J. L. BELL is a Massachusetts writer who specializes in (among other things) the start of the American Revolution in and around Boston. He is particularly interested in the experiences of children in 1765-75. He has published scholarly papers and popular articles for both children and adults. He was consultant for an episode of History Detectives, and contributed to a display at Minute Man National Historic Park.
J. L. Bell will be one of the panelists in the discussion of “A Knock at the Door: Three Centuries of Governmental Search and Seizure” at the Old State House in Boston on 4 November. How does James Otis, Jr.’s argument against the London government’s writs of assistance connect to the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, and what is the status of that protection today?
Hear J. L. Bell “Gossiping About the Gores” at Old South Meeting House, archived by the WBGH Forum Network. (And follow along with the handout.) This talk, delivered in January 2009, follows one Boston family from the 1760s through the 1820s. Striving in society, divided by politics, and occasionally star-crossed by love, the Gores provide a lively view of life during the American Revolution.
Hear J. L. Bell discuss John Adams with Mike Pesca, host of N.P.R.’s The Bryant Park Project, in April 2008.
Check out the online exhibit about the 5th of November in Boston that J. L. Bell assembled for the Bostonian Society. People in Britain celebrated that date as Guy Fawkes’ Day, but in Boston it was “Pope-Night”—a literal riot of bigotry, violence, and giant puppets of the Pope!
J. L. Bell’s article “A Bankruptcy in Boston, 1765” appears in the fourth-quarter 2008 issue of Massachusetts Banker. You can download a copy of the entire magazine for free from this page.
J. L. Bell’s article “‘I Never Used to Go Out with a Weapon’: Law Enforcement on the Streets of Prerevolutionary Boston,” about town watchmen, British army officers, and the Boston Massacre, is available in the Dublin Seminar volume Life on the Streets and Commons.
Children in Colonial America, edited by Prof. James Marten and published by N.Y.U. Press, features J. L. Bell’s chapter “From Saucy Boys to Sons of Liberty: Politicizing Youth in Pre-Revolutionary Boston.”

Monday, June 08, 2009

Staycation

Today being the 200th anniversary of the death of Thomas Paine, it feels appropriate to pass on the news that historical seamstress Hallie Larkin has started a blog on eighteenth-century stays—the foundation undergarment that women felt they were next to naked without.

This blog has collected newspaper advertisements, satirical prints, and other sources on this ubiquitous part of life in Revolutionary America, as well as pointers to some modern studies of stays and corsets. The illustration here, for example, is a 1778 French print from the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

What’s the Paine connection? His father was a staymaker in Britain, and before he went into political writing full-time Paine also worked in that profession.

TOMORROW: Stays in an early American children’s book.

PERMANENT LINK: 18:48

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