According to the Library of Congress Webcasts site:

"Beginning in the 1890s through the 1930s, independent grocers (white and black) formed a variety of innovative alliances—cartels, buying syndicates, and cooperatives—to navigate major changes within the trade. Through organizations like the Boston Wholesale Grocers' Association, Independent Grocers' Alliance, Red & White Stores, and Colored Merchants' Association, small businessmen formulated alternative ways of dealing and distributing goods, challenged chain stores, and created new entrepreneurial opportunities for black proprietors. Cooperative enterprise had limitations, however; while some groups advanced, others struggled to maintain a united front. This talk explores both successes and failures while questioning the role of collaboration in small business."

Book conservator Barbara Adams Hebard discusses the role of women in the history of the Boston Athenaeum, and Athenaeum associate director John Lannon discusses the 1999-2002 renovation of 10 1/2 Beacon Street.

Audio and video options are available.

Art historian Douglass Shand-Tucci details the life of Boston architect Ralph Adams Cram (1863-1942), designer of major works such as West Point, Princeton University, and Rice University. Shand-Tucci emphasizes Dram's diverse interests and endeavors, reaching far beyond architecture.

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.

Professor Lewis Dabney traces the life of Edmund Wilson (1895-1972), major literary critic of the 20th century. Dabney discusses Wilson's three classics of literary and intellectual history—Axel's Castle, To the Finland Station, and Patriotic Gore—and the many women with whom Wilson had rocky relationships.

Audio and video options are available.