Stay engaged with the MHS this year.
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“I took a solitary walk of two or three miles into Newbury: was surprised by the rain, and quite sprinkled before I got home. We have had a great deal of rain this Season, but very little warm weather.”
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City of Boston, Parks and Recreation Department: Combined Electric Light Standards and Trolley Pole, Copley Square
The above image is a lantern slide of a diagram drawn by Arthur A. Shurcliff on 27 February 1914. Having graduated from MIT with a degree in engineering, Shurcliff started his career in metropolitan landscape design. He is most famous for working in Boston, Colonial Williamsburg, and the Plymouth Rock Shrine, and was consulted during the development of Old Sturbridge Village. The MHS holds a vast collection of glass lantern slides depicting some of his diagrams, as well as images he photographed or collected on his travels around the world. This particular diagram shows the above ground and underground portions of a light pole destined for Copley Square in the Back Bay neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. The design incorporates the workings of a trolley pole into the pole of the lights, and demonstrates how the trolleys would fit around the light poles on the trolley tracks.
Shurcliff's designs were ultimately not adopted by the city of Boston, but similar light poles can be seen today in Copley Square.
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After one of the most challenging National History Day contest seasons to date, we were excited to convene the NHD community virtually on Monday, 26 April, for the 2021 NHD in MA Awards Ceremony. We celebrated the dedication and commitment of the incredible students and teachers who participated this year.
Fifty students placed first and second in their respective categories and will be heading to the virtual national competition taking place in June. Thanks to our partner organizations and generous donors, 28 special prizes were awarded to outstanding projects in categories like Best Use of Local Special Collections, sponsored by the Boston Athenaeum, and Best Project in Indigenous History, sponsored by Plimoth Patuxet Museums.
With this year’s theme of “Communication in History,” students explored important historical figures, like the American women codebreakers of WWII, suffragists fighting for the right to participate fully in democracy, and the brave activists who participated in the Greensboro sit-ins. They dug into the most significant communication breakthroughs in history, like the invention of the telegraph and the advent of television. And they participated in a unique historical moment themselves, attending school in a Zoom classroom. Congratulations to all of our 2021 NHD in MA students!
A selection of topics from this year’s contest:
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Bread & Roses: How the Lawrence Strikers Communicated Their Need for Dignity and a Livable Wage
Leisure and Lessons: Board Games as Communications Media in 19th- and 20th- Century America
The Mexican-American War: A Catalyst for Modern Communications
The Greensboro Sit-Ins: Standing Up by Sitting Down
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Ida B. Wells: The Princess of The Press
Communication through Occupation: AIM, Red Power, and the Fight for Indigenous Rights
How The Other Half Lives by Jacob Riis: Communicating the Life of the Poor and the World of the Tenements
Gandhi’s Letters to World Leaders: Peaceful Communication through History
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MHS’s online programs are held on the video conference platform Zoom. Registrants will receive an e-mail with a link to join the program.
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Honoring Bernard Bailyn: A Master Historian, An Inspiring Teacher
This seminar honors the legacy and career of noted Harvard historian and MHS Life Trustee Bernard Bailyn. In his lengthy career, Prof. Bailyn explored and wrote about various areas in Early American history. Three leading historians will discuss Bailyn’s influence on their respective subfields and on their own scholarship in this tribute to a master scholar and teacher.
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Interested in Viewing Past Programs? |
If you missed a program or would like to revisit the material presented, please visit www.masshist.org/video or our YouTube channel. A selection of past programs is just a click away.
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Share Your COVID-19 Experience(s) |
The MHS invites you to contribute your COVID-19 experience(s) to our collection. Record your experiences on a daily, weekly, or intermittent basis. You can contribute your thoughts and images online. Visit our COVID-19 web display to learn more and to share your thoughts. Or you can keep a journal and donate it to the MHS. Contact [email protected] for more information.
Thank you to everyone who has shared so far. If you have not yet done so or would like to contribute again, please visit www.masshist.org/projects/covid/index.php. You can also read what others have shared.
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Our Members are the heart of the MHS community and an integral part of the MHS story. Become a Member to help make possible the Society’s mission to promote the study of American history. Receive benefits including invitations to enhanced Member-only events; free or discounted admission to special programs; and access to publications such as our calendar of events, newsletter, and Annual Report.
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