Boston Flora

Tag: environmental history

  • Wednesday, May 27, 6:00 pm – 7:00 pm Eastern – Curious & Complex Connections: Environmental History & the War of Independence

    Many of us give only a moment’s thought about the environment when considering the War of Independence: the slope of Breed’s Hill, the ice-choked Delaware River, and diseases such as smallpox. But what might we gain by connecting biology, ecology, and geology to the thinking and actions of soldiers and civilians? Rebels and British soldiers acquired and used energy in the form of food, fuel, and work animals, which shaped people’s lives, the course of the war, and the direction of environmental change. Join the Massachusetts Historical Society on May 27 at 6 pm Eastern as David Hsiung, in conversation with Joyce Chaplin, discusses the intricate and often surprising ways in which the natural environment and the war changed each other.

    This is a hybrid event. FREE for MHS Members. $10 per person fee (in person). No charge for virtual attendees or Card to Culture participants (EBT, WIC, and ConnectorCare). The in-person reception starts at 5:30 and the program will begin 6:00 PM. Register at https://www.masshist.org/events/curious-and-complex-connections

  • Wednesday, May 24, 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm Eastern – The Costs of Luxury: Mahogany and Tall Case Clocks in Early America, Live and Online

    On May 24 at 6:30 pm, explore the human and environmental impact behind the rich mahogany exteriors of early American tall case clocks with Jennifer Anderson. Early clockmakers and cabinetmakers utilized some of the finest materials available to craft the tall case clocks featured in wealthy homes of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Historian Dr. Jennifer Anderson will examine the human and environmental costs of one such material, mahogany. Beneath the rich and silky exterior of this exotic wood lies a larger story of consumer demand, exploitation, and environmental impact.

    Your in-person ticket includes access to visit Striking Beauty: New Jersey Tall Case Clocks, 1730 – 1830, from 5:00 to 6:00 p.m.

    This event is hybrid – held both live and online. Doors open for the in-person event at 6:00 p.m. in the Stockton Education Center at the Morven Museum & Garden, 55 Stockton Street in Princeton, New Jersey. The virtual waiting room opens on Zoom at 6:00 p.m. Q&A for both live and virtual attendees will follow the talk.

    A Zoom webinar link will be shared with virtual ticket holders upon registration. A recording of the event will be provided following the program.

    Jennifer Anderson, Associate Professor of History at Stonybrook University, holds a PhD in Atlantic and Early American History from New York University. She is the author of Mahogany: The Costs of Luxury in Early America (Harvard Univ. Press, 2012) about the social and environmental history of the tropical timber trade in the 18th century. She has received many awards and fellowships, including the 2016 Murrin Prize and the Society of American Historians’ Nevins Prize. She headed the research team for the Emmy-nominated documentary, “Traces of the Trade,” about the New England slave trade and in 2013 curated an exhibition about Sylvester Manor, a 17th century plantation in New York. Her new research focuses on reinterpreting the complex human and environmental history of Long Island within the broader Atlantic context. Strongly committed to public history, she serves as a historical consultant at numerous historic sites and museums.

  • Tuesday, December 13, 5:00 pm – 6:15 pm – Earthquakes and Endtimes: Global Disasters and Apocalyptical Predictions in the Early Modern English Atlantic, Live and Online

    Throughout early modern Europe and the Atlantic World, individuals recorded details of earthquakes in diaries and letters, contemplated meanings in sermons, and learned about distant disasters via broadsides and pamphlets. Highlighting the contemporary providential worldview, this paper, presented by Jennifer Egloff of NYU Shanghai on December 13 at 5 pm at 1154 Boylston Street, argues that numbers contained in earthquake reports were particularly significant. By recording precisely when earthquakes occurred—and making correlations with distant earthquakes—individuals interpreted God’s messages apocalyptically, arguing that particular earthquakes correlated with those described in Revelation. Some people combined this with additional chronological information to predict when Judgment Day would occur. This paper explores the extent to which New Englanders were unique in their providential and apocalyptical interpretations of global disasters, compared to their Atlantic counterparts.

    The Massachusetts Historical Society Environmental History Seminar invites you to join the conversation. Seminars bring together a diverse group of scholars and interested members of the public to workshop a pre-circulated paper. Learn more.

    Purchasing the $25 seminar subscription gives you advanced access to the seminar papers of all seven seminar series for the current academic year. Subscribe at www.masshist.org/research/seminars. Subscribers for the current year may login to view currently available essays. 

    Register to attend in person

    Register to attend online

  • Tuesday, April 12, 5:15 pm – 6:30 pm – Pipe Dreams: The Pursuit of Desalination and the Promise of a Water-Abundant Future in the 1950s and 1960s, Online

    Driven by the strong conviction that water resources needed to be managed, controlled, and used in a rational manner, fears about not being able to meet present and future water needs triggered and justified the proliferation of large water infrastructure projects in the post-WWII period—and also the pursuit of desalination. Its potential as a new, untapped source of fresh water carried promises of modernization and development, and especially appealed to governments looking to develop, diversify, and decentralize sources of supply. By uncovering how several countries and international organizations imagined the potential of desalination, and tried to jumpstart its widespread adoption, shows how the story of desalination adds new layers to our understanding of the development era. This Massachusetts Historical Society lecture with Elizabeth Hameeteman of Boston University will take place Tuesday, April 12 at 5:15 pm, online. Register to attend online

    The Environmental History Seminar invites you to join the conversation. Seminars bring together a diverse group of scholars and interested members of the public to workshop a pre-circulated paper. Learn more.

    Please note, this is an online event hosted on the video conference platform, Zoom. Registrants will receive a confirmation message with attendance information.

  • Tuesday, March 10, 5:15 pm – 7:30 pm – The Metabolism of Military Forces in the War of Independence: Environmental Contexts and Consequences

    The Massachusetts Historical Society presents an Environmental History Seminar on Tuesday, March 10 at 5:15 at 1154 Boylston Street in Boston on The Metabolism of Military Forces in the War of Independence: Environmental Contexts and Consequences. David Hsiung of Juniata College will speak, with comment by James Rice of Tufts University. In order to function during the War of Independence, armies and navies needed multiple sources of energy—food, firewood, work animals (which also needed food), ammunition, and more. How did specific natural environments, both proximate and distant, fuel those military metabolisms? How did such actions affect those environments in the decades and centuries that followed? This presentation is the seed of a book proposal that, when watered by your feedback, will germinate come summertime. Free, but registration requested at www.masshist.org.

  • Sunday, November 1, 2:00 pm – 3:15 pm – Second Nature: An Environmental History of New England

    On Sunday, November 1 at 2 pm at the Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway, Boston, Richard W. Judd, PhD, Adelaide & Alan Bird Professor of History, University of Maine, will explore the mix of ecological process and human activity that shaped that history over the past 12,000 years. He traces a succession of cultures through New England’s changing postglacial environment down to the 1600s, when the arrival of Europeans interrupted this coevolution of nature and culture. A long period of tension and warfare, inflected by a variety of environmental problems, opened the way for frontier expansion. This in turn culminated in a unique landscape of forest, farm, and village that has become the embodiment of what Judd calls second nature, culturally modified landscapes that have superseded a more pristine first nature. Judd will relate significant cultural and ecological changes that have influenced the evolution of the New England landscape over time. $10 fee. Call 617-384-5277 for more information.

  • Sunday, November 1, 2:00 pm – 3:15 pm – Second Nature: An Environmental History of New England

    Historian Richard W. Judd, PdD, Adelaide & Alan Bird Professor of History at University of Maine, explores the mix of ecological process and human activity that shaped that history over the past 12,000 years, in this Arnold Arboretum talk on Sunday, November 1 beginning at 2 pm in the Hunnewell Building. He traces a succession of cultures through New England’s changing post-glacial environment down to the 1600s, when the arrival of Europeans interrupted this co-evolution of nature and culture. A long period of tension and warfare, inflected by a variety of environmental problems, opened the way for frontier expansion. This in turn culminated in a unique landscape of forest, farm, and village that has become the embodiment of what Judd calls “second nature”— culturally modified landscapes that have superseded a more pristine “first nature.” Judd will relate significant cultural and ecological changes that have influenced the evolution of the New England landscape over time. Free for Arboretum members, $10 nonmembers.

    Register at my.arboretum.harvard.edu or call 617-384-5277.