The Massachusetts Historical Society will hold a free Modern American Society and Culture Seminar on February 26 at 5:15 at its headquarters on Boylston Street, with Eleanor Daly Finnegan of Harvard University and comment by Laura Barraclough of Yale University on the topic of dates. Residents changed the name of Walters, California to Mecca in 1904. They were trying to use the exoticism of the Middle East to sell dates. This paper will focus on Mecca, California and the Indio Date Festival, looking at the complicated ways in which Orientalism has changed in the United States, its relationship to consumerism, and the economic connections made to the Middle East.
To RSVP: email seminars@masshist.org or call (617) 646-0579.
