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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

Sea of Glory: The US Exploring Expedition (1838-1842)

Thu, Jan 13, 2005

Nathaniel Philbrick explains for the first time why the US Exploring Expedition vanished from the national memory. Using new sources, including a secret journal, Philbrick reconstructs the darker saga that official reports, which focused on the "Ex Ex"' accomplishments, never told. The US Exploring Expedition of 1838-1842 was one of the most ambitious undertakings of the 19th century and one of the largest voyages of discovery the Western world had ever seen: six magnificent sailing vessels and a crew of hundreds that included botanists, geologists, mapmakers, and biologists, all under the command of the young, brash lieutenant Charles Wilkes. Their goal was to cover the Pacific Ocean, top to bottom, and to plant the American flag around the world. They discovered a new southern continent, which Wilkes would name Antarctica. This was an enterprise that should have been as celebrated and revered as the expeditions of Lewis and Clark.

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French and Indian War: Struggle for North America

Thu, Jan 20, 2005

William Fowler captures the sweeping panorama of the French and Indian War, and the huge cast of characters who fought it. Field commanders on both sides contended with the harsh realities of disease, brutal weather, and scant supplies, frequently having to build the roads they marched on. For many, the French and Indian War is just the backdrop for *The Last of the Mohicans*, a mere prelude to the American Revolution. Fowler's engrossing narrative reveals it as a turning point in modern history. On May 28, 1754, a group of militia and Indians led by 22-year-old major George Washington surprised a camp of sleeping French soldiers near present-day Pittsburgh. The brief but deadly exchange of fire that ensued lit the match that, in Horace Walpole's memorable phrase, would "set the world on fire." The resulting French and Indian War in North America escalated into a conflict fought across Europe, Africa, and the East and West Indies. Before it ended, nearly one million men had died.

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Seen But Not Heard: Images of Children in American Art

Tue, Nov 30, 2004

In conjunction with the Fall 2004 exhibition "Seen But Not Heard: Images of Children from the Collection of the Boston Athenaeum", David Dearinger surveys the manner in which children were depicted in 19th and early 20th century American art. Artists such as Winslow Homer, Lily Martin Spencer, George Caleb Bingham, J. G. Brown, Mary Cassatt, and Robert Henri are discussed in this illustrated lecture.

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Inside a Stem Cell Laboratory

Thu, Jan 6, 2005

Ann Parson, author of the recently published *The Proteus Effect: Stem Cells and Their Promise for Medicine*, shares some basic information about stem cells and what the future holds for medicines based on them. She is joined by four postdoctoral fellows who work in one of Boston's and the country's leading stem cell research laboratories, that of George Daley, a Harvard Medical School and Boston Children's Hospital hematologist and oncologist. Each scientist describes the research project he or she is tackling and how, if successful, their work could lead to significant improvements in current medical practices. With the stem cells of humans finally isolated, researchers are entering a new era of harnessing cells to treat a variety of disorders.

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French Negotiating Behavior: Dealing with La Grande Nation

Tue, Dec 7, 2004

Lecturing from his book French Negotiating Behavior, Charles Cogan explores the cultural and historical factors that have shaped the French approach and then dissects their key elements. He postulates that French negotiators often seem more interested in asserting their country's "universal" mission than in reaching an agreement, and he uses three recent case studies to illustrate this uniquely French mélange. Cogan also offers practical suggestions for making negotiations more cooperative and productive.

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Wodehouse: A Life

Tue, Dec 14, 2004

Author and editor Robert McCrumb discusses the life and works of P.G. Wodehouse, which he chronicled in detail in his biography Wodehouse: A Life. **Robert McCrum**, now literary editor of London's Observer, was the editor-in-chief of the publishing firm Faber & Faber in London for nearly 20 years. He has written six highly acclaimed novels and is the co-author of the bestselling The Story of the English. McCrum lives in London.

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Amy Lowell: Selected Poems

Tue, Jan 25, 2005

Honor Moore, editor for poet Amy Lowell, discusses the impact of Lowell's work. A cigar-smoking proponent of free-verse modernism in open rebellion against her distinguished Boston lineage, Amy Lowell cut an indelible public figure. But in the words of Moore, "what strikes the modern reader is not the sophistication of Lowell's feminist or anti-war stances, but the bald audacity of her eroticism." Lowell was at the center of a group of pioneering modernists who, in an era convulsed by change, rejected musty Victorian standards and wrote poems of bracing immediacy. This new selection captures her formal range: the "cadenced verse" of her Imagist masterpieces, her experiments in "polyphonic prose," her narrative poetry, and her adaptations from the classical Chinese. It gives a fresh sense of the passion and energy of her work. **Honor Moore** is the author of *The White Blackbird: A Life of the Painter Margarett Sargent by Her Granddaughter*, a *New York Times* Notable Book in 1996, and of three volumes of poems: *Memoir*, *Darling*, and *Red Shoes*. Her work has appeared in *The New Yorker*, *The NewYork Times*, *The Nation*, *The New Republic*, *The Paris Review*, and *The American Scholar*.

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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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Edmund Wilson: A Life in Literature

Thu, Oct 13, 2005

Lewis Dabney lectures on his new book, Edmund Wilson: A Life in Literature. From the Jazz Age through the McCarthy Era, Edmund Wilson (1895-1972) stood at the center of the American cultural scene. In his own youth a crucial champion of the young Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald, Wilson went on to write three classics of literary and intellectual history (Axel's Castle, To the Finland Station, and Patriotic Gore), searching reportage, and criticism that has outlasted many of its subjects. Wilson documented his unruly private life, a formative love affair with Edna St Vincent Millay, a tempestuous marriage to Mary McCarthy, and volatile friendships with Fitzgerald and Vladimir Nabokov, among others, in fiction and journals, but Lewis Dabney is the first writer to integrate the life and the work.

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Crack in the Edge of the World: The 1906 CA Earthquake

Thu, Nov 3, 2005

Simon Winchester discusses the Great California Earthquake of 1906, which he has written about extensively in his new book, A Crack in the Edge of the World: America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906. Simon Winchester, who has brought the unlikely subject of geology to the literary forefront in his national bestsellers Krakatoa and The Map That Changed the World, now shines his literary light on the most dramatic natural calamity in US history in A Crack in the Edge of the World: America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906. Using the devastating 7.9 quake that struck the bustling city of San Francisco as a narrative springboard, Winchester offers a panoramic blend of history and science that captures the "savage interruption" and its destructive aftermath with gripping immediacy. Winchester explores the global geology that jolted the Earth awake on the fateful day and suggests why it certainly will happen again.

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