ABBEY ROOM, SECOND FLOOR, 700 BOYLSTON STREET

TALKS BEGIN AT 6PM

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 8

JIM VRABEL, A PEOPLE’S HISTORY OF THE NEW BOSTON

A PEOPLE’S HISTORY OF THE NEW BOSTON  provides a grassroots perspective on the tumultuous 1960s and 1970s. Residents of the city’s neighborhoods engaged in an era of activism and protest unprecedented in Boston since the American Revolution. The book recounts fights against urban renewal, highway construction, and airport expansion; for civil rights, school desegregation, and welfare reform; and over Vietnam and busing. Much of the legacy of that activism remains in Boston today. This book will be sold at the event.

Jim Vrabel is a longtime Boston community activist and historian. He is author of When in Boston: A Time Line & Almanac and Homage to Henry: A Dramatization of John Berryman’s “The Dream Songs.”

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 29

6 PM AT THE NORTH END BRANCH, 25 PARMENTER STREET

PRESENTED AS PART OF ITALIAN-AMERICAN HERITAGE MONTH

 PHOTO FROM THE ALDINO FELICANI COLLECTION, BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY

CHRISTOPHER DALEY, THE SACCO-VANZETTI CASE REVISITED

Christopher Daley recounts the saga of the two immigrant Italian anarchists. The robberies in Bridgewater and Braintree, the famous trial at Dedham, and seven years of attempts to get a new trial are recounted. The presentation contains period photographs, some of which are rare and not published elsewhere.

Christopher Daley teaches history at the Silver Lake Regional School System in Kingston. He has served as the Chairman of the Pembroke Historical Commission and the President of the Pembroke Historical Society. He is also working on a book for The History Press, Homicide in the Hub: Boston’s Most Infamous Murder Cases, to be published in the fall of 2015.

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 12                                                    

EMERSON BAKER, A STORM OF WITCHCRAFT: THE SALEM TRIALS AND THE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE

Baker’s will talk from his new book, which describes how conditions in the Bay colony in the 1690s set the stage for the dramatic events in Salem. Engaging a range of perspectives, his book addresses questions about why the Salem tragedy unfolded as it did, and why it has become an enduring legacy.

Emerson W. Baker is Professor of History at Salem State College. He is the author of The Devil of Great Island: Witchcraft and Conflict in Early New England, and co-author of an award-winning biography of Sir William Phips. Baker has been featured as an expert consultant on the PBS series Colonial House and has provided historical consultation for Parks Canada, National Geographic, Plimoth Plantation, Historic Salem, Inc., and other historic district commissions. Both of these books will be sold at the talk.

 WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 3 

SUSAN ROBERTS,   A HISTORY OF BOSTON THEATER, 1850-1900

Theaters were strongly opposed by the Puritans and officially banned by the state legislature in 1750. So it is a testament to the city that once the ban was lifted in 1790, theaters have thrived here. Susan Roberts reviews fifty years of the city’s theater history, focusing on such legendary venues as the Boston Museum Theatre, the Boston Music Hall, Keith’s Theatres, and the Boston Theatre. Her presentation features a virtual tour of the B.F. Keith Theatre, one of the city’s most elegant in its time.

Susan is an avid collector of Boston-related theater ephemera and a researcher of Boston’s theatrical history. Her hands-on theater experience includes work as an electrician, carpenter, property mistress, stage manager, and box office manager. She holds a Master’s Degree in Theatre Management from Emerson College.

Click here for more information and to hear audio of selected talks from past seasons.

Boston’s ethnic neighborhoods are famous, but what do they look like today? Old enclaves and predictable patterns are changing as Boston becomes a more global city. The spring series looks at Boston’s three most diverse neighborhoods: East Boston, Mattapan, and Allston Brighton.

This series will complement the Norman B. Leventhal Map Center’s exhibit, A City of Neighborhoods: The Changing Face of Boston (running from March 14  to July 12 at the Central Library in Copley Square). The exhibit will feature maps of Boston’s immigrant population based on the 2010 federal census as well as historic, modern, and digitized maps.

Talks are on Wednesdays at 6pm in the Commonwealth Salon, unless otherwise noted. For full descriptions of the talks, click here.

January 15  Ethnic Enclaves, Edge Gateways, and the Global Boston / James Madden

Tuesday January 28 in Rabb Lecture Hall Turmoil and Transition in Boston: A Political Memoir from the Busing Era / Larry DiCara

January 29  Researching Your Ancestral Homes — Adding Stories to Your Family Tree / BPL Staff

Tuesday, February 4 in the Commonwealth Salon  The Race Underground: Boston, New York and the Incredible Rivalry that Built American’s First Subway / Doug Most

February 12  History of People, Places and Plans that Shaped East Boston / Antonio  Di Mambro

February 26  Boston’s Changing Neighborhoods with the Norman B. Leventhal Map Center and  Tools for Mapping Neighborhoods and Stories in the Digital Age / Evan Thornberry and Jonathan Wyss

 March 12  Jewish Settlement in and out of Mattapan  and The Roots of New Boston: Race and Ethnicity in Mattapan, 1860 – 2010 / Amy Schechtman and Dr. Kerri Greenidge

March 26  Family Research Through Oral History for Less Documented Groups /  Marian Pierre-Louis

April 9  Brighton:  the Historic Neighborhood / Anthony Mitchell Sammarco

April 23 Researching Your Jewish Ancestors in Old Boston Neighborhoods / Meredith Hoffman

May 7 Diaspora to the Boston Neighborhoods and Suburbs  / James O’Connell .

May 21 – Mining Family History – Gold in Local Archives and Speakers’ Round Table, with James Madden, Tunney Lee, Joanne Riley, Antonio Di Mambro, Kerri Greenidge, James O’Connell, Anthony Sammarco and Amy Schectman

Save the dates! The new series rolls into its eleventh year in September. This fall, the talks will  focus on Colonial and Revolutionary Boston.

The series continues in January 2014 with talks dedicated to the theme Boston’s Changing Neighborhoods: History and Genealogy.

Programs are held two Wednesdays per month (except in December)  at 6pm in the Commonwealth Salon on the first floor of the Central Library in Copley Square.  Get details on each talk here.

September 11  The state archeologist, Victor Mastone, will give an illustrated talk on the Battle of Chelsea Creek, one of the lesser-known battles of the Revolutionary War.

September 25  Massachusetts State Archives staff will review the wealth of records at the Archives useful to researching colonial ancestors and the colonial era.

October 16  Nancy Rubin Stuart will speak on her new book, Defiant Brides, a dual biography of Peggy Arnold and Lucy Knox.

October 30  Maureen Taylor, aka the Photo Detective, will discuss her book and film project, The Last Muster, which uncovers photographs of Revolutionary War veterans who lived into the era of early photography.

November 6  Historian JL Bell will talk on Boston’s colonial newspapers and the men who published them. Bell contributed to Todd Andrilik’s Reporting the Revolutionary War and is the author of the very entertaining Boston 1775 blog.

November  20  Veteran genealogist Barbara Mathews will give tips on using colonial records in family history research.

December 4  Epidemiologist and genealogist Lori Lyn Price will discuss medicine and health in colonial New England. What types of health issues and diseases might your ancestor have experienced, and how might these conditions have been treated?

Collections and programs related to the fall series on Colonial and Revolutionary Boston are:

BPL Collections of Distinction: Colonial and Revolutionary Boston

BPL Collections of Distinction: American Revolutionary War Maps

BPL Collections of Distinction: John Adams Library

BPL Collections of Distinction: Local and Family History