The Massachusetts Historical Society will present a free lecture on Tuesday, March 10 at their offices at Massachusetts Avenue in Boston. Andrew W. Kahrl of University of Virginia will speak on Fear of an Open Beach: The Privatization of the Connecticut Shore and the Fate of Coastal America. Comments will be made by Karl Haglund of the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation. This essay traces the rise of private beaches along the Connecticut shore and the efforts of municipalities to protect exclusionary laws from the effects of civil rights movements. It argues that overdeveloped coastlines have been the product of racial and class segregation; thus, the battle over public access to the nation’s shoreline during the 1970s sheds light on the roots of the environmental crisis facing America’s coast.
Please rsvp by emailing seminars@masshist.org. You may receive advance copies of the seminar paper.
