Producer Callie Crossley leads a panel of black journalists in a discussion on the power of the black press in social movements, beginning in the 1800s and continuing to the present day. The presentation includes an audio clip from the documentary Soldiers Without Swords.
Professor Mitchell Zuckoff follows the life of Italian immigrant Charles Ponzi (1882-1949), legendary con man who set up the Securities Exchange Company, which promised investors massive returns on their investments based on the buying and trading of international postal reply coupons. The scheme, begun around 1918, collapsed in 1920 after the Boston Post revealed it to the public. The presentation includes slides.
Audio and video options are available.
Boston Historical Society editor Helen R. Deese discusses the 45-volume diary of Boston Transcendentalist, feminist, writer, and reformer Caroline Healey Dall (1822-1912). Deese focuses on the thorough, extensive picture of the life of a 19th-century woman that the diaries represent.
Preservation consultant Pamela Wilkinson Fox discusses historic country houses and mansions outlying the Boston area. Fox follows the trend of the rich and famous building country homes and communities along Massachusett's North Shore (Essex County), beginning in the 19th century. Her presentation includes slides.
Audio and video options are available.
Spencer Crew, CEO of the Underground Railroad Freedom Center, and other presenters outline the lives of David Walker and Maria Stewart, African American Boston activists in the 1800s, as well as the lives and efforts of abolitionists generally and the history of the Underground Railroad.
Audio and video options are available.
Professor Mary Frances Berry reviews the life of Callie House, an ex-slave and civil rights activist in the late 1800s and early 1900s who started the Ex-Slave Mutual Relief, Bounty and Pension Association, which sought African-American pensions based on those offered Union soldiers. Berry presents House as a forerunner of figures such as Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. Her presentation includes a question-and-answer session.
Audio and video options are available.
Historian Charles Bahne covers the history of Cambridge's Brattle Street, an elegant Massachusetts residential thoroughfare and historic district. He treats the topic chronologically and looks at the buildings and residents that have occupied the street.
New England Victorian Society president Ed Gordon explores the history of Charlestown in the Victorian era, looking at the many Victorian structures that remain today. The presentation includes slides.
The lecture audio can be downloaded separately.
Professors Wlliam M. Newman and Wilfred E. Holton look at how environmental crises and urban crowding led to the massive project for filling Boston's Back Bay tidal marsh in the 19th century. The presentation includes slides.
The lecture audio can be downloaded separately.
Crime historian Karen Elizabeth Chaney examines the case of Lizzie Bordan, accused of killing her father and stepmother with an ax in Fall River, MA, on August 4, 1892. Chaney focuses on the journalistic coverage of the case and the gender issues and sensationalism it dealt in.
Audio and video options are available.