Public Programs
When the AAS was founded in 1812, and for much of the nineteenth century,
most educated men and women took an interest in history as one of the
obligations of being citizens in the American republic. As the writing and
teaching of history became increasingly professionalized and specialized
in the late-nineteenth and twentieth centuries, gaps developed between
academic historians and the general public.
As one of the few American
learned societies whose membership rolls include a substantial proportion
of lay people as well as scholars, AAS is committed to help bring the work
of American historians before the general public--to connect scholars and
citizens, in other words. AAS public programs spotlight the work not only
of historians but also of creative and performing artists and writers who
have performed
research at the Society.
Programs include a wide variety of events,
including lectures, book discussions,
theatrical and musical
presentations, and film showings. Some of these public programs reach
wider
audiences by being taped for presentation of National Public Radio and on
the weekend Book TV programming of the national cable network C-SPAN 2.
Fall 2008 Programs
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Thursday, September 25 - 7:30 p.m.
Muse of the Revolution
by Nancy Rubin Stewart
- Thursday, October 2 - 7:30 p.m.
The Exchange Artist: A Tale of High-Flying
Speculation and America’s First Banking Collapse
by Jane Kamensky
-
 Thursday, November 13 - 7:30 p.m.
Finding Sarah Johnson's Mount Vernon: Behind
the Stories at an American Shrine
by Scott Casper
Previous 2008 Programs
- Tuesday, April 15 - 7:30 p.m.
From Cogniac Street to State Street: The Campaign against Counterfeiters in 1830s Massachusetts
by Stephen Mihm
Counterfeiters plagued the economy of the early United States. For the
first four decades of the country's existence, most of the counterfeit
money in circulation originated in Canada, in a lawless settlement known
as Cogniac Street. Stephen Mihm, author of A Nation of
Counterfeiters: Capitalists, Con Men, and the Making of the United
States, will take us
back to that wild time, and talk about the key role that Massachusetts
banks played in waging a war against the enterprising criminals who made
money — literally and figuratively — in the early republic.
Stephen Mihm is assistant professor of history at the University of
Georgia. His article, "Accept No Imitations: The Campaign against
Counterfeits Past and Present," appeared in the AAS sponsored online
journal, Common-place, in July, 2004.
- Tuesday, April 29 - 6:00-8:00 p.m.
First Annual Adopt-A-Book Evening
See books, pamphlets, newspapers, prints and other items that have found
a home at AAS and make a contribution to help the library take in other
waifs and strays. AAS curators will give a brief overview of what they
buy and why.
Drinks and hors d'oeuvres, $25.00. No limit on what you may contribute
to adopt items, which range in price from $10 to more than $1,000. All
proceeds will benefit the AAS acquisitions program for purchases in the
coming year.
- Tuesday, May 6 - 7:30 p.m.
The Remarkable Revolutionary Relationship between Tadeuz
Kosciuszko and Agrippa Hull
by Graham Russell Gao Hodges and Gary B. Nash
This program based upon the newly published book entitled, Friends of
Liberty: Thomas Jefferson, Thaddeus Kosciuszko, and Agrippa Hull. A Tale
of Three Patriots, Two Revolutions, and a Tragic Betrayal of Freedom in
the New Nation (Basic Books, 2008). In it the authors will describe
the
relationship between Kosciuszko (1746 - 1817) and his black aide de camp
and Massachusetts native, Agrippa Hull. Kosciuszko rose to the rank of
Brigadier General in the American Continental Army before returning to
his native Poland and becoming a national hero, general, and leader of
the Kosciuszko Uprising in 1794. As completely different as these two
men
were, their lives and that of Jefferson intersected with the issues of
freedom, race and identity on both sides of the Atlantic during the
Revolutionary era.
Graham Russell Gao Hodges is George Dorland Langdon, Jr. Professor of
History at Colgate University. He is the author of seven books including
Root & Branch: African Americans in New York and East Jersey,
1613-1863.
Gary B. Nash is professor of history emeritus at UCLA and Director of
the National Center for History in the Schools. He is the author of
many books on colonial and revolutionary America; past president of the
Organization of American Historians; and elected member of the American
Philosophical Society, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and
American Antiquarian Society
- Tuesday, May 13 - 7:30 p.m.
Preserving the Flash Press
By Patricia Cline Cohen, Tim Gilfoyle, and Helen Horowitz
Obscene, libidinous, loathsome, lascivious. Those were just some of the
ways critics described the nineteenth-century weeklies that covered and
publicized New York City's extensive sexual underworld. Most of these
publications with names like The Whip and The Flash have
been
lost to
history,
but a rare collection at AAS has resurrected this lost genre and formed the basis of a
new book, The Flash Press: Sporting Male Weeklies in 1840s New
York
(University of Chicago Press, 2008).
This rare collection contains nearly 100 issues of papers acquired in
1985, which augmented an existing small set already at the AAS. In
addition, in 2001 New York scholar Leo Hershkowitz added another ten
issues. These antebellum flash papers might well be considered an early
precursor to twentieth-century tabloids in their willingness to
exaggerate, oversimplify, and sensationalize the news.
This program will launch this new
publication with each of the authors speaking about these fascinating
newspapers and the Antebellum America they describe.
Patricia Cline Cohen is professor of history at the University of
California, Santa Barbara, and the author of The Murder of Helen
Jewett.
She has held three fellowships at AAS including the Mellon Distinguished
Scholar-in-Residence for the 2001-02 academic year. Timothy J. Gilfoyle
is a professor of history at Loyola University Chicago and the author of
City of Eros. Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz is professor of American studies
and history at Smith College and the author of Rereading Sex. She
held a Mellon Post Dissertation Fellowship at AAS in 1999-2000.
-
Thursday, May 22 - 7:30 p.m.
Inventing Niagara
by Ginger Strand
Americans call Niagara Falls a natural wonder, but the Falls aren't very
natural anymore. Water diverted, riverbed reshaped, landscape
redesigned, stabilized and flanked with cheap thrills, the Falls are
more a monument to man's meddling than to nature.s strength. Seamlessly
weaving together science, history, aesthetics, and personal narrative,
Inventing Niagara traces the path of America's best-loved natural wonder
from sublime icon to engineering marvel to camp spectacle. This
illustrated lecture is based upon the new book, Inventing Niagara
(Knopf, 2008) which is a history of more than just the Falls, as it
traces the course of natural wonder in America, illuminating what the
Falls have to tell us about our history, our environment, and ourselves.
Ginger Strand is author of the novel Flight. She was the
recipient of
a
2006 Robert and Charlotte Baron Fellowship for Creative and Performing
Artists and Writers at the American Antiquarian Society for her work on
Inventing Niagara.
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All programs take place in Antiquarian Hall, 185 Salisbury Street,
Worcester, Massachusetts
For a complete listing of upcoming events at AAS, please view our
calendar
For further information about our public programs, contact James David
Moran at jmoran[at]mwa.org or call our main number at 508-755-5221
Directions to Antiquarian Hall
AAS programs are supported in part by grants from the
Massachuestts Cultural Council
2006 Public Programs
2007 Public Programs
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