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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://revolutionaryspaces.org

Vindication: A Life of Mary Wollstonecraft

Wed, Oct 5, 2005

Author Lyndall Gordon argues that Mary Wollstonecraft was not a born genius--she became one. Gordon discusses how this independent, compassionate woman who devised a blueprint for human change achieved that distinction. Wollstonecraft's wide, evolving circles of friends, benefactors, mentors, admirers and detractors are richly sketched out by Gordon, and drama (a money-squandering, abusive father; a sister trapped in a tyrannical marriage; financial crises; unfaithful lovers; attempted suicides) abounds. Wollstonecraft's life was an adventurous one; in Paris, she watched as the admired French Revolution became the Reign of Terror. Yet Wollstonecraft's adventurous life illuminates rather than obscures the philosophical and historical work that made her the foremother of much modern thinking about education and human rights, as well as about women's rights, female sexuality, and the institution of marriage.

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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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American Indians and the French-English War

Wed, Sep 28, 2005

Professor Colin G. Calloway of Dartmouth College focuses attention on the motivations and experiences of American Indian peoples who fought in the French and English War.

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