In the modern world, we often dismiss phrenology and physiognomy as pseudosciences, short-lived fads, or dangerous philosophies that laid the groundwork for biological determinism. However, between the 1770s and 1860s, many Americans viewed these disciplines as legitimate sciences in which people’s heads and faces could reveal hidden “truths” about intelligence, character, and personality.
A common refrain is that Americans dislike cities, favoring places at some distance from the buzz and complexities of urban life. But what if Americans have instead been intrigued by cities of their imagination, rather than those at their feet? The first European settlers saw America as a paradise regained. The continent seemed to offer a God-given opportunity to start again and build the perfect community.
Join artist Jazzmen Lee-Johnson as she discusses her project Contraband, an ongoing body of work drawn from her research as a Creative Artist Fellow at the American Antiquarian Society (Jay and Deborah Last Fellowship, 2019).
If you found a box containing a jumbled pile of old, crumpled paper, would you keep it? You might, if you knew it would turn out to be an eight-foot-tall circus poster that includes the earliest known depiction of an American circus ring! Join Babette Gehnrich, AAS chief conservator; Lauren B. Hewes, AAS vice president for collections; and Matthew Wittmann, curator of the Harvard Theatre Collection at Houghton Library, for the story behind salvaging an 1830s poster, printed by Jared W.
Join us virtually as Dr. Abby Goode discusses the foundations of American environmentalism and the enduring partnership between racism, eugenics, and agrarian ideals in the United States. Throughout the nineteenth century, writers as diverse as Martin Delany, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and Walt Whitman worried about unsustainable conditions such as population growth and plantation slavery. In response, they imagined agrotopias—sustainable societies unaffected by the nation's agricultural and population crises—elsewhere.
Join us as Leila Philip highlights how beavers played an oversized role in American history and how they can play an important role in its future. In Beaverland: How One Weird Rodent Made America, Philip traces the beaver’s profound influence on the early trans-Atlantic trade in North America and feverish western expansion, which gave the country its first corporations and multi-millionaires.
In Soil: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden, poet and scholar Camille T. Dungy recounts the seven-year odyssey to diversify her garden in the predominantly white community of Fort Collins, Colorado. When she moved there in 2013, with her husband and daughter, the community held strict restrictions about what residents could and could not plant in their gardens.
In this illustrated presentation and conversation, Elizabeth Block will discuss her new book, Dressing Up: The Women Who Influenced French Fashion, which examines how wealthy American women—as consumers and as influencers—helped shape French couture of the late nineteenth century. Countering the usual narrative of the designer as solo creative genius, Block shows that these American women were active participants in the era's transnational fashion system.
Contrary to his conventional image as a highly reasoned individual, Benjamin Franklin's intimate relations revealed a man who struggled with passion and prudence throughout his life. Hear the truth about Ben’s common-law wife, Deborah Read, once dismissed by male historians as a dull, ignorant woman.