Professor Priscilla McMillan examines the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer, physicist and director of the Manhattan Project. McMillan focuses particularly on his post-World-War-II opposition to development of the hydrogen bomb, the 1954 trial in which his security clearance was revoked, and the context of these events at the beginning of the USSR-U.S. arms race.
Biographer and journalist Richard Reeves compares and contrasts the presidencies and legacies of John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan.
Author Anne Sebba follows the life of American-born Jennie Jerome, wife of Randolph Churchill and father of Winston Churchill. Sebba examines Jennie's early life, the romantic affairs that assisted her husband's career, her relationship with her son, her social reform work, and other aspects of her very active life. The presentation includes slides.
Audio and video options are available.
Professor Eli C. Bortman describes the case and trials of Ferdinand Sacco (1891-1927) and Bartolomeo Vanzetti (1888-1927), Italian-born anarchists charged with the armed robbery and murder of two Massachusetts payroll clerks in 1920. The case, which ended in Sacco and Vanzetti's execution in 1927, drew worldwide attention and criticism, for the alleged anti-immigrant, anti-Italian, and anti-anarchist sentiments that colored it and the uncertain guilt of the men. Bortman looks at the case from both sides—considering the men as both guilty and innocent.
Audio and video options are available.
Professor Robert J. Allison reviews the political and economic context surrounding the Boston Tea Party and the details of the event itself. The lecture occurs in the Old South Meeting House, where the meeting preceding the Tea Party took place.
Audio and video options are available. The video can be viewed with or without captions.
Author Bruce Watson describes the lives and trials of Ferdinand Sacco (1891-1927) and Bartolomeo Vanzetti (1888-1927), Italian-born anarchists charged with the armed robbery and murder of two Massachusetts payroll clerks in 1920. The case, which ended in Sacco and Vanzetti's execution in 1927, drew worldwide attention and criticism, for the alleged anti-immigrant, anti-Italian, and anti-anarchist sentiments that colored it and the uncertain guilt of the men. The presentation includes slides.
A panel of historians and political analysts discuss the experiences and history of Irish and Jewish immigrants and their descendants in Boston. The panelists look at the current population of these ethnic groups in Boston, as well.
The discussion's audio can be downloaded in mp3 format.
Civil Rights Project co-founder and director Gary Orfield and director and president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund Theodore Shaw examine how researchers and legal advocates can further the aim of advancing civil rights in knowledge and policy. With a look back to the Civil Rights Project's original research agenda and its impact over the past ten years, this discussion considers how research on social equity and civil rights can be successfully extended to include the changing reality of a highly stratified multiracial society with a white minority.
The discussion audio is available as a downloadable mp3 file.
Historian Steve Puleo reviews his research into the history of Italian immigration to Boston and the lives of the Italian immigrants in Boston. He focuses on the years 1900 to 1918, when Italian immigration soared, while also looking at modern-day Italian Americans in Boston.
The lecture audio is available independently as an mp3 file.
National Archives senior curator Stacey Bredhoff looks at the process involved in compiling the touring National Archives exhibit "Eyewitness," which focuses on eyewitness accounts of events from World War II, the Holocaust, the Vietnam War, and the Civil Rights' Movement's Bloody Sunday March at Selma.