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Free online lectures: Explore a world of ideas

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Revolutionary Spaces

**Revolutionary Spaces ** connects people to the history and continuing practice of democracy through the intertwined stories of two of the nation’s most iconic sites—Boston’s Old South Meeting House and Old State House. We foster a free and open exchange of ideas, explore history, create gathering places, and preserve and steward historic buildings.

https://www.bostonhistory.org

  • Scandal on the Stage: Banned Theater in Boston

    Thu, May 1, 2003
    This program includes vignettes of censored plays in Boston, beginning with the Puritan censorship of Morton's Maypole and climaxing with the 1929 banning of Eugene O'Neill's Freudian theatrical experiment, Strange Interlude. A panel discusses the performances, the historical ideas of censorship, and what forms censorship takes today.
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  • Native Americans and the Boston Harbor Islands

    Wed, May 7, 2003
    Currently the home of a waste water treatment plant, many do not know Deer Island's history as an internment camp for Native Americans (many of whom died) in the 1675 war known (in Anglicized terms) as King Phillip's war. Multiple perspectives (Anglicized and Native American) are still being revealed about the dark pages of Deer Island's history. This and other topics particular to Native American history and the Boston Harbor Islands are discussed with a diverse panel moderated by cultural anthropologist for the National Park Service (Northeast Region) George Price. Panelists include Edith Andrews, Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah), Jim Peters, Executive Director, MA Commission on Indian Affairs, and member of the Wampanoag Mashpee, and Pat Garwood, Tribal Council, Nipmuc Nation.
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  • Legacy of the Cocoanut Grove Fire of 1942

    Tue, Sep 14, 2004
    Stephanie Schorow, reporter for *The Boston Herald* and author of *Boston on Fire: A History of Fires and Firefighting in Boston*, examines many myths and misconceptions about the Cocoanut Grove nightclub fire, and evaluates its legacy and its continuing impact on Boston. The fire that swept through the Cocoanut Grove nightclub in Boston on November 28, 1942, was one of the worst in the nation's history, resulting in at least 492 deaths and hundreds of injuries. The fire led to new building codes, medical innovations in burn treatment and legal precedents in manslaughter law.
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  • Masquerade: Deborah Sampson, Continental Soldier

    Wed, Sep 29, 2004
    Historian Alfred Young, author of *Masquerade*, and Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich examine Americans' public memory of Deborah Sampson and other Revolutionary-era women. Performer and storyteller Joan Gatturna brings Deborah Sampson to life in a dramatic first-person performance.
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  • History of the Boston Athenaeum

    Thu, Feb 3, 2005
    John Lannon, associate director of the Boston Athenaeum, discusses the history of this enduring fixture on Beacon Hill. Founded in 1807, it houses such treasures as George Washington's library, and artworks by artists such as John Singer Sargent and Gilbert Stuart.
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  • Sarah's Long Walk: The Struggle that Changed America

    Thu, Feb 10, 2005
    Stephen Kendrick, author of *Sarah's Long Walk* and minister of First and Second Church, Boston, discusses the history behind the famous case of Sarah Roberts. In 1848, 5-year-old Sarah Roberts had to pass five white-only schools to attend the poor and densely crowded all-black Abiel Smith School. Incensed at this injustice, her father Benjamin Roberts took action. He resolved to sue the city of Boston on her behalf, and began a hundred-year struggle that culminated in the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education.
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  • Jewish Heritage on Beacon Hill

    Thu, Feb 17, 2005
    Ellen Smith, lecturer in Near Eastern and Judaic Studies at Brandeis University, discusses the history of Jewish immigration in Boston. Boston's first Jewish congregation established a synagogue in the South End in 1852. By 1907, Boston's Jewish population had grown to 60,000 with many families settling in the West End. The Vilna congregation began to hold services on Beacon Hill in 1903 and remained there until 1985.
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  • Last Mantua Maker: Women in Boston's Clothing Trades

    Thu, Mar 24, 2005
    In 1845, after almost a dozen years in business, Rebecca Goodwin Major closed up shop. She was the very last Boston woman to call herself a mantuamaker in the pages of the city directory. Most of her competitors abandoned the 17th-century term for the more up-to-date nomenclature, dressmaker. Marla Miller, assistant professor of public history at UMASS Amherst, will look at how one of the most prestigious occupations available to American women since the 17th century, faded from the Boston scene.
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  • Digging: The Workers of Boston's Big Dig

    Wed, Mar 23, 2005
    In celebration of the final stages of the Big Dig and the people who work extraordinarily hard each day to make it a possibility, photographer Michael Hintlian shows his work, *Digging: The Workers of Boston's Big Dig*, and discusses the difficulties and joys of putting this collection together. Starting in 1997, Michael Hintlian began photographing the 5,000 men and women who worked on the Big Dig. Despite being thrown off of one site after another, his perseverance paid off in a book of stunning, gritty black-and-white photographs.
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    Revolutionary Spaces

  • A Short History of Boston

    Thu, May 5, 2005
    Robert J. Allison, professor of history at Suffolk University, brings to life the major events and important figures who formed the "City on a Hill".
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    Revolutionary Spaces
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