Director of the Center for Ethnicity and Race at Columbia University, Gary Okihiro, delivers the keynote speech for the opening ceremonies of Boston College's Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month. He discusses the difficulty of establishing an identity as an Asian-Pacific American and the history of Asian-Pacific Americans and Asian immigration to the U.S.
Author and professor Howard Zinn and professor James Green look at the Chicago Haymarket Riot of May 1886, in which a bomb killed several policeman at a Chicago labor rally, and the resulting trial and executions. They also discuss the history of the working class in the U.S. generally.
Historian Elizabeth Riely explores Benjamin Franklin's fascination with the wild turkey, including his desire to see the turkey made the national symbol. She touches on the history of European discovery of the turkey.
Curator and conservator Grant Romer talks about the formation and work of the Boston photography partners Albert Sands Southworth and Josiah Johnson Hawes and their studio on Tremont Row. Romer looks at the architecture of Tremont Row and how it impacted the work of the partners. His presentation includes slides.
Audio and video options are available.
Father-and-son writers Steven and Paul Kendrick discuss the legal establishment of segregation (the concept of "separate but equal"), tracing it back to 1847. In that year, an African-American man sued the city of Boston, wanting his daughter to be able to attend a school closer to her home than the nearest all-black school. He was eventually defeated.
Preservation Wayne seeks to promote awareness of Detroit's past and current achievements through tours, lectures, publications, and full-time accessibility to the media. Their areas of architectural focus include the works of Louis Kamper (18611953), architect of Book Tower and the Book Cadillac Hotel, and Albert Kahn (18691952), a major American industrial architect and designer of the General Motors Building and Detroit Police Headquarters. Other topics include the history of sculpture, residential structures, automobiles, skyscrapers, and theater in Detroit.
The organization offers a variety of tours and a lecture series.
Professor Lawrence J. Vale shows provocative images from early advertisements to demonstrate some of society's long-held attitudes toward public housing and those who live in public housing. He analyzes government policies as they evolved to provide housing to 'reward people who are most deserving' of assistance, or to provide housing assistance as a 'coping mechanism.'
A panel of scholars and professionals discusses college and university architecture throughout U.S. history, focusing particularly on the architectural history of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Professor and author James Ackerman overviews the general history and development of academic architecture in the U.S.; curator Kimberly Alexander specifically overviews MIT's architectural history; and MIT president Charles Vest describes the process of completing the modern Stata Center.
To view part two of this lecture, scroll down to "Related Videos."
Professor Leo Marx presents the protagonist of F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby," Jay Gatsby, as "a representative American," using the arc of the character's development to explore popular myths and understandings of U.S. origins, developments, and dangers.
Scholar and author Emily Thompson describes the study of aural history—the study of not just music, but of noise and soundscapes as a whole, what cultures heard and how they heard it—and discusses the aural culture in the U.S. from 1900 to 1933. She looks at how sound at the time was influenced by technology and at the consumption of sound, focusing particularly on architecture's influence on sound.