Diane Duprey, a retired social studies teacher now President Southeastern Council for the Social Studies, has created her own Path Through History. It includes many of the elements I’ve been advocating a path should include. It features multiple activities and sites including talks, walks, tours, and a cruise – a traditional favorite all combined in a multi-day program with lodging before the summer rates kick in.
Massachusetts
Henry Knoxs Noble Train at Fort Ticonderoga
Discover the story of Henry Knox’s noble train of artillery at Fort Ticonderoga’s upcoming living history event, Saturday, December 1, from 10 am – 4 pm. The event will feature a program highlighting Henry Knox’s arrival to Fort Ticonderoga and recreate the beginning of the epic feat that ultimately forced the British evacuation from Boston on March 17, 1776.
“Visitors to the ‘The Noble Train Begins’ living history event will meet Henry Knox, the unassuming Boston book seller whose physical and mental might was first tested with the epic feat of moving more than 14 mortars, 43 cannon, and other artillery to Boston in the winter of 1776,” said Stuart Lilie, Fort Ticonderoga’s Director of Interpretation. “See man and horse power in action as the artillery is selected for the journey. Meet the soldiers left to guard this frontier outpost as the first winter of the Revolutionary War takes hold.” Read more
Dolly Sloan and The Lawrence Strike Children in NY
Artist John Sloan is better known but his wife Dolly was a tireless campaigner for causes in the Village. Sloan’s diaries are full of vignettes describing her buzzing off to demonstrations for the Socialist Party, the International Workers of the World (IWW), and Suffrage. He seems to be following her, and soaking up the atmosphere, more than out there professing his beliefs.
However, Sloan supported votes for women and rights for workers, and drew illustrations for such left wing publications as The Call. Read more
Abby Kelley Foster Inducted into Halls of Fame
Abolitionist and women’s rights activist Abby Kelley Foster will be inducted into the Women’s Hall of Fame on October 1st in Seneca Falls and into the National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum (NAHOF) on Saturday, October 22 at ceremonies to be held at Colgate University.
Born in Pelham, MA January 15, 1811 Kelley was raised a Quaker and became a teacher at the Friends School in Lynn MA in 1829. In 1832, when she lived in Worcester, she was influenced by a speech from radical abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison. She joined the Lynn Female Anti-Slavery Society, and in 1837, she, and others, gathered over six thousand signatures on anti-slavery petitions.
The Lynn Female Society named her a delegate to the first national Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women in New York City. The following year, at the second Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women, Abby Kelley gave her first speech against slavery with a mob threatening to burn down Pennsylvania Hall.
Abby and fellow radical abolitionist Stephen Foster married in 1845 and bought a farm in Worcester MA. Abby gave birth to their daughter, Alla, in 1847. Kelley faced hostile audiences from within and from outside the abolition movement in her five decades of advocating for immediate abolition of slavery and for advocating leaving churches that did not condemn slavery.
At 12:30 p.m. on Saturday, October 22, Stacey Robertson PhD. will present Abby Kelley Foster: A Radical Voice in the West, the first program in the annual afternoon Upstate Institute Inductee Symposia. Robertson states, “Abby Kelley Foster single handedly transformed the nature of the western antislavery movement in the 1840s. From her first visit in the summer of 1845 she inspired hundreds of abolitionists to reconsider their approach to the movement and embrace a more uncompromising position. Women found her irresistible and she helped to organize dozens of female anti-slavery societies in Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan. She also convinced several women to join her in the lecturing field, devoting themselves full-time to the movement. No other person impacted western antislavery more than Abby Kelley Foster.”
Dr. Robertson is the Oglesby Professor of American Heritage and the Director of the Women’s Studies Program at Bradley University (Peoria IL) where she has taught since 1994. She is the author of three books: Parker Pillsbury: Radical Abolitionist, Male Feminist (2000), Hearts Beating for Liberty: Women Abolitionists in the Old Northwest (2010), and Antebellum Women: Private, Public, Partisan (American Controversies), co-authored with Carol Lasser (2010). She is the recipient of many teaching awards and research fellowships and has lectured at more than one hundred different venues nationally and internationally.
The Worcester Women’s History Project (WWHP) in Worcester MA will partner with NAHOF for the evening induction ceremonies at 7 p.m. in Golden Auditorium at Colgate. Lynne McKenney Lydick will present a one woman play Yours for Humanity —Abby which the WWHP. Members of the WWHP will also participate in the induction ceremony for Foster in the evening.
The public is encouraged to attend the Foster sessions. Admission at the door for each of the lectures and the induction ceremony is five dollars. (Admission for all four symposia programs is eight dollars.) Information and registration forms for the day-long induction event are available at www.AbolitionHoF.org or at 315-366-8101.
Photo: Abby Kelley Foster portrait created by artist Joseph Flores of Rochester NY for the abolitionist’s induction into the National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum at ceremonies on Saturday, October 22 at Colgate University, Hamilton NY.
Exhibit: Black Patriots at the Battles of Saratoga
In recognition of Black History Month, Saratoga National Historical Park will offer a temporary exhibit from February 1 through February 28 called “Agrippa Hull – Ordinary Soldier, Extraordinary Man” and on Sunday, February 13 at 1:30pm in the visitor center, Ranger Eric Schnitzer will present a special program about black soldiers at Saratoga.
In the American Revolution, about 5 percent of the Continental Soldiers were of African descent. They fought shoulder to shoulder with white soldiers—but an integrated army would not occur again until the Korean War. That’s just scratching the surface of the information to be presented by Park Ranger Eric Schnitzer as he discusses evidence from memoirs, journals, muster rolls, and pay lists that documents
the roles of free and enslaved African Americans who fought in “the most important battle of the last 1000 years.”
Agrippa Hull, a black Revolutionary War soldier who served in the 1777 Battles of Saratoga, is the focus of a special exhibit titled “Agrippa Hull: ordinary soldier, extraordinary man.” Copies of Hull’s 1777 company muster roll, pension claims, portrait, and photographs of him and his wife Peggy will be on display in the visitor center in February.
Saratoga National Historical Park is located between Rt. 4 and Rt. 32 in the Town of Stillwater, NY. For more information, please contact the visitor center by calling 518-664-9821 ext. 224 or check their website.
Illustration: Portrait of Agrippa Hull, a freeborn black man and Revolutionary War veteran who lived in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. The portrait hangs in the historical room of the town library. Hull was 85 years old when his image was captured. Painted in oil in 1848 by an unknown artist, the portrait is a copy of a daguerreotype done by Anson Clark in 1844. Image courtesy Stockbridge Library Association Historical Collection.
The Boston Area Seminar in Early American History
The Boston Area Seminar in Early American History invites proposals for sessions in its 2010-2011 series. Since 1989, the Seminar has been held at the Massachusetts Historical Society. Programs take place on the first Thursday evening of most months between September and May. The Seminar’s steering committee welcomes suggestions for papers dealing with all aspects of American history and culture from the era of first contact to the Civil War. Programs are not confined to Massachusetts topics, nor are they limited to the research of historians.
Each session focuses on the discussion of a pre-circulated paper. The essayist and an assigned commentator will each have an opportunity for remarks before the discussion is opened to the floor. Papers must be available for circulation electronically and by mail at least a month before the date of the seminar.
The seminar’s steering committee would like to fill two or three sessions through this call for papers. If you wish to be considered for a slot, send your CV and a one-page precis of your paper by March 15 to Conrad E. Wright, Massachusetts Historical Society, 1154 Boylston Street, Boston, MA 02215, or to [email protected].
In your proposal, indicate when your paper will be available for distribution. If there are special scheduling conditions, such as a planned trip to Boston or an extended period when you cannot make a presentation, indicate in your proposal.
Massachusetts Historical Society Research Fellowships
The Massachusetts Historical Society (MHS) will offer about 30 research fellowships for the academic year 2010-2011, including at least two long-term research fellowships made possible by the National Endowment for the Humanities. In addition to approximately 20 short-term fellowships, the Society will help to provide at least 11 New England Regional Fellowship Consortium grants for projects that draw on the resources of several participating institutions, and at least two long-term MHS-NEH fellowships for study at the MHS. Each summer the Society offers 2-3 fellowships for K-12 teachers. During 4 weeks of on-site research at the MHS, teachers prepare a curriculum or comparable project based on primary documents to enhance instruction in American history, language arts, or science.
An independent research library and manuscript repository, the MHS’s holdings encompass millions of rare and unique documents and artifacts vital to the study of American history, many of them irreplaceable national treasures. A few examples include correspondence between John and Abigail Adams, such as her famous “Remember the ladies”- several imprints of the Declaration of Independence- and Thomas Jefferson’s architectural drawings. The MHS was founded in 1791, and in the absence of other local and state historical society’s played a national role into the latter part of the 19th century.
For more information about the Society’s research fellowships visit their web site at
www.masshist.org/fellowships or contact Conrad E. Wright at [email protected] or 617-646-0512.
Application deadlines:
MHS-NEH fellowships, January 15, 2010-
New England Regional Fellowships, February 1, 2010-
MHS Short-Term fellowships, March 1, 2010.