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Boston Athenaeum

The Boston Athenaeum, one of the oldest and most distinguished independent libraries in the United States, was founded in 1807 by members of the Anthology Society, a group of fourteen Boston gentlemen who had joined together in 1805 to edit The Monthly Anthology and Boston Review. Their purpose was to form "an establishment similar to that of the Athenaeum and Lyceum of Liverpool in Great Britain; combining the advantages of a public library [and] containing the great works of learning and science in all languages." The library and Art Gallery, established in 1827, were soon flourishing, and grew rapidly, both by purchase of books and art and by frequent gifts. For nearly half a century the Athenaeum was the unchallenged center of intellectual life in Boston, and by 1851 had become one of the five largest libraries in the United States. Today its collections comprise over half a million volumes, with particular strengths in Boston history, New England state and local history, biography, English and American literature, and the fine and decorative arts. The Athenaeum supports a dynamic art gallery, and sponsors a lively variety of events such as lectures and concerts. It also serves as a stimulating center for discussions among scholars, bibliophiles, and a variety of community interest groups.break

http://www.bostonathenaeum.org

Wood, Wind & Water: Nantucket Opera House Cup Race

Tue, Oct 7, 2003

Annie Converse and Camie Ford discuss their collaboration on the photographic essay *Wood, Wind and Water*, and the creative process that took years to complete. They familiarize the audience with the world of classic wooden yacht racing and restoration, which they have chronicled both in the book and in a 26-minute documentary video. The book, set in Nantucket, offers a rich, salty, and often humorous look at a global subculture glued together by a passion for classic wooden yachts. The video documentary follows many of the characters from the book to Antigua, where they race in the Antigua Classic Wooden Yacht Regatta. This race, in 1999, was the first time the J boats Shamrock V, Velsheda, and Endeavor had raced against one another since the 1930's. Much of the footage in the documentary is shot aboard Shamrock V.

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Sweetwater: Secrets of a Yankee Life

Thu, Nov 13, 2003

Roxana Robinson discusses *Sweetwater*, her story of a woman whose second marriage casts into sharp relief the painful echoes of her first. The book draws together the disparate strands of family complexities, social tensions, and the fragility of the natural world in this moving novel.

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Gay Talese: His Portraits and Encounters

Thu, Nov 20, 2003

Gay Talese discusses his newest submission to the literary world, The Gay Talese Reader. Attention to detail and observation of the unnoticed are the hallmarks of Gay Talese's writing, and The Gay Talese Reader brings together the best of his essays and classic profiles. Whether he is detailing the unseen and sometimes quirky world of New York City or profiling Frank Sinatra, Talese captures his subjects - famous, infamous, or unusual - in his own inimitable and elegant fashion. These carefully crafted works create a portrait of an unforgettable individual, place, or moment, and give insight into the progression of a writer who is at the pinnacle of his craft.

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George Stubbs: Reapers and Haymakers

Thu, Jan 22, 2004

Richard Wendorf attempts to show how scholars who have addressed the paintings of George Stubbs have missed the central point of his work as an artist. The painter George Stubbs is perhaps best known for his dramatic and painstakingly accurate portraits of English horse flesh. In this illustrated lecture, Wendorf draws attention to Stubbs' equally remarkable attempts to paint agricultural workers in the English countryside, particularly in his pair of images entitled Reapers and Haymakers. These iconic pictures have been the focus of intense debate by literary critics, art historians, and social historians during the past thirty years. Do they accurately depict the cleanliness, health, and vitality of common laborers in the 1780's and 1790's, or do they camouflage the desperate, post-enclosure conditions in which these workers toiled?

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Harriet Tubman: Bound for the Promised Land

Tue, Feb 10, 2004

Historian Kate Clifford Larson discusses her new book, *Bound for the Promised Land*, which draws on a trove of new documents and sources as well as extensive genealogical research and reveals Harriet Tubman as a complex woman who was brilliant, shrewd, deeply religious, and passionate in her pursuit of freedom. Harriet Tubman is one of the giants of American history, a fearless visionary who led scores of her fellow slaves to freedom on the Underground Railroad and battled courageously behind enemy lines during the Civil War. And yet in the nine decades since her death, next to nothing has been written about this extraordinary woman aside from juvenile biographies. The truth about Harriet Tubman has become lost inside a legend woven of racial and gender stereotypes. From Tubman's brutal treatment while enslaved on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, to her exploits on the Underground Railroad during the Civil War, to her lifelong pursuit of civil and humanitarian rights for African Americans, Tubman's accomplishments represent true American heroism.

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Picture Books: A Reading for Children

Sat, Oct 4, 2003

Children's book creators Barbara McClintock, Phyllis Root, and Helen Oxenbury read their stories aloud to a group of children at the Boston Athenaeum. Barbara McClintock reads from her book Dahlia. One morning Charlotte gets a package from her Aunt Edme. Inside is a delicate doll. Charlotte never wanted a doll, and she certainly doesn't want this one. She names the doll Dahlia and tells her that she and Bruno, her bear, "like digging in dirt and climbing trees. No tea parties, no being pushed around in frilly prams. You'll just have to get used to the way we do things." Dahlia doesn't seem to mind. What's more, she seems to like getting dirty while making mud cakes and racing wagons. But at the end of the day, Charlotte's aunt arrives for a visit and wants to see how Dahlia is doing and Charlotte gets another surprise. Phyllis Root and Helen Oxenbury read from their book Big Momma Makes the World. When Big Momma makes the world, she doesn't mess around. Earth, she says, get over here. And it does. With a little baby on her hip and laundry piling up, Big Momma asks for light and dark, sea and sky, creepers and crawlers, and lots of folks to trade stories with on the front porch. And when the work is done, Big Momma is pleased all right. "That's good," she says, "That's real good."

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Making a Case for Comic Fiction

Tue, Feb 3, 2004

Mameve Medwed, Tom Perrotta, and Stephen McCauley explain and defend comic fiction.

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Race and Place

Tue, Mar 2, 2004

Ted Landsmark discusses how demographic and educational changes affect Boston's near-term future, and the unanticipated ways in which our cultural identities are evolving. The formation of racial and ethnic identities were key aspects of 20th century American culture. As traditional racial dichotomies dissolve in the 21st century, some new, and some very old, elements of cultural identity are taking precedence in American life: artisanry, class, education, and a sense of place are emerging as significant shapers of identity. Even as media and commercial homogeneity aggregate and level our differences, immigration and rediscovered cultural roots are churning our perceptions of who we believe we are as Americans. Boston, a city generally viewed as both a portal for new populations and as a staid community where relatively few ethnic or racial minorities achieve high levels of political or cultural visibility, is undergoing some of the largest demographic and educational changes in its history.

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Robert Hooke: The Man Who Measured London

Tue, Mar 9, 2004

Lisa Jardine draws a portrait of the gifted but cranky English scientist Robert Hooke, known to history as much for losing quarrels with more prominent scientists as for his achievements. He was one of the founding fathers of the Royal Society and teamed with Christopher Wren in rebuilding London after the Great Fire of 1666. Hooke is perhaps best, and certainly unjustly, remembered for losing to Newton in a challenge for credit as discoverer of the inverse-square law of gravitational attraction.

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Among the Bohemians: Experiments in Living (1900-1939)

Thu, Mar 11, 2004

Virginia Nicholson explores the way of life of the Bohemian artists of the early 20th century - the majority of them artists, poets, writers, and composers - who were brave enough to jettison Victorian conformity and to invent a whole new way of living. Rebels and free spirits, they pioneered a domestic revolution, carrying idealism and creativity into every aspect of daily life. From Dylan Thomas to Robert Graves, Katherine Mansfield to Dora Carrington, they rejected tea parties, chaperones, monogamy, and mahogany. Deaf to disapproval, they painted, danced, and wrote poetry with passionate intensity, they experimented with homosexuality and open marriages, and often sacrificed comfortable homes to take to the road or to move into Spartan garrets. Yet their choice of a free life led all too often to poverty, hunger, addictions, and even death. This lecture brings to life the flamboyant, eccentric pioneers to whom we owe so many of our freedoms today.

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