World War II veteran Susumu Ito talks about his memories of serving in the all-Japanese-American 442nd Regimental Combat Team during the war and the internment of his parents in an American internment camp. The presentation includes film footage, images, and subtitles.
Professor Jonathan Chu looks at the development of U.S. trade with China following the Revolutionary War, in which the U.S. became China's second largest western trading partner and imported great quantities of tea, silk, and ceramics. His presentation includes slides.
This presentation exhibits excerpts from the film Tuskegee Heroes, covering the history of the Tuskegee Airmen, World War II's African-American 332nd Fighter Group. The film clips are followed by questions and answers with attorney Enoch Woodhouse, who served in the Bombardment Group as a young man during the War.
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.
ESPN newsanchor and author Jeremy Schaap discusses African-American track and field athlete Jesse Owens's win of four gold medals and setting of three world records at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Schaap examines the events in the context of Hitler's Germany's racism.
Professor Gerald L. Early discusses cultural observations on Curt Flood, the first player in Major League Baseball to challenge the infamous "reserve clause" which opened the doors to free agency. Early focuses on the significance of sports as a public arena.
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.
A panel discusses the uncovering and content of the Presidential Tapes and what these recordings say about these presidents, their choices, and their personalities. The presentation includes excerpts from the Presidential Tapes.
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.
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."