Americans have begun to reexamine the monuments that make up our civic landscape. While these discussions are not new, the recent protests over this country’s longstanding racial injustice have given them a new urgency and scope. Ultimately, each decision about the fate of a local monument will be decided by the people in that community, and we believe that the current dialogue is both valuable and timely. Indeed, as the nation’s first historical society, we applaud the increased interest in and conversations about historical artifacts, people, events, and monuments. Read more about the role of historical societies in this pressing debate as well as the tools we can offer to better understand a monument’s past and foster dialogue around decisions about its future.

MHS President Catherine Allgor was quoted in In time of racial reckoning, Founding Fathers increasingly viewed through modern lens by Brian MacQuarrie of the Boston Globe .  Read the article online or download a pdf .

We are pleased to announce the launch of “Ask a Librarian,” a live, online chat service! This service is freely available to anyone who wants to communicate with library staff online and in real time.

To initiate a chat, click the “Ask a Librarian” bubble on our Virtual Reference and Chat Services webpage.  A chat box will open in a new tab and the first available librarian will respond.  Chat service is currently available Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM, and on Tuesday, from 1:00 PM to 7:00 PM, excluding holidays when the library is closed.

If it is has been a while since you last visited our website, please see our Reference Services During Covid-19 Closure page for expanded options for finding digital content. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact the Library. We hope to chat with you soon!

A Map of New-England, woodcut, [Boston: printed by John Foster, 1677]

This is the first map known to have been published in the English colonies of North America, and it is probably the first map published in the Western Hemisphere. It has been attributed to John Foster, a mathematician and schoolmaster, who is thought to have been the only man in Boston to have made woodcuts during that period. The map originally appeared in William Hubbard's  A Narrative of the Troubles with the Indians in New-England , an early account of the Indian Wars published in America.

The layout of the map may be slightly disorienting as it depicts the western part of New England along the top of the page and the northern regions (including the White Hills of what is now New Hampshire) along the right side. Read about the controversy surrounding two versions of this map .

Responsibility & Re-Orienting the Self in 19th-Century America

On Thursday, 23 July, at 12:00 PM , Leslie Leonard, University of Massachusetts Amherst, presents Responsibility & Re-Orienting the Self in 19th-Century America . This brown-bag presentation offers an overview of responsibility, duty, and obligation as they appeared across 19th-century American discourse—in the fields of abolition, domesticity, public welfare, philosophy, law, concepts of community, and so on. As American thinkers and authors theorized and retheorized whom we must be responsible for (and to), and what that responsibility to others might look like, they similarly suggested alternative approaches to traditional Western conceptions of the self and the individual.  Register for the brown-bag .

Boston in Film: Beyond the Oscars

On Thursday, 23 July, at 5:30 PM , Ned Hinkle, Jim Vrabel, Brattle Film Foundation, and more present Boston in Film: Beyond the Oscars . There are a remarkable number of gritty films set in Boston, yet that is not the only way the city is depicted. There are comedies, period pieces, and films that depict the diversity of the city with much greater accuracy.  Next Stop Wonderland , Paper Chase , and  Between the Lines  have not received the same attention from the Academy, but they have devout followings and depict a different vision of Boston. Our discussion will look at these other visions of the city and discuss short films and independent productions that offer a wider perspective of our city. This is the second in a series of three conversations in partnership with The Brattle Theater and Emerson College. Register for the online program .

On Wednesday, 29 July, at 5:30 PM , Peter Drummey, MHS, presents Salem History Through the MHS Archive .

On Thursday, 30 July, at 12:00 PM , Samantha Payne, Harvard University, presents Reconstruction as the Last Atlantic Revolution .

V isit www.masshist.org/events for more information and to register.  To view a selection of past programs, go to  www.masshist.org/video  or visit our  YouTube channel .

How are we learning to live with COVID-19?

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.