“Yet my health has been very good, and were it not for my absence from you, and our two darlings, I should enjoy a greater tranquility of mind, than I have known for some years— I have here almost complete leisure, which I employ in a little farming, and much more plodding in the library— Occupation of this sort is easily made, and I shall have business enough and more than enough for this summer, to prepare my self for the next Winter at Washington.”
–John Quincy Adams to Louisa Catherine Adams, 20 May 1804 
Featured Item from the MHS Collection

“It is earnestly desired that a delegation of prominent Gentlemen go immediately to Florida to counsel Peace and a fair and honest return”

During the election of 1876, Leverett Saltonstall campaigned actively for Democratic presidential candidate Samuel J. Tilden. On 12 November 1876, while in Philadelphia on Centennial Exposition business, Saltonstall received a telegram from the Massachusetts Democratic Committee requesting that he travel to Florida as part of a delegation to oversee the state’s election returns. A controversy had erupted in which electoral votes in four states appeared to have been manipulated against Tilden and toward Republican candidate Rutherford B. Hayes. The controversy reached such a crisis that Congress created a 15-member election commission to settle the election, and on 29 January 1877, it upheld Hayes’s election. Tilden became the first presidential candidate to lose the electoral vote while winning the popular vote. Read more about Leverett Saltonstall and the contested election.
One Week to GoGet Your Tickets Now for Two Terrific Events
 
On Tuesday, 17 November, beginning at 6:00 PM, enjoy a conversation between Pulitzer Prizewinning presidential historian Jon Meacham and GBH’s Emily Rooney at our virtual Making History Gala. The John Codman Ropes Award will be presented to Governor Charlie Baker and Mayor Martin J. Walsh. Visit www.masshist.org/gala to purchase tickets and sponsorships. 
 
On Tuesday, 17 November, at 8:00 PM, embrace your inner nerd and join us at our first Young Patron Party! Hosted by Tori Bedford, reporter at GBH News and producer of the All Rev’d Up podcast, this virtual event will feature a variety of entertaining activities. Join Bully Boy Distillers and Edgar B. Herwick III, host of The Curiosity Desk at GBH News, for lively cocktail-making demonstrations and engage in conversations with peer young patrons. The inaugural Rising History Maker Award will be presented to Dr. Karilyn Crockett, the City of Boston's first Chief of Equity. Purchase “pay-your-age” tickets to receive advance cocktail recipes and automatic entry into door prize drawings.  
This Weeks Online Programs

On Tuesday, 10 November, at 5:15 PM, Chad Montrie, UMass Lowell, and Federico Paolini, Università della Campania L. Vanvitelli, present ‘Not to Us Chained’: Nature & the Radicalism of Sacco & Vanzetti with comment by Avi Chomsky, Salem State University. This paper brings a fresh perspective to the study of modern American environmental thought as well as modern American radicalism by exploring the significance of nature in the lives and writing of anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti. It follows a narrative arc from their formative years in different parts of the Italian countryside to their final years as dedicated revolutionaries confined to Massachusetts prisons. This is part of the Environmental 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 the seminar.

On Thursday, 12 November, at 5:15 PM, Nicholas Basbanes, Kimberly Hamlin, and John Loughery present How We Go On: Three Lives of Persistence, Resistance & Resilience with discussion led by Julie Dobrow, Tufts University. Join us for a discussion of three recent biographies, published during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. As we know from the months of uncertainty we’ve all lived through so far, there are lessons about persistence, resistance, and resilience to be learned from looking at the past. Tufts University professor Julie Dobrow, author of After Emily, will chair a panel featuring Nicholas Basbanes (Cross of Snow: A Life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow), Kimberly Hamlin (Free Thinker: Sex, Suffrage, and the Extraordinary Life of Helen Hamilton Gardener), and John Loughery (Dorothy Day: Dissenting Voice of the American Century) to explore how their subjects prevailed in times of personal tragedy and public dissent, and how the authors learned to apply the lessons of their subjects to their own trials and travails as writers. This is part of the New England Biography Series. Register for this online seminar.
Upcoming November Programs
On Monday, 16 November, at 5:30 PM, William Hosley, Terra Firma Northeast, presents Authors’ Houses. This is the second program in the series A Treasury of Massachusetts House Museums and Local History Orgs.

On Tuesday, 17 November, beginning at 6:00 PM, enjoy a conversation between Pulitzer Prizewinning presidential historian Jon Meacham and GBH’s Emily Rooney at our virtual Making History Gala. Visit www.masshist.org/gala to purchase tickets and sponsorships.

On Tuesday, 17 November, at 8:00 PM, embrace your inner nerd and join us at our first Young Patron Party. Purchase “pay-your-age” tickets to receive advance cocktail recipes and automatic entry into door prize drawings. 

On Wednesday, 18 November, at 5:30 PM, Michelle Marchetti Coughlin presents Penelope Winslow, Plymouth Colony First Lady: Re-Imagining a Life.

On Thursday, 19 November, at 5:15 PM, Anelise Shrout, Bates College, presents Data Prosopography & Archives of Violence in 19th-Century Virginia with comment by Robert K. Nelson, University of Richmond.

On Monday, 23 November, at 5:30 PM, William Hosley, Terra Firma Northeast, presents Hidden Gems. This is the third program in the series A Treasury of Massachusetts House Museums and Local History Orgs.

On Monday, 30 November, at 5:30 PM, Jennifer Van Horn, University of Delaware, presents The Power of Objects in 18th-Century British America.

For more information on and to register for MHS programs, visit www.masshist.org/events. 
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.

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.