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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

Nature of Sacrifice: Biography of Charles Russell Lowell Jr.

Tue, Mar 22, 2005

The world advances by impossibilities achieved, Charles Lowell insisted in 1854 when, as valedictorian, he spoke at his Harvard graduation just two weeks after Boston had enforced the Fugitive Slave Law, returning Anthony Burns into slavery. Lowell argued that in the great march of mankind toward a greater humanity it was precisely those idealistic dreams of young men that marked human progress. His photographic memory and brilliant mind made him the brightest man of his generation. Spurning the advice of Ralph Waldo Emerson to become a "mystic," Lowell began a career at the cutting edge of industrial innovation under the mentorship of the New York iron magnate Abram Hewitt. But the impossibility Lowell had in mind was not the miracle of industrial advancement that was sweeping the nation, but the abolition of slavery. Lowell volunteered in the Union Cavalry and in 1862 served on General McClellan's staff. In 1864 he joined the Cavalry Corps under Sheridan, commanding the Reserve Brigade. Carol Bundy's account of Lowell's war years, shadowed by the deaths of his brother, cousins, and friends, is unsparing in its depiction of his work in helping to form the fabled 54th Regiment of black volunteers, fighting Colonel Mosby's guerillas, implementing Grant's orders to destroy the Shenandoah Valley, and participating in the notorious Front Royal Affair, when Confederate prisoners were tortured and executed. Bundy's vivid biography, based on rich public archives and a wealth of family papers, shows in persuasive detail the antebellum Boston of Lowell's privileged childhood transformed by his father's unexpected bankruptcy and by the national controversy over slavery. An Athenaeum proprietor, Carol Bundy has written for film and art publications in both the UK and the US. She has two sons and lives in Cambridge. Bundy became interested in her great-great-great uncle, Charles Russell Lowell, when his worn saddle bags, rusted sword, and spurs turned up after her grandmother's death in 1983. Listen to a complementary [interview with Carol Bundy](http://thoughtcast.org/casts/carol-bundy-civil-war-biographer) on Thoughtcast.org, a podcast and public radio interview program on authors, academics and intellectuals.

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Hudson River School of American Landscape Painting

Thu, Apr 14, 2005

David Dearinger, a curator at the Boston Athenaeum, lectures on history and technique of the the Hudson River School style of landscape painting. The Hudson River School resulted from the earliest attempts by American artists to find a truly "American" theme and style. It was born in the 1820s in the paintings of Thomas Cole and thrived through the 1850s in the work of Asher Durand, John Kensett, Sanford Gifford, Fitzhugh Lane, and Frederic Edwin Church. Dr Dearinger traces the birth and development of the style using key examples of paintings by these and other artists, gives an overview of the movement's historiography, discusses contemporary critical responses to it, and comments on the waning and eventual demise of the style in the 1870s. **David Dearinger** is Susan Morse Hilles Curator of Paintings and Sculpture at the Boston Athenaeum. An art historian and curator, he received his PhD from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, with a specialty in nineteenth-century American art. He taught art history in New York at Brooklyn College, Hunter College and, for many years, at the Fashion Institute of Technology. Before coming to Boston, he was chief curator at the National Academy of Design in New York. He has published and lectured widely on the history of American painting and sculpture.

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Emma at Home: Lady Hamilton and Her "Attitudes"

Thu, Mar 31, 2005

John Wilton-Ely lectures on the effervescent and much celebrated performance artist, Lady Emma Hamilton, whose "attitudes" made her a phenomenon all across 18th century Europe. This lecture is presented in conjunction with the Royal Oak Foundation.

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Longfellow: A Rediscovered Life

Tue, Feb 8, 2005

Charles C. Calhoun shows how the young poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow blended the Federalist politics and Unitarianism of his parents' generation with the German romanticism he discovered on his travels. The result was distinctive American poetry, traditional in form, but nationalistic in sentiment. Longfellow's Paul Revere, Priscilla Alden, Miles Standish, and the Village Blacksmith became American icons. And in his masterpiece, *Evangeline*, Longfellow invented the foundational myth of Acadian and Cajun ethnic identity. Calhoun's *Longfellow: A Rediscovered Life* is a Victorian family saga. As a young man from the provinces, Longfellow gained international celebrity and great wealth; yet his life was afflicted by chronic melancholy, by the tragic deaths of two beloved wives, by a spendthrift son, and by a self-destructive brother. A procession of vivid characters walks through the pages of Calhoun's book, from the poet's Revolutionary War grandfather, Peleg Wadsworth, to his friends and acquaintances, including Hawthorne, Emerson, Charles Sumner, Dickens, Carlyle, Fanny Butler, Queen Victoria, and Oscar Wilde.

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Stewart O'Nan's The Good Wife

Thu, Apr 7, 2005

Stewart O'Nan, author of The Speed Queen and A Prayer for the Dying, discusses his newest novel, The Good Wife. On a clear winter night in upstate New York, two young men break into a house believing it is empty. It isn't, and within minutes an old woman is dead and the house is in flames. Soon after, the men are caught by the police. Across the county, a phone rings in a darkened bedroom, waking a pregnant woman. It is her husband. He wants her to know that he and his friend have gotten themselves into a little trouble. So Patty Dickerson's old life ends and a strange new one begins. At once a love story and a portrait of a woman discovering her own strength, The Good Wife follows Patty through the twenty-eight years of her husband's incarceration as she raises her son, navigates a system that has no place for her, and braves the scorn of her community. Compassionate and unflinching, The Good Wife illuminates a marriage and a family tested to the limits of endurance.

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Unnoticed: Secret Life of Type Faces

Thu, Apr 28, 2005

Richard Wendorf explores the nature and history of the type faces by which we live, ranging from Roman capitals to the experimentation of William Morris at the Kelmscott Press. Typography is something that we encounter every day of our lives; it is one of the most pervasive elements in an entire spectrum of human activities. And yet typography is usually invisible or barely noticed; it is supposed to be transparent; it is not supposed to draw attention to itself. *The Secret Life of Type* is one of 10 essays collected together in Richard Wendorf's new book *The Scholar-Librarian: Books, Libraries, and the Visual Arts*, published by Oak Knoll Press and the Boston Athenaeum.

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Hip-Hop Culture, Politics, and Identities

Tue, Mar 28, 2006

Moderated by Isaiah Jackson, various panelists come together to discuss the politics, identities and cultures that have been emerging from the hip-hop movement. In its varied aspects, hip-hop embraces music, art, and dance. Emerging in the early 1970s from the African American and Latino communities of the Bronx, hip-hop culture has evolved into a creative force drawing an economically and culturally diverse international audience. Defying controversies and negative labels associated with hip-hop, artists and activists are increasingly collaborating to move hip-hop in the direction of greater political engagement and social responsibility. Today, hip-hop has the potential to serve as a positive agent for change at the community and national levels. Cosponsored by the Boston Athenaeum and The Partnership.

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How Elizabeth Barrett Browning Saved My Life

Thu, Apr 27, 2006

Mameve Medwed discusses her new novel, a witty tale about love, loss, friendship, and self-discovery set in the appealingly absurd world of antiques and the people who buy, sell, and covet them. Thirty-three-year-old Abigail Randolph is having a tough time. Her beloved mother has recently died in an earthquake, the man she loves has left her for another woman, and the antiques business she started with her now ex-boyfriend is not doing so well. A Harvard dropout who has good-naturedly suffered through a lot of disappointments, Abby decides to put her trust in things that can't let her down: old books, chipped china, moth-eaten tablecloths, and the discarded and dented bits of other people's lives. But other people's lives, and not just their stuff, manage to intrude on her own life in surprising ways. Medwed briskly depicts the odd world of flea markets and tag sales, and makes of Abby's arduous liberation (not unlike the invalid Browning's), an adventure to which Jane Austen might have raised a celebratory glass of port.

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This Land: Development in America

Thu, May 4, 2006

Anthony Flint argues that, despite a modest revival in city living, Americans are spreading out more than ever into "exurbs" and "boomburbs" miles from anywhere, in big houses in big subdivisions. They cling to the notion of safer neighborhoods and better schools, but what they get is long commutes, crushing gas prices and higher taxes, and a landscape of strip malls and office parks badly in need of a makeover. *This Land* tells the untold story of development in America: how the landscape is shaped by a clash of political, economic, and cultural forces. It is the story of a burgeoning anti-sprawl movement, a 1960s-style revolution of New Urbanism, smart growth, and green building. And it is the story of landowners fighting back on the basis of property rights, with free-market libertarians, homebuilders, road pavers, financial institutions, and even the lawn-care industry right alongside them. The subdivisions and extra-wide roadways are encroaching into the wetlands of Florida, ranchlands in Texas, and the desert outside Phoenix and Las Vegas. But with 120 million more people in the country by 2050, will the spread-out pattern cave in on itself? Could Americans embrace a new approach to development if it made sense for them?

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Birth of the Modern Arms Race

Tue, Apr 18, 2006

Priscilla McMillan discusses the content of her newest book, The Ruin of J. Robert Oppenheimer: And the Birth of the Modern Arms Race. In a groundbreaking book that recasts the history of the Cold War, bestselling author Priscilla McMillan exposes, for the first time, the truth behind J. Robert Oppenheimer's 1954 trial on charges of violating national security. Drawing from newly declassified papers and extensive interviews, McMillan places Oppenheimer's opposition to the development of the hydrogen bomb at the heart of the story. His opposition made him the victim of government officials who, conspiring with rival scientist Edward Teller, deceived President Eisenhower and trapped the enigmatic genius who had done more than anyone to build the atomic bomb. A chilling expose of the McCarthy-era conspiracy that helped propel the East-West arms race, this is a spellbinding work of history. **Priscilla McMillan** is an associate of the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University. She is the author of the bestseller Marina and Lee. Among other places, her articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, Harpers Magazine, Scientific American, and The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist, where she is a member of the editorial board.

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