On Monday, March 17, from 12 – 1, the Massachusetts Historical Society will present a free talk by Emily Lodge entitled The Lodge Women, Their Men and Their Times. Like a Whitman poem, the saga of the Lodge family has unfolded in tandem with the history of the great American experiment itself. Yet while the biographies of the Lodge patriarchs have been well-documented, the stories of the influential Lodge women have never been authoritatively chronicled. From the earliest days of the American colonies, through the Gilded Age, and into the first years of the 21st century, The Lodge Women Their Men, and Their Times traces her family’s remarkable history through its female figures, constructing a narrative that is at once intensely personal, political, and wholly universal.
Based on archival research, interviews, and personal memoirs, Emily Lodge presents her ancestors’ stories largely through their own voices, heard in a rich collection of personal letters exchanged with the luminaries of their times, whose lives were linked with the Lodges by politics, art, and family: Henry Adams, Henry James, Theodore Roosevelt, John Hay, Elizabeth Cameron and Edith Wharton, some of whose letters are published here for the first time.From her unique descendant’s view on a long line of prominent Lodge women, the author recalls their grace, dash, and political influence through a sweep of history that illuminates the pages with the incandescent human truths of a distinguished family’s life and times.
Over the last thirty years a fascination with public policy has taken Emily into government, journalism, business and academia. As a print journalist, she focused on law and the courts. As a speech-writer for a US Congressman and a US Ambassador to France, her domain was foreign policy. As an award-winning television documentary researcher for 60 Minutes, she helped prove someone innocent. Emily won an Emmy Award for a CBS News Special Report about education. On moving to Europe, she became a correspondent for Brussel’s leading monthly business magazine. Her Paris Voice features column were known for their witty and perceptive observations about public figures. She has written brochures for companies and helped create a major fund-raising drive for INSEAD, Europe’s premier business school. A graduate of Georgetown University in diplomatic history, she is currently writing news analysis from the Middle East.
The talk will take place at 1154 Boylston Street in Boston. For more information, visit www.masshist.org.
