krim presents From Revolution to Pandemic: What Makes Boston One of the World’s Top Innovation Centers? in conversation with Scott Kirsner.

On Thursday, 25 March, at 5:15 PM, Neilesh Bose, University of Victoria, and Helen R. Deese, Caroline Healey Dall Editor, MHS, present Marriage of Minds or Boston Divorce? The Lives & Good Works of Caroline Healey Dall & Rev. Charles Henry Appleton Dall on Two Continents with moderator Megan Marshall, Emerson College.

On Tuesday, 30 March, at 5:15 PM, Samuel Backer, Johns Hopkins University, presents The Parlor & the Public: Tin Pan Alley & the Birth of Manhattan Mass Culture with comment by Jeffrey Melnick, University of Massachusetts Boston

Visit www.masshist.org/events for more information and to register for programs.
Interested in Viewing Past Programs?
If you missed a program or would like to revisit the material presented, please visit www.masshist.org/video or our YouTube channel. A selection of past programs is just a click away.
Share Your COVID-19 Experience(s)

The MHS invites you to contribute your COVID-19 experience(s) to our collection. Record your experiences on a daily, weekly, or intermittent basis. You can contribute your thoughts and images online. Visit our COVID-19 web display to learn more and to share your thoughts. Or you can keep a journal and donate it to the MHS. Contact collections@masshist.org for more information.  
 
Thank you to everyone who has shared so far. If you have not yet done so or would like to contribute again, please visit www.masshist.org/projects/covid/index.php. You can also read what others have shared.
JOIN THE MHS VISIONARY CIRCLE!
Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What are CORE GIVING OPPORTUNITIES?
A: Bequests, Charitable Gift Annuities, Charitable Remainder Trusts or UniTrusts, Life Insurance Policies

Q: HOW CAN I SUPPORT the MHS with a planned gift?
A: The MHS welcomes many types of planned gifts. We can help you decide which is best for you based on your goals. 

Q: HOW CAN I GET STARTED?
A: Contact Maureen Nguyen at mnguyen@masshist.org or 617-549-6318.
Next Steps

REGISTER 
for our Visionary Circle virtual launch on 17 March 2021 at 12:00 PM at www.masshist.org/calendar.

HEAR MORE 
from our planned giving experts at Cornerstone Advisors and ask questions.

DECLARE YOUR INTENT 
to make a planned gift before or after the event to be recognized as a Founding Member of the Visionary Circle and receive a special gift.

Our Members are the heart of the MHS community and an integral part of the MHS story. Become a Member to help make possible the Society’s mission to promote the study of American history. Receive benefits including invitations to enhanced Member-only events; free or discounted admission to special programs; and access to publications such as our calendar of events, newsletter, and Annual Report. Learn more at www.masshist.org/members.