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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

  • Sea of Glory: The US Exploring Expedition (1838-1842)

    Thu, Jan 13, 2005
    Nathaniel Philbrick explains for the first time why the US Exploring Expedition vanished from the national memory. Using new sources, including a secret journal, Philbrick reconstructs the darker saga that official reports, which focused on the "Ex Ex"' accomplishments, never told. The US Exploring Expedition of 1838-1842 was one of the most ambitious undertakings of the 19th century and one of the largest voyages of discovery the Western world had ever seen: six magnificent sailing vessels and a crew of hundreds that included botanists, geologists, mapmakers, and biologists, all under the command of the young, brash lieutenant Charles Wilkes. Their goal was to cover the Pacific Ocean, top to bottom, and to plant the American flag around the world. They discovered a new southern continent, which Wilkes would name Antarctica. This was an enterprise that should have been as celebrated and revered as the expeditions of Lewis and Clark.
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  • French and Indian War: Struggle for North America

    Thu, Jan 20, 2005
    William Fowler captures the sweeping panorama of the French and Indian War, and the huge cast of characters who fought it. Field commanders on both sides contended with the harsh realities of disease, brutal weather, and scant supplies, frequently having to build the roads they marched on. For many, the French and Indian War is just the backdrop for *The Last of the Mohicans*, a mere prelude to the American Revolution. Fowler's engrossing narrative reveals it as a turning point in modern history. On May 28, 1754, a group of militia and Indians led by 22-year-old major George Washington surprised a camp of sleeping French soldiers near present-day Pittsburgh. The brief but deadly exchange of fire that ensued lit the match that, in Horace Walpole's memorable phrase, would "set the world on fire." The resulting French and Indian War in North America escalated into a conflict fought across Europe, Africa, and the East and West Indies. Before it ended, nearly one million men had died.
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  • Amy Lowell: Selected Poems

    Tue, Jan 25, 2005
    Honor Moore, editor for poet Amy Lowell, discusses the impact of Lowell's work. A cigar-smoking proponent of free-verse modernism in open rebellion against her distinguished Boston lineage, Amy Lowell cut an indelible public figure. But in the words of Moore, "what strikes the modern reader is not the sophistication of Lowell's feminist or anti-war stances, but the bald audacity of her eroticism." Lowell was at the center of a group of pioneering modernists who, in an era convulsed by change, rejected musty Victorian standards and wrote poems of bracing immediacy. This new selection captures her formal range: the "cadenced verse" of her Imagist masterpieces, her experiments in "polyphonic prose," her narrative poetry, and her adaptations from the classical Chinese. It gives a fresh sense of the passion and energy of her work. **Honor Moore** is the author of *The White Blackbird: A Life of the Painter Margarett Sargent by Her Granddaughter*, a *New York Times* Notable Book in 1996, and of three volumes of poems: *Memoir*, *Darling*, and *Red Shoes*. Her work has appeared in *The New Yorker*, *The NewYork Times*, *The Nation*, *The New Republic*, *The Paris Review*, and *The American Scholar*.
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  • 54th Regiment and the Color of War

    Tue, Sep 30, 2003
    Shakespeare & Company actress Susannah Melone portrays Annie Kneeland Haggerty Shaw in The Color of War, an original play adapted and directed by Shakespeare & Company artist Mary Guzzy. Shortly after marrying Annie Kneeland Haggerty, a young girl from a wealthy family in New York, Robert Gould Shaw took command of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment, the Union army's first all-black fighting regiment in the Civil War, and was ordered to active duty in the Carolinas. The Color of War is the story of their relationship told through the letters Robert wrote to Annie during their courtship and after they were married. This stage dramatization of Shaw's letters sheds light on the many professional and personal struggles he faced during this intriguing period in history.
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  • Gay Talese: His Portraits and Encounters

    Thu, Nov 20, 2003
    Gay Talese discusses his newest submission to the literary world, The Gay Talese Reader. Attention to detail and observation of the unnoticed are the hallmarks of Gay Talese's writing, and The Gay Talese Reader brings together the best of his essays and classic profiles. Whether he is detailing the unseen and sometimes quirky world of New York City or profiling Frank Sinatra, Talese captures his subjects - famous, infamous, or unusual - in his own inimitable and elegant fashion. These carefully crafted works create a portrait of an unforgettable individual, place, or moment, and give insight into the progression of a writer who is at the pinnacle of his craft.
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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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  • 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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  • Lewis Lapham: Theatre of War

    Thu, Feb 27, 2003
    Lewis Lapham discusses his collection of essays, Theater of War. Taking the war on terror as the most recent example, Lapham considers America's long tradition of gratuitous conflict, and its quixotic attempts at arbitrating 'good' and 'freedom,' culminating in the endowment of nation status upon the hijackers that began the present war. Lapham shows that the recent behavior of the United States' government is consistent with the practices of past administrations. Mr. Lapham questions the motives and feasibility of our country's ongoing crusades against the world's evildoers.
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  • Maps and History: Constructing Images of the Past

    Sat, Apr 26, 2003
    Jeremy Black, professor of history at the University of Exeter, argues that historical atlases offer an understanding of the past that is invaluable, not only because they convey a previous age's sense of space and distance, but also because they reveal what historians and educators of those periods thought important to include or omit. Black explores the role, development, and nature of these important reference tools, from ancient to modern times.
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  • Unnoticed: Secret Life of Type Faces

    Thu, Apr 28, 2005
    Richard Wendorf explores the nature and history of the type faces by which we live, ranging from Roman capitals to the experimentation of William Morris at the Kelmscott Press. Typography is something that we encounter every day of our lives; it is one of the most pervasive elements in an entire spectrum of human activities. And yet typography is usually invisible or barely noticed; it is supposed to be transparent; it is not supposed to draw attention to itself. *The Secret Life of Type* is one of 10 essays collected together in Richard Wendorf's new book *The Scholar-Librarian: Books, Libraries, and the Visual Arts*, published by Oak Knoll Press and the Boston Athenaeum.
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