The First and Ongoing Pauline Maier Seminar Series

The Boston Area Early American History Seminar has changed its name to the Pauline Maier Early American History Seminar, honoring the late M.I.T. professor who was an enthusiast for these discussion and many other ways of delving into the national past.

The seminar series continues to provide a forum for scholars and interested members of the public to discuss many aspects of North American history and culture. Sessions are free, though there is a $25 cost to order copies of the papers in advance of each discussion, which I recommend as a bargain.

All the seminars begin at 5:15 P.M. at the Massachusetts Historical Society, 1154 Boylston Street in the Back Bay. Formal conversation lasts for about ninety minutes, and then participants can enjoy light refreshments and further chat until 7:30.

Here are the sessions scheduled for the upcoming calendar year.

Thursday, 26 September 2019
Toward the Sistercentennial: New Light on Women’s Participation in the American Revolution
Woody Holton, University of South Carolina
Comment: Mary Bilder, Boston College Law

Tuesday, 5 November
Native Lands and American Expansion in the Early Republic
Emilie Connolly, Dartmouth University, and Franklin Sammons, University of California, Berkeley
Comment: Nancy Shoemaker, University of Connecticut

Tuesday, 19 November
Murder at the Manhattan Well: The Personal and the Political in the Election of 1800
Paul Gilje, University of Oklahoma
Comment: Katherine Grandjean, Wellesley College

Tuesday, 10 December
Who Was “One-Eyed” Sarah?: Searching for an Indigenous Nurse in Local Government
Gabriel J. Loiacono, University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh
Comment: Cornelia Dayton, University of Connecticut

Tuesday, 7 January 2020
Supplying Slavery: North America, Jamaica, and British Intra-Imperial Trade, 1750-1770
Peter Pellizzari, Harvard University
Comment: Richard Dunn, American Philosophical Society

Tuesday, 3 March
The 1621 Massasoit-Plymouth Agreement and the Genesis of American Indian Constitutionalism
Daniel Mandell, Truman State University
Comment: Linford D. Fisher, Brown University

Tuesday, 10 March
Military Metabolism and the Environment in the War of Independence
(Co-sponsored by the Boston Seminar on Environmental History)
David Hsiung, Juniata College
Comment: James Rice, Tufts University

Tuesday, 7 April
“Our Turn Next”: Slavery and Freedom on French and American Stages, 1789-99
Heather S. Nathans, Tufts University
Comment: T.B.D.

Tuesday, 12 May
Honoring Dan Richter: McNeil Center for Early American Studies Alumni on their Experiences and Research
Round-table Discussion
(Richter is retiring, not being honored in the same way Maier is, so I expect he’ll be in town to enjoy the discussion.)

The Massachusetts Historical Society hosts similar series of seminars or discussions on African American History; Environmental History; Modern American Society and Culture; the History of Women, Gender, and Sexuality; and New England Biography.