Historians & Their Histories

In this episode of Historians & Their Histories, we speak with R. B. Tiven. She talks about her dissertation which is a political history of the 19th Amendment's final decade, examining how Congress managed to enfranchise women in the 1910s. Rather than focusing on suffragists themselves, she explores the congressmen and state legislators whose positions shifted from opposition to passive or active support, and what those shifts reveal about partisanship in the era. At the MHS, she has been working with the papers of Henry Cabot Lodge, long credited as the leader of Senate opposition to suffrage, where she was surprised to find almost no engagement with the issue at all.

She is a recipient of the Abigail Bowen Wright Fellowship from the MHS.

To learn more about MHS fellowships and how to apply, please visit this page.

Learn more about this episode here: https://www.masshist.org/podcast/hath-episode-44-Tiven

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Colocate by Podington Bear (Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported)

In this episode of Historians & Their Histories, we speak with Tim Hastings. Tim discusses his dissertation, "New Hampshire's Atlantic World: Slavery, Freedom, and Community," a social and cultural history of slavery in New Hampshire during the long eighteenth century that foregrounds the lived experiences of the enslaved. He also speaks about the relationship between law and slavery, the social worlds enslaved people navigated, and New Hampshire's deep entanglement with the broader Atlantic world, including plantation economies in the Caribbean.

He is a recipient of the African American Studies Fellowship from the Massachusetts Historical Society, as well as a fellowship from the New England Regional Fellowship Consortium, which is administered by the MHS.

To learn more about MHS fellowships and how to apply, please visit this page.

Learn more about this episode here: https://www.masshist.org/podcast/hath-episode-43-Hastings

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Colocate by Podington Bear (Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported)

On this special episode of Historians & Their Histories, guest host Megan Kate Nelson sits down with Lauren Duval, Associate Professor of History at the University of Oklahoma. They discuss Prof. Duval's new book The Home Front: Revolutionary Households, Military Occupation, and the Making of American Independence, published in December 2025. They talk about what daily life was like inside American households under British military occupation and how the intimate experience of war shaped ordinary people's understanding of independence.

Prof. Duval is a recipient of the long-term fellowship sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Massachusetts Historical Society.

To learn more about MHS fellowships and how to apply, please visit this page.

Learn more about this episode here: https://www.masshist.org/podcast/hath-episode-42-Duval

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Colocate by Podington Bear (Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported)

In this episode of Historians & Their Histories, we speak with Morgan Hardy. He discusses his dissertation, "Changes in the Sea: Early American Innovations in Sustainability," which examines whether eighteenth-century cod fisheries were sustainable and what early conservation practices New Englanders developed to protect declining fish populations. At the MHS, he has been uncovering the everyday realities of fishermen navigating a devastated fishery. We also learn about the fascinating anatomy and biology of Atlantic cod.

Morgan Hardy is a recipient of the Mary B. Wright Environmental History Fellowship from the MHS.

To learn more about MHS fellowships and how to apply, please visit this page.

Learn more about this episode here: https://www.masshist.org/podcast/hath-episode-41-Hardy

This episode uses materials from:

Colocate by Podington Bear (Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported)

In this episode of Historians & Their Histories, we speak with Lydia Burleson. She discusses her research into the Massachusetts state seal, tracing how its Indigenous imagery has persisted and shifted since the colony's 1629 charter. Drawing upon variety of archival records, Lydia focuses on the seal's brief disappearance during the Revolutionary period, when it was replaced from 1775 to 1780 by an "English American" design bearing a sword, before an Indigenous design returned as the war continued. She also explores what that change, and its reversal, reveals about how colonists used Indigenous imagery to construct an American identity, even as Native nations were largely excluded from the decision-making.

Lydia Burleson is a recipient of the Samuel Victor Constant Fellowship from the Society of Colonial Wars in Massachusetts, administered by the MHS.

To learn more about MHS fellowships and how to apply, please visit this page.

Learn more about this episode here: https://www.masshist.org/podcast/hath-episode-40-Burleson

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Colocate by Podington Bear (Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported)

In this episode of Historians & Their Histories, we speak with Megan Baker, a PhD candidate in Art History at the University of Delaware. Megan discusses her dissertation, "Crayon Rebellion: The Material Politics of North American Pastels, 1758-1814," which traces how the fragile and fashionable medium of pastel came to represent both people and ideas in the years surrounding the American Revolution. She explores how artists sourced their materials through Atlantic trade networks, how pastel portraiture materialized ideas about race, and how the medium was eventually used in early natural history illustration before giving way to more durable printed media.

Megan Baker is a recipient of the Andrew Oliver Research Fellowship from the MHS.

To learn more about MHS fellowships and how to apply, please visit this page.

Learn more about this episode here: https://www.masshist.org/podcast/hath-episode-39-Baker

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Colocate by Podington Bear (Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported)

In this episode of Historians & Their Histories, Chloe Kauffman discusses her dissertation research on how young, unmarried women in the Anglo-Atlantic world acquired and shared knowledge about sexuality between 1690 and 1820, with a particular focus on women-to-women relationships and mentorship. Chloe examines the everyday, often overlooked ways this knowledge circulated from family letters and diaries to the surprising presence of suggestive phrases tucked into a 12-year-old's penmanship exercises. At the MHS, she has been working extensively with family papers collections to trace how eroticized knowledge moved across generations of women.

Chloe Kauffman is a recipient of the Alyson R. Miller Fellowship from the MHS.

To learn more about MHS fellowships and how to apply, please visit this page.

Learn more about this episode here: https://www.masshist.org/podcast/hath-episode-38-Kauffman

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Colocate by Podington Bear (Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported)

In this episode of Historians & Their Histories, Prof. Andrew Schocket discusses his current research into what the founders actually meant when they wrote "We the People," examining how early Americans counted one another for taxation and political representation from the 1770s through the 1790s. At the MHS, he has been working with the papers of Jonathan Jackson, the federal marshal who administered the first federal census in Massachusetts in 1790. We also hear about Prof. Schocket's two previous books, including Founding Corporate Power in Early National Philadelphia and Fighting Over the Founders, and his broader interest in "denaturalizing" the American founding.

Prof. Schocket is a recipient of the Andrew W. Mellon Short-Term Fellowship from the MHS.

To learn more about MHS fellowships and how to apply, please visit this page.

Learn more about this episode here: https://www.masshist.org/podcast/hath-episode-37-Schocket

This episode uses materials from:

Colocate by Podington Bear (Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported)

In this episode of Historians & Their Histories, we speak with Rachel Wiedman. She discusses her dissertation research on gender and political culture in the Civil War era North, tracing a shift in how Northerners evaluated political leadership from an ideal of restrained manhood that valued moderation and compromise to one of martial manhood that prized principle, moral courage, and confrontation. At the MHS, Rachel has been working with letters written by constituents to figures such as John Quincy Adams, Daniel Webster, and Massachusetts Governor John A. Andrew, revealing how ordinary Northerners used the language of manhood to praise and condemn their political representatives.

Rachel Wiedman is a recipient of the Marc Friedlaender Fellowship from the MHS.

To learn more about MHS fellowships and how to apply, please visit this page.

Learn more about this episode here: https://www.masshist.org/podcast/hath-episode-36-Wiedman

This episode uses materials from:

Colocate by Podington Bear (Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported)

In this episode of Historians & Their Histories, Prof. Christopher Willoughby discusses his research on racial science and medicine in antebellum America, tracing how northern medical schools, including Harvard Medical School, taught and institutionalized theories of biological racial difference. At the MHS, he has been working with the papers of John Collins Warren, examining how this notable Harvard surgeon assembled a skull collection drawn largely from enslaved people and Indigenous communities.

Prof. Willoughby is a recipient of the Elizabeth Woodman Wright Fellowship from the MHS.

To learn more about MHS fellowships and how to apply, please visit this page.

Learn more about this episode here: https://www.masshist.org/podcast/hath-episode-35-Willoughby

This episode uses materials from:

Colocate by Podington Bear (Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported)