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Boston Athenaeum

The Boston Athenaeum, one of the oldest and most distinguished independent libraries in the United States, was founded in 1807 by members of the Anthology Society, a group of fourteen Boston gentlemen who had joined together in 1805 to edit The Monthly Anthology and Boston Review. Their purpose was to form "an establishment similar to that of the Athenaeum and Lyceum of Liverpool in Great Britain; combining the advantages of a public library [and] containing the great works of learning and science in all languages." The library and Art Gallery, established in 1827, were soon flourishing, and grew rapidly, both by purchase of books and art and by frequent gifts. For nearly half a century the Athenaeum was the unchallenged center of intellectual life in Boston, and by 1851 had become one of the five largest libraries in the United States. Today its collections comprise over half a million volumes, with particular strengths in Boston history, New England state and local history, biography, English and American literature, and the fine and decorative arts. The Athenaeum supports a dynamic art gallery, and sponsors a lively variety of events such as lectures and concerts. It also serves as a stimulating center for discussions among scholars, bibliophiles, and a variety of community interest groups.break

http://www.bostonathenaeum.org

Birth of the Modern Arms Race

Tue, Apr 18, 2006

Priscilla McMillan discusses the content of her newest book, The Ruin of J. Robert Oppenheimer: And the Birth of the Modern Arms Race. In a groundbreaking book that recasts the history of the Cold War, bestselling author Priscilla McMillan exposes, for the first time, the truth behind J. Robert Oppenheimer's 1954 trial on charges of violating national security. Drawing from newly declassified papers and extensive interviews, McMillan places Oppenheimer's opposition to the development of the hydrogen bomb at the heart of the story. His opposition made him the victim of government officials who, conspiring with rival scientist Edward Teller, deceived President Eisenhower and trapped the enigmatic genius who had done more than anyone to build the atomic bomb. A chilling expose of the McCarthy-era conspiracy that helped propel the East-West arms race, this is a spellbinding work of history. **Priscilla McMillan** is an associate of the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University. She is the author of the bestseller Marina and Lee. Among other places, her articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, Harpers Magazine, Scientific American, and The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist, where she is a member of the editorial board.

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Boston in 2030

Thu, Apr 20, 2006

Marc D. Draisen of the Metropolitan Area Planning Council asks what metro Boston will look like in 2030 if we continue to grow at our current rate. The MAPC's MetroFuture project, an initiative to develop a plan for metro Boston's growth and development through 2030, has involved more than 2,000 people, including municipal officials, residents, workers, community groups, and legislators. The MetroFuture team has integrated findings about the region into "Scenario 1: Current Trends Extended to 2030," which presents a likely picture of the region if current conditions persist. This has served as a starting point for discussions across metro Boston about such details as: where and how our population will live and work; how prepared they will be for the jobs of the future; the growing stress on our water resources; impacts on municipal budgets; and the dramatic increase in the elderly population in the region.

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How Free Blacks from Boston Changed America

Fri, Feb 24, 2006

Steven Kendrick and Paul Kendrick discuss the 1847 Massachusetts Supreme Court case of schoolgirl Sarah Roberts, and the lasting impact it made in American history. In 1847, on windswept Beacon Hill, a 5-year-old girl named Sarah Roberts was forced to walk past five white schools to attend the poor and densely crowded black school. Her father, Benjamin, sued the city of Boston on her behalf, turning to 24-year-old Robert Morris, the first black attorney to win a jury case in America. Together with young lawyer Charles Sumner, this legal team forged a powerful argument against school segregation that has reverberated down through American history in a direct legal line to Brown v. Board of Education. When the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled against Sarah Roberts, Chief Justice Shaw created the concept of "separate but equal", an idea that effected every aspect of American life until it was overturned 100 years later by Thurgood Marshall.

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Tremont Row: Artists' Daguerreotype Rooms

Tue, Feb 28, 2006

Grant Romer, curator of the Addison Gallery of American Art's "Daguerreotypes of Southworth & Hawes" exhibition, shows how new research has revealed that the architecture of the renowned Tremont Row studio played a highly significant role in the development of the distinctive style of the partnership. With ample illustrations, he recounts how this understanding of the physical space was reconstructed and demonstrates how much it has added to appreciating the artistry of these acknowledged masters of early photography. Romer's acclaimed exhibition "Young America: The Daguerreotypes of Southworth & Hawes" offers an unparalleled opportunity to view 150 perfectly illuminated daguerreotypes created by the famous Boston partnership of Albert Sands Southworth and Josiah Johnson Hawes. Through their lens we come face to face with great statesman, intellectuals, and celebrities, glimpse intimate family portraits, and examine the very bricks and clouds of the mid-19th century.

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George Stubbs: Reapers and Haymakers

Thu, Jan 22, 2004

Richard Wendorf attempts to show how scholars who have addressed the paintings of George Stubbs have missed the central point of his work as an artist. The painter George Stubbs is perhaps best known for his dramatic and painstakingly accurate portraits of English horse flesh. In this illustrated lecture, Wendorf draws attention to Stubbs' equally remarkable attempts to paint agricultural workers in the English countryside, particularly in his pair of images entitled Reapers and Haymakers. These iconic pictures have been the focus of intense debate by literary critics, art historians, and social historians during the past thirty years. Do they accurately depict the cleanliness, health, and vitality of common laborers in the 1780's and 1790's, or do they camouflage the desperate, post-enclosure conditions in which these workers toiled?

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Gaining Ground: History of Landmaking in Boston

Tue, Dec 2, 2003

Historian Nancy Seasholes gives us the first complete account of when, why, and how Boston's land was created. Fully one-sixth of Boston is built on made land. Although other waterfront cities also have substantial areas that are built on fill, Boston probably has more than any city in North America. Seasholes introduces findings from recent archeological investigations in Boston and relates landmaking to the major historical developments that shaped it. At the beginning of the 19th century, landmaking in Boston was spurred by the rapid growth that resulted from the burgeoning China Trade. The influx of Irish immigrants in the mid-19th century prompted several large projects to create residential land (not for the Irish, but to keep the taxpaying Yankees from fleeing to the suburbs). Many landmaking projects were undertaken to cover tidal flats that had been polluted by raw sewage discharged directly on them, removing the "pestilential exhalations" thought to cause illness. Land also was added for port developments, public parks, and transportation facilities, including the largest landmaking project of all, the airport.

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Samuel Johnson's Dictionary: Defining the English Language

Thu, Jan 15, 2004

Jack Lynch, professor of English at Rutgers University, discusses Samuel Johnson's Dictionary. Two volumes thick and 2,300 pages long, Samuel Johnson's *Dictionary of the English Language,* published in 1755, marked a milestone in a language in desperate need of standards. No English dictionary before it had devoted so much space to everyday words and been so thorough in its definitions. Johnson's was the dictionary used by Jane Austen and Charles Dickens, Wordsworth and Coleridge, the Brontes and the Brownings, Thomas Hardy and Oscar Wilde. This new edition, created by Levenger Press, contains more than 3,100 selections from the original, including definitions and illustrative passages in their original spelling. Bristling with quotations, the dictionary offers memorable passages on subjects ranging from books and critics to dreams and ethics. It also features three new indexes created from entries in this edition.

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Wood, Wind & Water: Nantucket Opera House Cup Race

Tue, Oct 7, 2003

Annie Converse and Camie Ford discuss their collaboration on the photographic essay *Wood, Wind and Water*, and the creative process that took years to complete. They familiarize the audience with the world of classic wooden yacht racing and restoration, which they have chronicled both in the book and in a 26-minute documentary video. The book, set in Nantucket, offers a rich, salty, and often humorous look at a global subculture glued together by a passion for classic wooden yachts. The video documentary follows many of the characters from the book to Antigua, where they race in the Antigua Classic Wooden Yacht Regatta. This race, in 1999, was the first time the J boats Shamrock V, Velsheda, and Endeavor had raced against one another since the 1930's. Much of the footage in the documentary is shot aboard Shamrock V.

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Harriet Tubman: Bound for the Promised Land

Tue, Feb 10, 2004

Historian Kate Clifford Larson discusses her new book, *Bound for the Promised Land*, which draws on a trove of new documents and sources as well as extensive genealogical research and reveals Harriet Tubman as a complex woman who was brilliant, shrewd, deeply religious, and passionate in her pursuit of freedom. Harriet Tubman is one of the giants of American history, a fearless visionary who led scores of her fellow slaves to freedom on the Underground Railroad and battled courageously behind enemy lines during the Civil War. And yet in the nine decades since her death, next to nothing has been written about this extraordinary woman aside from juvenile biographies. The truth about Harriet Tubman has become lost inside a legend woven of racial and gender stereotypes. From Tubman's brutal treatment while enslaved on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, to her exploits on the Underground Railroad during the Civil War, to her lifelong pursuit of civil and humanitarian rights for African Americans, Tubman's accomplishments represent true American heroism.

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Oath of a Surgeon Under Fire

Thu, Oct 23, 2003

Khassan Baiev discusses his experience as a doctor during the Russian-Chechen war. Little understood and largely ignored by the West, the Russian-Chechen war represents one of the bloodiest conflicts in recent memory, claiming upwards of 150,000 lives in the past 10 years. Dr. Khassan Baiev saw the worst of it as one of the few surgeons to remain behind after fighting began in 1994. *The Oath: A Surgeon Under Fire* is his testament to the horrors of wartime and the first inside account to emerge by a native Chechen.

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