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Boston Public Library

Boston Public Library (BPL) was the first large free municipal library in the United States. The present Copley Square location has been home to the Library since 1895, when architect Charles Follen McKim completed his "palace for the people." Between 1870 and 1900, twenty-two additional Branches began serving communities throughout Boston's diverse neighborhoods. In 1972 the Library expanded its Copley Square location with the opening of an addition designed by Philip Johnson. Today, the McKim building houses the BPL's vast research collection and the Johnson building holds the circulating collection of the general library and serves as headquarters for the Boston Public Library's 26 branch libraries. In addition to its 6.1 million books, the library boasts over 1.2 million rare books and manuscripts, a wealth of maps, musical scores and prints. Among its large collections, the BPL holds several first edition folios by William Shakespeare, original music scores from Mozart to Prokofiev's "Peter and the Wolf;" and, in its rare book collection, the personal library of John Adams. Over 2.2 million patrons visit the BPL each year, many in pursuit of research material, others looking for an afternoon's reading, still others for the magnificent and unique art and architecture.break

http://www.bpl.org/

Summer Artist Colonies: Cape Cod And Cape Ann

Tue, Aug 8, 2023

Join American Ancestors for a shimmering discussion about artists and their summer communities, the “utopias” they created for their friends, families, and students during the first half of the twentieth century on Cape Ann and Cape Cod.

Their names are iconic: Edward Hopper, Charles Hawthorne, Hans Hoffman, Willem de Kooning, Josef and Anni Albers, and Walter Gropius. The artist residents of summertime seashore communities hold a special place in America’s history. To this day, in private collections, museums, and galleries, they portray our country in transition in the last century, its welcoming light and obscuring shadows, burgeoning with industrial and political power.

Join John Taylor “Ike” Williams and Elliot Bostwick Davis for a discussion of their new books looking at the vision and ascendancy of several celebrated artists associated with summer colonies and communities. Our presenters will spotlight individual paintings and measure the cultural impact and their creators who, imbued with summertime spirit and sensitivity, became our country’s cultural luminaries. Don’t miss these authors’ insights on Cape Ann and Cape Cod as it was experienced and represented by its artists, and the lasting impact of their work.

Join us for a shimmering discussion about artists and their summer communities, the “utopias” they created for their friends, families, and students during the first half of the twentieth century on Cape Ann and Cape Cod.

Presented by the American Inspiration series from American Ancestors/NEHGS in partnership with the Cape Ann Museum and Provincetown Arts Association and Museum.

American Inspiration Author Series

Partner:

American Ancestors Boston Public Library
Emily Franklin with The Lioness of Boston: A Novel

Mon, Sep 11, 2023

A portrait of late 19th-century Boston and one of its most daring and celebrated women, Isabella Stewart Gardner – the connoisseur and visionary collector who created an inimitable legacy in American art and transformed the city.

When Isabella Stewart Gardner first arrived in Boston in 1861, she was twenty years old, newly married to a wealthy trader, and unsure of herself. Puzzled by the frosty reception she received from the city’s coterie of “bluebloods,” she strived to fit in and had limited success. Then after two devastating tragedies, she discovered her true spirit and passion for collecting. When Isabella opened her Italian palazzo-style home as a museum 1903 to showcase her old masters, antiques, and objects d’art, she was well-known for scandalizing Boston’s upper society.

The Lioness of Boston is historical fiction – a richly detailed portrait of a time, also a cultural and social history. Author Emily Franklin reveals the day’s mores and expectations which Isabella, a feminist before feminism, rejected, opting instead for friendships with painter John Singer Sargent; writers Henry James, Oscar Wilde, Sarah Orne Jewett; and neighbor Julia Ward Howe. With novelist Claire Messud, Franklin discusses her process for researching and bringing to life this remarkable woman – her friends, her family, and her era.

Presented by the American Inspiration series from American Ancestors/NEHGS in partnership with Boston Public Library.

American Inspiration Author Series

Partner:

American Ancestors Boston Public Library
Dean King With Guardians Of The Valley: John Muir And The Friendship That Saved Yosemite

Tue, Aug 29, 2023

The dramatic and uplifting story of legendary outdoorsman and conservationist JohnMuir’s quest to protect one of America’s most magnificent landscapes, Yosemite.

“Everybody needs beauty, as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.” —John Muir

In this portrait of a place, a time, and a movement, the bestselling author Dean King takes us behind the scenes, to the beginning of America’s love affair with Yosemite Valley. In June of 1889 in San Francisco, John Muir—iconic environmentalist, writer, and philosopher—met face-to-face with his longtime editor Robert Underwood Johnson, an elegant and influential figure at The Century magazine. Before long, the pair ventured to Yosemite Valley, the magnificent site Muir had visited twenty years earlier. There, they confronted a shocking vision, as predatory mining, tourism, and logging industries had plundered and defaced “the grandest of all the special temples of Nature.” The rest is history: that watershed moment led to the creation of Yosemite National Park, and launched an environmental battle that at once captivated the nation and ushered in the beginning of the American environmental movement. Join us for King’s illustrated presentation of his riveting new book, Guardians of the Valley, “a rich, enjoyable excursion into a seminal period in environmental history.” (The Wall Street Journal)

American Inspiration Author Series

Partner:

American Ancestors Boston Public Library
Leah Myers with Thinning Blood: A Memoir of Family, Myth, and Identity

Tue, Jul 18, 2023

Likely the last in her family line to qualify for tribal citizenship with the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe, Leah Myers elegantly blends Native folklore, personal history, and the search for identity in this highly anticipated memoir, Thinning Blood.

Because of her tribe’s strict blood quantum laws, Leah Myers may be the last of her family to be formally recognized as a member of her tribe. For her, this realization carries with it a responsibility to preserve her heritage and her ancestors’ memory. Thinning Blood is Myers’s attempt to capture a record of her family’s history, presenting the stories of four generations of women. Beginning with her great-grandmother, the last full-blooded Native member in their lineage, she connects each woman with her totem to construct her family’s totem pole: protective Bear, defiant Salmon, compassionate Hummingbird, and perched on top, Raven. Myers weaves together tribal folktales, the history of the Native genocide, and Native mythology. With fresh perspectives and profound insight, she offers crisp and powerful vignettes of her own life between White and Native worlds. Thinning Blood is at once a bold reclamation of her female identity and a searingly honest meditation on heritage, family, and what it means to belong.

Leah Myers is in conversation with Kaitlin Curtice, also author, poet-storyteller and member of the Potawatomi nation.

Indigenous Heritage , American Inspiration Author Series

Partner:

American Ancestors Boston Public Library
Building Ecological Wealth: A Queer Perspective On A Climate Future

Tue, Jun 13, 2023

Gen Z Environmental Justice Educator & Founder of QueerBrownVegan Isaias Hernandez converses with Boston Public Library President David Leonard on his journey and work as a Queer Brown and Vegan person.

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Boston Public Library
Steve Curwood - You Are Here - BPL Lowell Lecture Series

Thu, Jun 8, 2023

Executive Producer and host of NPR’s “Living on Earth" Steve Curwood converses with Boston Public Library President David Leonard as part of the Boston Public Library's 2023 Lowell Lecture Series _You are Here: Climate Change and What’s Next._ Their 60-75 minute conversation is followed by an audience Q&A from both the in-person and virtual audiences. Steve Curwood is the executive producer and host of “Living on Earth.” He created the first pilot of “Living on Earth” in 1990 and the show has run continuously since April 1991. “Living on Earth” is currently aired on more than 250 National Public Radio/Public Radio International affiliates and XM/Sirius Satellite Radio.

Forum Network

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Boston Public Library
Wanjiku Gatheru - You Are Here - BPL Lowell Lecture Series

Thu, May 11, 2023

Environmental justice warrior, Rhodes Scholar, and founder of Black Girl Environmentalist Wanjiku "Wawa" Gatheru converses with Boston Public Library President David Leonard as part of the Boston Public Library 2023 Lowell Lecture Series You are Here: Climate Change and What’s Next. For Wanjiku "Wawa" Gatheru, caring about the environment started early. While farming with her mom and grandmother as a child, the conversations would often turn to saving the earth. The first-generation American of Kenyan descent became even more invested when taking an environmental science class in high school, when she learned that social justice and climate issues were deeply intertwined. Everything suddenly became personal. “It was in this call I learned that the environment had everything to do with me,” she says.

Forum Network

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Boston Public Library
Alexandra Cousteau - You Are Here - BPL Lowell Lecture Series

Tue, Apr 4, 2023

Ocean conservationist and environmental advocate Alexandra Cousteau converses with Boston Public Library President David Leonard as part of our 2023 Lowell Lecture Series You are Here: Climate Change and What’s Next. Alexandra Cousteau builds upon the more than 60 years of global name recognition to engage people who expect to hear credible environmental information from the third generation of this pioneering family of explorers. Born into the family business, Alexandra joined her parents in Easter Island on her first expedition at just four months old. By the age of three, she had toured Africa, exploring Egypt, Tunisia, Uganda, and Kenya in the arms of her father. While many of those memories are now out of reach, the experience of those expeditions with her father’s crew has shaped her sense of purpose, her connection to the ocean, and her love of adventure. She could swim before she could walk and was one of the few who learned to dive with SCUBA from Captain Cousteau himself at the tender age of seven. Her childhood friends were the sea creatures that inhabit the rocky shorelines of the south of France. The ocean has been her guide ever since.

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Boston Public Library
Gina McCarthy: You Are Here

Thu, Mar 16, 2023

First-ever White House National Climate Advisor, former EPA Administrator, Harvard professor, and environmental thought leader Gina McCarthy will converse with Boston Public Library President David Leonard as part of the Boston Public Library's 2023 Lowell Lecture Series, titled You are Here: Climate Change and What’s Next. McCarthy is a respected voice on climate change, the environment, and public health. As head of the Climate Policy Office under President Biden, McCarthy’s leadership led to the most aggressive action on climate in U.S. history, creating new jobs and unprecedented clean energy innovation and investments across the country. Her commitment to bold action across the Biden administration, supported by the climate and clean energy provisions in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act, restored U.S. climate leadership on a global stage and put a new U.S. national target to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 50-52 percent below 2005 levels by 2030 within reach.

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Boston Public Library
Dr. Carolyn Finney : Black Faces, White Spaces

Sat, Dec 3, 2022

Why are African Americans so underrepresented when it comes to interest in nature, outdoor recreation, and environmentalism? Carolyn Finney looks beyond the discourse of the environmental justice movement to examine how the natural environment has been understood, commodified, and represented by both white and Black Americans. Bridging the fields of environmental history, cultural studies, critical race studies, and geography, Finney argues that the legacies of slavery, Jim Crow, and racial violence have shaped cultural understandings of the “great outdoors” and determined who should and can have access to natural spaces.

Drawing on a variety of sources from film, literature, and popular culture, and analyzing different historical moments, including the establishment of the Wilderness Act in 1964 and the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Finney reveals the perceived and real ways in which nature and the environment are racialized in America. Looking toward the future, she also highlights the work of African Americans who are opening doors to greater participation in environmental and conservation concerns.

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Boston Public Library

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