In this episode, we look at the origins of smallpox inoculation in the colonies, discuss the experiences of the Adams family, and consider how the disease entered into debates about a general inoculation of the troops in the Continental Army. We call on the talents of MHS staff to bring John and Abigail Adams to life. Reference Librarian Daniel Hinchen portrays John Adams and Sarah Hume, an Editorial Assistant in the Adams Papers Project, portrays Abigail Adams. We also speak with Andrew M. Wehrman, a professor of history at Central Michigan University, an expert on the topic and author of The Contagion of Liberty: The Politics of Smallpox in the American Revolution.

Learn more about episode objects here: https://www.masshist.org/podcast/season-5-episode-2-king-of-terrors

Email us at [email protected].

Episode Special Guests:

Daniel Hinchen is a Reference Librarian at the Massachusetts Historical Society.

Sarah Hume is an Editorial Assistant in the Adams Papers Project at the MHS.

Andrew Wehrman is a professor of history at Central Michigan University and author of The Contagion of Liberty: The Politics of Smallpox in the American Revolution which won the Peter J. Gomes Memorial Book Prize from the Massachusetts Historical Society.

This episode uses materials from:

Cloudbank by Podington Bear (Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported) Psychic by Dominic Giam of Ketsa Music (licensed under a commercial non-exclusive license by the Massachusetts Historical Society through Ketsa.uk) Curious Nature by Dominic Giam of Ketsa Music (licensed under a commercial non-exclusive license by the Massachusetts Historical Society through Ketsa.uk)

Season 5 of The Object of History is dedicated to topics related to the American Revolution. On this first episode, we ask several historians for their thoughts on why Boston helped light the spark of the American Revolution. Was there something unique about Boston's community or geography that made it prone to a rebellious spirit? We sit down with J. L. Bell, Historian of the Revolutionary Era in Massachusetts, Garrett Dash Nelson, President & Head Curator at the Leventhal Map & Education Center at the Boston Public Library, and Kathryn Lasdow, Assistant Professor of History and Director of Public History at Suffolk University, to answer this question.

Learn more about episode objects here: https://www.masshist.org/podcast/season-5-episode-1-the-spark

Email us at [email protected].

Episode Special Guests:

J. L. Bell is the author of The Road to Concord: How Four Stolen Cannon Ignited the Revolutionary War and proprietor of the Boston 1775 blog. An MHS Fellow, he helped to design the society's online exhibit "Thomas Nast: A Life in Cartoons."

Katy Lasdow is Assistant Professor of History and Director of Public History at Suffolk University. She recently served as a curatorial fellow for the Leventhal Map and Education Center at the Boston Public Library where she co-curated Terrains of Independence.

Garrett Dash Nelson is a historical geographer who currently serves as President & Head Curator at the Leventhal Map & Education Center at the Boston Public Library.

This episode uses materials from:

Cloudbank by Podington Bear (Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported) Psychic by Dominic Giam of Ketsa Music (licensed under a commercial non-exclusive license by the Massachusetts Historical Society through Ketsa.uk) Curious Nature by Dominic Giam of Ketsa Music (licensed under a commercial non-exclusive license by the Massachusetts Historical Society through Ketsa.uk)

Earlier this season, we visited the Ether Dome at the Massachusetts General Hospital to learn about the first public use of an anesthetic in surgery. On this bonus episode of The Object of History, we return to Mass General to visit the Paul S. Russell, MD Museum of Medical History and Innovation. MHS Podcast Producer Sam Hurwitz joins the Director of the Museum, Sarah Alger, for a tour where they examine some of the museum's most significant items related to the history of medicine.

Learn more about episode objects here: https://www.masshist.org/podcast/season-4-bonus-episode-Russell-Museum

Email us at [email protected].

Listen to Episode 3

Episode Special Guest:

Sarah Alger is the George and Nancy Putnam Director of Mass General Hospital's Paul S. Russell, MD Museum of Medical History and Innovation. She was a founding editor of Proto, a thought leadership publication that was sponsored by MGH for 17 years.

This episode uses materials from:

The Bond (Instrumental) by Chad Crouch (Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International) Psychic by Dominic Giam of Ketsa Music (licensed under a commercial non-exclusive license by the Massachusetts Historical Society through Ketsa.uk) Curious Nature by Dominic Giam of Ketsa Music (licensed under a commercial non-exclusive license by the Massachusetts Historical Society through Ketsa.uk)

Earlier in this season of The Object of History, we visited the tombs of Robert C. Winthrop (Season 4, Episode 4) and Isabella Stewart Gardner (Season 4, Episode 5). In both episodes, we asked Meg Winslow, Senior Curator of Historical Collections & Archives at Mount Auburn Cemetery, to provide some context for our listeners. On this bonus episode, we revisit Mount Auburn, learn more about its history, and share additional portions of our conversation with Winslow.

Mount Auburn is the first American cemetery that purposely combined commemoration with elements of experimental gardening, picturesque landscape design, and access to nature, starting a trend across the nation in the mid-19th century that led to the creation of the first public parks in this country.

Learn more about episode objects here: https://www.masshist.org/podcast/season-4-bonus-episode-Mount-Auburn

Email us at [email protected].

Listen to Episode 4

Listen to Episode 5

Episode Special Guest:

Meg L. Winslow is Senior Curator of Historical Collections & Archives at Mount Auburn Cemetery where she is responsible for developing and overseeing the Cemetery's permanent collections of historical and aesthetic importance. Meg is co-author with Melissa Banta of The Art of Commemoration and America's First Rural Cemetery, Mount Auburn's Significant Monument Collection, in its third printing.

This episode uses materials from:

Meadowland (Instrumental) by Chad Crouch (Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International) Psychic by Dominic Giam of Ketsa Music (licensed under a commercial non-exclusive license by the Massachusetts Historical Society through Ketsa.uk) Curious Nature by Dominic Giam of Ketsa Music (licensed under a commercial non-exclusive license by the Massachusetts Historical Society through Ketsa.uk)

In the first episode of Season 4 of The Object of History, we briefly discussed the filling in of the Charles River bay when we introduced listeners to the Historical Society's building at 1154 Boylston Street. On this bonus episode, we invited one of our 2025 Dean W. Eastman Undergraduate Library Residents, Vivienne Charpentier, to dive deeper into history of the Back Bay. Vivienne tells us more about the Back Bay and then joins Chief Historian Peter Drummey on a walking tour of the neighborhood.

Learn more about episode objects here: https://www.masshist.org/podcast/season-4-bonus-episode-Back-Bay

Email us at [email protected].

Listen to "1154 Boylston Street".

Episode Special Guest:

Vivienne Charpentier was a Dean W. Eastman Undergraduate Library Resident in the 2025 Academic Year. They will begin their master's program in Library & Information Studies at the University of Rhode Island in the fall of 2025.

This episode uses materials from:

Canoe by Podington Bear (Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 International) Psychic by Dominic Giam of Ketsa Music (licensed under a commercial non-exclusive license by the Massachusetts Historical Society through Ketsa.uk) Curious Nature by Dominic Giam of Ketsa Music (licensed under a commercial non-exclusive license by the Massachusetts Historical Society through Ketsa.uk)

To conclude our tour of institutions that are connected to the MHS through our collections, we cross the street to the Fenway Victory Gardens, the oldest continuously operated victory gardens in its original location in the United States. Not only does the MHS hold the papers of this remarkable site of urban farming, but our staff also tend to a small plot amongst its 7.5 acres of land. We speak with Laura Wulf, Photographic Specialist & Digital Imaging Coordinator at the MHS, and Dennis Fiori, former President of the MHS, to learn more about their experience with the gardens. We also sit down with Chief Historian Peter Drummey to hear more about the history of victory gardens, as well as Sai Boddupalli, President of Fenway Garden Society, to learn about the Garden Society today.

Learn more about episode objects here: https://www.masshist.org/podcast/season-4-episode-8-Fenway-Victory-Gardens

Email us at [email protected].

Episode Special Guests:

Laura Wulf is the Photographic Specialist & Digital Imaging Coordinator at the MHS.

After a career managing history institutions, the last gig being the President of the MHS, Dennis Fiori has retired to the joy of full-time gardener. Tending a plot in the Fenway for a few years was a wonderful experience he still misses.

Sai Boddupalli has been a resident of the Fenway neighborhood for 15 years, a gardener at the Fenway Victory Gardens for four years, and is in his fourth year as a board member of the Fenway Garden Society, with this year being his first in the role of President.

This episode uses materials from:

Bagd by Podington Bear (Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported) Psychic by Dominic Giam of Ketsa Music (licensed under a commercial non-exclusive license by the Massachusetts Historical Society through Ketsa.uk) Curious Nature by Dominic Giam of Ketsa Music (licensed under a commercial non-exclusive license by the Massachusetts Historical Society through Ketsa.uk)

On this episode of The Object of History, we visit an item from the MHS collection currently on loan to the Museum of African American History on Boston's Beacon Hill. We examine the imposing stone that enabled the printing of William Lloyd Garrison's abolitionist publication, The Liberator. While visiting the Museum, we learn more about the building's importance to African American history in Boston as well as the Museum's current exhibits.

Learn more about episode objects here: https://www.masshist.org/podcast/season-4-episode-7-Imposing-Stone

Email us at [email protected].

Episode Special Guests:

Angela T. Tate is Chief Curator and Director of Collections at the Museum of African American History, Boston and Nantucket (MAAH). She oversees collections, exhibitions, interpretation, and content, focused on the lives and descendants of the Black communities in Boston and Nantucket, as well as New England. Prior to joining MAAH, she was inaugural women's history curator at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC). She co-curated the permanent exhibit, Forces for Change: Mary McLeod Bethune and Black Women's Activism, which highlights the strategies Black women have used to fight for justice and equality. Throughout her career, she has worked as curator and public historian in a variety of archives and museums in California and Illinois that focused on telling inclusive and expansive stories of the American past. She is a PhD candidate in History at Northwestern University and her dissertation discusses cultural diplomacy and Pan-Africanism through the 1950s-60s radio program hosted by Etta Moten Barnett in Chicago. This work has been supported by the Mellon Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, the New York Public Library, and the Schlesinger Library at the Radcliffe Institute. Her work has been published in Resonance: The Journal of Sound and Culture, the Smithsonian's Afrofuturism catalog, Ubuntu Dialogues, and several upcoming publications. Find more information at www.atpublichistory.com

Cara Liasson currently serves as the Collections Manager and Registrar for the Museum of African American History, Boston and Nantucket. Her career in the museum field spans over fifteen years, where she has worked at institutions such as Lowell National Historical Park and Old Sturbridge Village. She holds a B.A. in History from Wheaton College in Massachusetts and a graduate certificate in Museum Collections Management and Care from George Washington University.

Selvin Backert is the Education Specialist at the Museum of African American History, Boston and Nantucket.

Sage Morgan-Hubbard is the Director of Learning & Engagement at the Museum of African American History, Boston and Nantucket.

This episode uses materials from:

Osprey by Chad Crouch (Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International) Psychic by Dominic Giam of Ketsa Music (licensed under a commercial non-exclusive license by the Massachusetts Historical Society through Ketsa.uk) Curious Nature by Dominic Giam of Ketsa Music (licensed under a commercial non-exclusive license by the Massachusetts Historical Society through Ketsa.uk)

On this episode, we visit the Massachusetts Audubon Society (Mass Audubon). While there, we examine some objects related to the early history of the Society from Membership Specialist, Emily Gray. MHS Chief Historian Peter Drummey and Bancroft Poor, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer at Mass Audubon, tell us about the Society's formation as an advocacy group at the turn of the twentieth century and how its goals have changed over time.

Learn more about episode objects here: https://www.masshist.org/podcast/season-4-episode-6-Mass-Audubon

Email us at [email protected].

Episode Special Guests:

Bancroft Poor serves as Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer for Mass Audubon. In these roles, he is in charge of information technology, human resources, capital assets and planning, and financial functions, including budget preparation and monitoring, annual audit and tax preparation, insurance, contracting, investment liaison, and banking. He is a member of the senior management team and one of the primary staff contacts with the Board of Directors, serving as staff liaison to the Board Administration/Finance, Audit, and Investment Committees. In addition, he manages Mass Audubon's Belize program and works extensively on Mass Audubon's internal climate change and energy conservation initiatives. Bancroft Poor has been an employee of Mass Audubon since 1984. He is a graduate of Harvard College and holds a master's degree in Public and Private Management from the Yale School of Management.

Emily Gray is a Membership Specialist with Mass Audubon.

This episode uses materials from:

The Bond (Instrumental) by Chad Crouch (Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International) Psychic by Dominic Giam of Ketsa Music (licensed under a commercial non-exclusive license by the Massachusetts Historical Society through Ketsa.uk) Curious Nature by Dominic Giam of Ketsa Music (licensed under a commercial non-exclusive license by the Massachusetts Historical Society through Ketsa.uk)

On this episode, we continue our visit to Mount Auburn Cemetery. Joined by biographer Natalie Dykstra, we visit the Gardner tomb where Isabella Stewart Gardner is buried. We learn more about Gardner and her family's relationship to the history of Boston from Dykstra and Chief Historian Peter Drummey.

Mount Auburn is the first American cemetery that purposely combined commemoration with elements of experimental gardening, picturesque landscape design, and access to nature, starting a trend across the nation in the mid-19th century that led to the creation of the first public parks in this country.

Learn more about episode objects here: https://www.masshist.org/podcast/season-4-episode-5-Gardner-Tomb

Email us at [email protected].

Episode Special Guests:

Natalie Dykstra is the author of Clover Adams: A Gilded and Heartbreaking Life, which was a finalist for the 2013 Massachusetts Book Award. For her recent book Chasing Beauty: The Life of Isabella Stewart Gardner, she received a National Endowment for the Humanities Public Scholars grant and the inaugural Robert and Ina Caro Research Fellowship from the Biographers International Organization. Chasing Beauty is a finalist for the Marfield Prize, the national award for arts writing. Dykstra has been an elected Fellow of the Massachusetts Historical Society since 2011 and is an emerita professor of English at Hope College. She lives near Boston.

Meg L. Winslow is Senior Curator of Historical Collections & Archives at Mount Auburn Cemetery where she is responsible for developing and overseeing the Cemetery's permanent collections of historical and aesthetic importance. Meg is co-author with Melissa Banta of The Art of Commemoration and America's First Rural Cemetery, Mount Auburn's Significant Monument Collection, in its third printing.

This episode uses materials from:

Elderberry (Instrumental) by Chad Crouch (Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International) Psychic by Dominic Giam of Ketsa Music (licensed under a commercial non-exclusive license by the Massachusetts Historical Society through Ketsa.uk) Curious Nature by Dominic Giam of Ketsa Music (licensed under a commercial non-exclusive license by the Massachusetts Historical Society through Ketsa.uk)

On this episode, we visit the Mount Auburn Cemetery in nearby Cambridge and Watertown, Massachusetts. Following a suggestion by Hannah Elder, Associate Reference Librarian for Rights and Reproductions at the MHS, we investigate one connection that we have to the Cemetery: a key to Robert C. Winthrop's tomb.

Mount Auburn is the first American cemetery that purposely combined commemoration with elements of experimental gardening, picturesque landscape design, and access to nature, starting a trend across the nation in the mid-19th century that led to the creation of the first public parks in this country.

Learn more about episode objects here: https://www.masshist.org/podcast/season-4-episode-4-Winthrop-Tomb

Email us at [email protected].

Episode Special Guests:

Hannah Elder, Associate Reference Librarian for Rights and Reproductions, has been with the MHS since 2018. She holds a BA in Anthropology from the University of Maine and an MLIS from Simmons University. Her historical interests include the history of the book, queer history, and historic grief practices.

Meg L. Winslow is Senior Curator of Historical Collections & Archives at Mount Auburn Cemetery where she is responsible for developing and overseeing the Cemetery's permanent collections of historical and aesthetic importance. Meg is co-author with Melissa Banta of The Art of Commemoration and America's First Rural Cemetery, Mount Auburn's Significant Monument Collection, in its third printing.

This episode uses materials from:

Meadowland (Instrumental) by Chad Crouch (Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International) Psychic by Dominic Giam of Ketsa Music (licensed under a commercial non-exclusive license by the Massachusetts Historical Society through Ketsa.uk) Curious Nature by Dominic Giam of Ketsa Music (licensed under a commercial non-exclusive license by the Massachusetts Historical Society through Ketsa.uk)