“And the autumn with its falling leaves and chilly wind reads a moral to the mind that remembers last the richness of Summer vegetation and the extreme of heat.”
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Featured Item from the MHS Collection |
This portrait of Robert Haswell depicts him as a young merchant ship captain during his brief but extraordinary career. He sailed aboard the Columbia, the first American-flagged ship to circumnavigate the globe, on the voyage that opened the China Trade from Boston by way of the Northwest Coast of North America. Haswell’s manuscript log/journal of the first part of that epic voyage is the best account we have of it. His portrait has been attributed to James Sharples, an English painter who lived and worked in the United States between 1794 and 1801. Read more about Haswell and the voyage of the Columbia.
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Thomas Nast: A Life in Cartoons
Thomas Nast defined American political cartoons in the decades following the Civil War. His illustrations popularized icons such as the Republican elephant, the Democratic donkey, and even the modern image of Santa Claus. The exhibition highlights Nast’s remarkable impact through a cartoon biography by local artists. The online exhibition launches on Wednesday, 30 September at www.masshist.org/thomasnast.
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This Week's Online Programs |
On Tuesday, 29 September, at 5:15 PM, Scott Kushner, University of Rhode Island, presents “No unseated crowd is liable to be orderly”: Organizing Audiences around Spectacle in the Industrial Era with comment by Derek Miller, Harvard University. Crowd control technologies—turnstiles, bleachers, stanchions, and seats—channel bodies through the spaces of cultural performance: theater, music, and sport. The increasing rationalization and standardization of crowd control in the early 20th century corresponds with a critical and popular understanding of crowds as dangerous and destabilizing. This paper mines archival evidence to show how industrial-age crowd control was framed as technology that ordered masses (into lines or rows), thereby rendering masses orderly (cooperative, docile, and non-threatening). This 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. Register for this online seminar.
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On Wednesday, 30 September, at 5:30 PM, Katherine Stewart and Diane Ravitch, New York University, present Will Public Education Survive?: A Look at the Threats to Education Systems from Privatization & Religious Nationalism. The rise of the Religious Right has coincided with the privatization movement in public schools. While some may feel that this is coincidental, there is reason to believe there is a directly causal relationship between these two factors. Two scholars, from different disciplines, will discuss how their work comes together to help explain the history and current state of efforts to diminish, if not dismantle, the American public education system. This is a vital conversation today considering the challenges parents and educators face due to COVID-19 and the attendant acceleration of inequality caused by remote learning. Register for this online program.
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On Thursday, 1 October, at 12:00 PM, Amy Watson, University of Southern California, presents Rule Britannia: Imperial Patriots & the Siege of Louisbourg of 1745. In 1745, a group of New England volunteers who called themselves Patriots launched an expedition against the French fortress of Louisbourg, in present-day Nova Scotia. Who were these “Patriots”? What did they want with Louisbourg? And what can this incident tell us about British imperial politics in the mid-18th century? This expedition reveals that the British Empire was dividing on sharp partisan lines in the 1740s, laying the groundwork for the Revolutionary decades to come. Register for this online brown-bag program.
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On Thursday, 1 October, at 5:30 PM, Paul Szep and William Martin present Political Cartooning. Paul Szep, a two-time Pulitzer Prize– and Thomas Nast Prize–winning editorial cartoonist, and New York Times best-selling author William Martin will discuss their careers. They will focus on Szep’s time as the Chief Editorial Cartoonist at the Boston Globe from 1967 to 2001 and look at how the field of political cartoons has changed. Szep has been described as a pioneering cartoonist with “scathing wit and a drawing style that turns editorial cartoons into pieces of art.” Martin has written 11 novels, many of which are set in and around Boston, and has been recognized with the New England Book Award and the Samuel Eliot Morison Award. Register for this online program.
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Upcoming October Programs |
On Wednesday, 7 October, at 5:30 PM, Karen Mauney-Brodek, Emerald Necklace Conservancy; Rep. Nika Elugardo; and Chris Reed, Harvard Graduate School of Design, present Clean Water, Green Space, & Social Equity.
On Thursday, 8 October, at 5:15 PM, Marc Stein, San Francisco State University, and Ashley Ruderman-Looff, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, present Queer Institutions – A Panel Discussion with comment by Aaron S. Lecklider, UMass Boston.
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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.
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Live Chat
Set up an appointment
via Zoom or you live chat
with a member of our reference staff.
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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/support/members.
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