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Hit and Run History: The Columbia Expedition

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Date and time
Wednesday, March 02, 2011

For 16 years Andrew Buckley has been following the story of the Columbia Expedition, the first American voyage around the world. Buckley and his team investigate this trek in *Hit and Run History*, an episodic documentary series that is now the centerpiece of WGBH-Boston’s History site. Learn about how their research brought the film crew to the Massachusetts Historical Society in this talk featuring clips from the series.

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Fisherman-turned-filmmaker Andrew Buckley is the foremost authority on the Columbia Expedition. He has been on the trail of the first American voyage around the world and its commander, John Kendrick, since 1995 beginning with research for his novel The Bostoner. In 2008, Buckley turned to documentary film to tell the story, creating Hit and Run History. Since then, Buckley and HRH have been awarded 13 Massachusetts Cultural Council Grants, and the first-ever Social Media Outreach Grant by the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities. Because of the epic sweep of the Columbia Expedition, HRH developed an episodic approach, mixing the best elements of history, travel and reality television. Their method is to get out to the locations where microhistory occurred. HRH visits the places where historical figures lived and talk to local historians who give their personal insights. The film crew also gets involved in the telling of the story, with a focus on the “making of” the documentary. Buckley studied Political Science at American University and the University of Massachusetts at Boston, graduating with a B.A. He was Selectman for the Town of Chatham, and now writes op-ed for the independent Cape Cod Chronicle and online on Cape Cod Today. He is a USCG-licensed Master Mariner, NAUI diver, and Massachusetts commercial fishermen. Buckley lives on his native Cape Cod with his daughter, Sofie.
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