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Revolutionary Spaces

**Revolutionary Spaces ** connects people to the history and continuing practice of democracy through the intertwined stories of two of the nation’s most iconic sites—Boston’s Old South Meeting House and Old State House. We foster a free and open exchange of ideas, explore history, create gathering places, and preserve and steward historic buildings.

https://www.bostonhistory.org

Smallpox in Boston: A Complex Affair

Thu, Nov 18, 2004

Professor emeritus Philip Cash lectures on the history of the smallpox epidemic in Boston. The debate surrounding Smallpox inoculation in Boston began in 1721 when an epidemic struck the town. The Reverend Cotton Mather attempted to convince physicians to try the then controversial practice of inoculation, without success. In 1800, Benjamin Waterhouse, a Harvard professor of medicine, became the first person to test the smallpox vaccine in the United States. His first test subject was his 5-year-old son Daniel whom he infected with a sample of cowpox sent from England.

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Jewish Heritage on Beacon Hill

Thu, Feb 17, 2005

Ellen Smith, lecturer in Near Eastern and Judaic Studies at Brandeis University, discusses the history of Jewish immigration in Boston. Boston's first Jewish congregation established a synagogue in the South End in 1852. By 1907, Boston's Jewish population had grown to 60,000 with many families settling in the West End. The Vilna congregation began to hold services on Beacon Hill in 1903 and remained there until 1985.

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Death in the Haymarket

Thu, Mar 30, 2006

James Green, professor of history at UMASS Boston and Howard Zinn, author of A People's History of the United States discuss the exhilarating rise of a visionary union movement and its downfall in the wake of the Haymarket tragedy. In May of 1886 Americans awoke to the news that a bomb had exploded a Chicago labor rally, killing several policemen. Coming in the midst of the largest national strike Americans had ever seen, the bombing, the mass hysteria it created, and the sensational trial and executions that followed, made headlines across the country. National sentiment turned against the burgeoning labor movement, ending a moment of hope for the nation's working class.

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Stealing God's Thunder: Benjamin Franklin's Lightning Rod

Tue, Jan 17, 2006

Philip Dray uses the story of Franklin's wild experiments and his battles with his vehement detractors as a metaphor for America's struggle for democracy and the establishment of our fundamental democratic values. Long before Benjamin Franklin was an eminent statesman and a father of American democracy, he was famous for being a revolutionary scientist, most notably for his experiments with lightning and electricity. But Franklin had many powerful doubters who were troubled by his presumption in denying God his favorite weapon of resentment. For as long as anyone could remember, all the way back to Greek, Roman, and Norse mythology, one of the gods' privileges had been the ability to hurl thunderbolts to punish the misdeeds of mortals. **Philip Dray** is the author of *At the Hands of Persons Unknown: The Lynching of Black America*, which won the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Book Prize and the Southern Book Critics Circle Award, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the Los Angeles Times Book Award.

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Memory and Abolition in 1850's Boston

Thu, Feb 16, 2006

Margot Minardi explores why the Revolutionary past mattered to 19th century Bostonians and how they used that history to make the case for or against abolition. In 1843, the suspicion that President John Tyler had brought a slave to the dedication of the Bunker Hill Monument set Boston abolitionists up in arms. This incident was by no means the only time in the antebellum years when the celebration of American liberty ran up against the messy reality of slavery.

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Last Mantua Maker: Women in Boston's Clothing Trades

Thu, Mar 24, 2005

In 1845, after almost a dozen years in business, Rebecca Goodwin Major closed up shop. She was the very last Boston woman to call herself a mantuamaker in the pages of the city directory. Most of her competitors abandoned the 17th-century term for the more up-to-date nomenclature, dressmaker. Marla Miller, assistant professor of public history at UMASS Amherst, will look at how one of the most prestigious occupations available to American women since the 17th century, faded from the Boston scene.

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Ponzi's Scheme: True Story of a Financial Legend

Thu, Nov 3, 2005

Mitchell Zuckoff discusses Charles Ponzi's mercurial rise and fall as he conjured up one get-rich-quick scheme after another. Zuckoff reveals how The Boston Post uncovered this "robbing Peter to pay Paul" system (as it was then known), and how Ponzi's life unraveled. Before Charles Ponzi (1882-1949) sailed from Italy to the shores of America in 1903, his father assured him that the streets were really paved with gold and that Ponzi would be able to get a piece. Ponzi learned as soon as he disembarked that though the streets were often cobblestone, he could still make a fortune in a culture caught in the throes of the Gilded Age.

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Caroline Healey Dall: Daughter of Boston

Thu, Oct 20, 2005

Helen R. Deese discusses the 45 volume diary of Bostonian transcendentalist Caroline Healey Dall, which is perhaps the longest diary written by any American and the most complete account of a nineteenth century woman's life in existence. Bostonian Caroline Healey Dall (1822-1912) was a transcendentalist, early feminist, writer, reformer, and an extremely active diarist. Caroline Healey Dall kept a diary for 75 years that captured the fascinating details of her sometimes agonizing personal life, the major figures who surrounded her, and many facets of nineteenth century Boston.

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Daughters of the Union: Northern Women Fight the Civil War

Fri, Oct 28, 2005

Nina Silber, associate professor of History at Boston University, traces the emergence of a new sense of self and citizenship among the women left behind by Union Soldiers. Using the diaries and letters of these women, Silber shows the women of the North discovering their patriotism and acting with greater independence in running their households and in expressing their political views. Women serve as fundraisers, post mistresses, suppliers, nurses, government workers and teachers. With a greater public role, women find "their personal, intimate relationships subjected to intense... scrutiny, not only from neighbors and kin but also from state and federal officials." Those who work as nurses are "required to be plain looking women." The result, Silber argues, was a change in the way that the regulatory function of marriage worked within society in ways that continue to reverberate through homes and jobs.

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Scam, Scandal, Murder and Mayhem in Colonial Boston

Mon, Oct 31, 2005

In this lecture, writer D. Brenton Simons discusses his book Witches, Rakes, And Rogues: True Stories of Scam, Scandal, Murder, And Mayhem in Boston, 1630-1775 , in which he paints a darker picture of Colonial Boston than was previously imagined. In Boston's early years, before electricity, police departments, telephones and other modern conveniences, Boston was a scary place. Exposing this puritan underbelly is author D. Brenton Simons, COO of New England Historic Genealogical Society in Boston. When most people think of Boston between its founding in 1630 and the height of the American Revolution, they imagine a procession of Puritan ministers in black followed by revolutionaries like Paul Revere on horseback. By scouring family records and public archives, Simons demonstrates convincingly that the narrow, twisting streets of colonial Boston were also crawling with murderers, con men, identity thieves, and other blackguards. Bostonians may have been prayerful, but they were also prurient and violent. Added to his extraordinary rogues gallery are several misunderstood women who were tried and executed as witches. Simons even uncovers the truth about the first documented serial murder in Boston history.

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