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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

Anouar Majid: Piracy, Terrorism and the Question of Islam

Thu, Mar 11, 2004

Dr. Anouar Majid, professor and chair of English at the University of New England, discusses the United States' first major contact with the Muslim World in the Barbary War and the parallels to our own time.

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Town Meeting with Howard Zinn

Thu, Mar 25, 2004

Howard Zinn discusses his classic book *A People's History of the United States*. James R. Green, Professor of History at UMass, Boston, moderates. This event is presented in collaboration with the Organization of American Historians as a Partners in Public Dialogue Program.

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African-American Voices of the Civil War

Wed, Apr 28, 2004

A special evening program featuring Charles Fuller, 1982 Pulitzer Prize in drama winner for *A Soldier's Play*. Discussions and performances bring the testimonies of slaves, soldiers, reporters and activists from the Civil War to life, in celebration of the publication of *Freedom's Journey*.

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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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Digging: The Workers of Boston's Big Dig

Wed, Mar 23, 2005

In celebration of the final stages of the Big Dig and the people who work extraordinarily hard each day to make it a possibility, photographer Michael Hintlian shows his work, *Digging: The Workers of Boston's Big Dig*, and discusses the difficulties and joys of putting this collection together. Starting in 1997, Michael Hintlian began photographing the 5,000 men and women who worked on the Big Dig. Despite being thrown off of one site after another, his perseverance paid off in a book of stunning, gritty black-and-white photographs.

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History of the Boston Athenaeum

Thu, Feb 3, 2005

John Lannon, associate director of the Boston Athenaeum, discusses the history of this enduring fixture on Beacon Hill. Founded in 1807, it houses such treasures as George Washington's library, and artworks by artists such as John Singer Sargent and Gilbert Stuart.

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Sarah's Long Walk: The Struggle that Changed America

Thu, Feb 10, 2005

Stephen Kendrick, author of *Sarah's Long Walk* and minister of First and Second Church, Boston, discusses the history behind the famous case of Sarah Roberts. In 1848, 5-year-old Sarah Roberts had to pass five white-only schools to attend the poor and densely crowded all-black Abiel Smith School. Incensed at this injustice, her father Benjamin Roberts took action. He resolved to sue the city of Boston on her behalf, and began a hundred-year struggle that culminated in the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education.

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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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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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