Public Program Season Starts with Historic Performance

Kate Carney. Photo © Susan Wilson

This Thursday evening at 7 p.m., we will start our fall series of public programs with a one-woman play called Lowell Mills Boardinghouse Keeper. Kate Carney wrote and performs this presentation about Mrs. Lois Larcom (1786-1868), who kept a boardinghouse for female factory workers in the 1840s. Her daughter, Lucy Larcom (1824-1893), became a poet, ...

New Program for the Public a Hit

Take some history buffs, students, teachers, museum professionals, an enthusiastic and well-known scholar, and some wonderful materials from our collections and what do you get? A great inaugural Hands-on History Workshop! Last Saturday we presented “Worcester and the American Revolution,” led by Ray Raphael, to a diverse group of interested, informed, and eager participants. We thought ...

New Hands-On History Workshop: Worcester and the American Revolution

To study closely a nineteenth-century lithograph or actually touch the impressions of type in the sheets of an eighteenth-century newspaper can be a magical, even transformative, experience. For years I have seen K-12 educators become engrossed and inspired by such activities. However it was only after we conducted a one-day workshop for K-12 educators on ...

Creating Historical Theater in an Afternoon

“…you sockdologizing old man-trap!” Stomp. Scream. Panic. “Good, good – now next time, keep the scream going longer and continue the dialogue over it. Let’s see how that works.” This was just one of many exchanges between the group of nine actors practicing a staged reading of the historically-based play Sockdology, and Jeffrey Hatcher, the playwright ...

Public Program: Nathaniel Philbrick Takes a Fresh Look at Bunker Hill

This Thursday, May 2, at 7 p.m., Nathaniel Philbrick will deliver a lecture titled “Bunker Hill: A City, A Siege, A Revolution,” based on his new book of the same name. We’re particularly excited to have Mr. Philbrick here this week as the book’s release date is today, making his visit ...

Adopt-a-Book 2013: Lewdness & Loud Talking Forbidden!

Tonight is the night! Come to AAS at 6 p.m. for the Society’s 6th annual Adopt-a-Book event! There will be food, drinks, original collection materials to view, and curatorial knowledge-sharing.  If you haven't pre-adopted it will be $10 to get in, but if you have, it's free! You can still browse the 2013 Adopt-A-Book Catalog to ...

New Objects up for Adoption!

Due to the popular demand for “orphans” in our 2013 Adopt-a-Book online catalog, we have recently added twenty new titles for you to review.  All of these new items are priced below $200 and the group includes material from the  books, newspapers, children’s literature, manuscripts and graphic arts departments. Here are two examples from the new ...

Adopt-a-Book 2013: Fires and Trains

The AAS curatorial team is just delighted by the response to our 6th annual Adopt-a-Book event, with over half of the selected “orphans” already adopted by generous supporters.  Thank you!  Below, please find one of the few titles for children still available from the online catalog as well as a railroad map from the cartography ...

Adopt-a-Book 2013: Romney and Obama, 1844 style

On Friday, April 5th from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m., the American Antiquarian Society will be hosting our 6th Annual Adopt-A-Book event. This event is an important fundraiser for the curatorial team at the Society, and monies raised will go towards future acquisitions of books, prints, newspapers, manuscripts, and children’s literature. Below are examples of two ...

Get Ready for the 2013 Adopt-a-Book Event!

On Friday, April 5th from 6:00 to 8:00pm, the American Antiquarian Society will be hosting our 6th Annual Adopt-A-Book event.  This event is an important fundraiser for the curatorial team at the Society, and monies raised will go towards future acquisitions of books, prints, newspapers, manuscripts, and children’s literature. You can browse the entire ...

Public Program: “From Emancipation to Civil Rights and Beyond: Legacies of the Civil War at 150”

The last public program in our fall lineup will be delivered by one of the nation’s foremost historians of slavery and resistance, David Blight, next Thursday, November 1 at 7 p.m. In recent public programs we have discussed the bicentennial of AAS and the War of 1812. Now, Blight will shift focus to another current ...

Baron Lecture: Patricia Limerick Reflects Upon “The Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West”

Patricia Nelson Limerick, A Western American historian at the University of Colorado, will deliver the ninth annual Baron Lecture on October 25 at 7 p.m. This lecture is named after Robert C. Baron, past AAS chairman and president of Fulcrum Publishing in Denver. This lecture invites a distinguished AAS member who has written a ...

“Two at Two Hundred” celebrates Bicentennials of AAS and First Baptist Church

This just in for people looking for something to do in Worcester this Saturday…The Antiquarian Society is teaming up with the other venerable Worcester institution to be celebrating its bicentennial in 2012.  That’s right, on Saturday, October 20th from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., the First Baptist ...

Public Program: “In Vogue with the Vulgar: Music during the War of 1812”

If you thought you’d learned all you needed to know about the War of 1812 from Alan Taylor’s lecture “The Civil War of 1812” last week, you would be missing out on a wonderful night of music and stories. Tomorrow night, October 16 at 7 p.m., David Hildebrand will be performing a concert, in costume and ...

Public Program: “The Civil War of 1812: American Citizens, British Subjects, Irish Rebels, and Indian Allies”

Second up in our fall line-up of public programs is a lecture by Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, Alan Taylor. Although the War of 1812 is an oft-forgotten part of American history, it looms much larger in the memory and story of Canada, along the border of which much of the fighting took place. Taylor’s lecture, based ...