Historian Kate Clifford Larson reviews the life of Harriet Tubman and Tubman's work in freeing other slaves along the Underground Railroad. Larson focuses on unsimplifying Tubman's life story and presenting it in its complexity and full breadth.
Author Iris Chang follows the history of Chinese immigration in the U.S., the alternating acceptance and tension between Chinese Americans and "mainstream" U.S. society, and Chinese-American experiences in the U.S. Her presentation includes a question-and-answer session.
Ed McCabe and Lory Newmyer of the Hull Lifesaving Museum examines Boston's past as a major shipping port and a center for the development of marine lifesaving devices and shipwreck prevention measures. They focus on the devices and procedures used by the men of the United States Life-Saving Service in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
John Quincy, Jr., 11th-generation descendent of the New England Quincy family, traces the history of the family, a dominant force in area politics (the Boston mayorage passed from Quincy father to son for several generations).
Henry Louis Gates Jr., director of the Du Bois Institute at Harvard, discusses the African and African-American experience from W.E.B. Du Bois to John Coltrane in a comprehensive study, with an emphasis on Du Bois's concept of the "Encyclopedia Africana"—an encyclopedia of all Black culture and history—as a weapon against racism.
Tom Crouch, Chairman of Aeronautics at the National Air and Space Museum, discusses the Wright brothers' invention of the airplane, placing it in the context of the centuries-long study of flight and of the enormous impact airplanes have had on human life.
According to the WGBH website:
"Charles Hammond Gibson, Jr. (1874-1954) was a Boston writer and bachelor bon vivant, best known for having preserved his family's Beacon Street home as a museum of Victorian style and taste. The Wounded Eros, a short documentary film by Todd Gernes, explores the aesthetic relationship between Gibson's literary production and the material culture contexts of his museum and library, set within the social history of turn-of-the-century gay Boston. Following the film, a dramatic reading, These Four Walls: A History of a Romantic Friendship, directed by Jacqueline Romeo and featuring John Anderson and Aleksander Feliks Wierzbicki, will extend the exploration of Gibson's life by depicting his enduring relationship with the eccentric self-styled "Count" Maurice de Mauny Talvande."
John Fish, director of the Historical Maritime Group, outlines the 1898 sinking of the New England passenger steamer Portland and his group's modern-day search for its remains. The lecture is accompanied by slides.
Audio and video options are available.
Concluding the discussion and debate on Harry S. Truman's presidency began in the lecture "The Presidency of Harry S. Truman, Part One," Truman's grandson Daniel Clifton Truman narrates his memories of Harry S. Truman.
Video and audio options are available.
Following a short film on Harry S. Truman's pre-Presidency years, three panelists, including two university history professors and Truman's grandson, discuss and debate Truman's presidency and policies, partially in comparison to today's global political situation.
Video and audio options are available.