The Massachusetts Historical Society will host C. Ian Stevenson, of Boston University, along with commentator Ian Delahanty of Springfield College, in an Environmental History Seminar on January 15 from 5:15 – 7:30 at the Massachusetts Historical Society headquarters, 1154 Boylston Street in Boston. The topic is Camp Benson and the “GAR” Camps: Recreational Landscapes of Civil War Memory in Maine, 1886 – 1910. This seminar examines sites where veterans transitioned the Civil War vacation toward a civilian audience: Camp Benson, where several Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) posts built a campground, and at the “GAR Camps” where a single veteran proprietor built rental cottages. The speakers ask why postwar civilians would want to mimic the veteran desire to associate healthful destinations with wartime memory. How do these outdoor landscapes explain the nation’s healing process from the Civil War? The seminar is free and open to the public.
To RSVP: email seminars@masshist.org or call (617) 646-0579.
