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 podcast@masshist.org.

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 podcast@masshist.org.

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)

In this episode, we visit the Bulfinch Building at the Massachusetts General Hospital to examine one of the most, if not the most, significant discoveries in modern medicine. Sarah Alger, the Director of the Paul S. Russell, MD Museum of Medical History and Innovation, shows us the hospital's Ether Dome where the first public surgery using an anesthetic was performed. Back at the MHS, we sit down with Chief Historian Peter Drummey and Curator of Art and Artifacts Emerita Anne Bentley to learn more about the contentious history of this innovation.

Learn more about episode objects here: https://www.masshist.org/podcast/season-4-episode-3-painless-revolution

Email us at podcast@masshist.org.

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)

In this episode, we begin our exploration of the greater Boston area and institutions that are connected to the MHS through shared collections. We first visit the Old North Church located in the North End to speak with Nikki Stewart, Executive Director of Old North Illuminated, and Patrick Gabridge, the producing artistic director of Plays in Place. We learn more about the building, its significance to the American Revolution, and its relationship to the Society's collections.

Learn more about episode objects here: https://www.masshist.org/podcast/season-4-episode-2-old-north-church

For more information on the staged reading of Revolution's Edge, please visit oldnorth.com.

Email us at podcast@masshist.org.

Episode Special Guests:

Nikki Stewart currently serves as the Executive Director of Old North Illuminated. Since 2020, Nikki has led the organization through a transformation that includes a new mission and interpretive plan, extensive research into Old North’s Black and Indigenous communities, and the creation of new on-site and classroom programming.

Patrick Gabridge is the producing artistic director of Plays in Place, a site-specific theater company that creates new plays in partnership with museums, historic sites, and other cultural institutions. They've created engaging theatrical experiences at Old North Church, the Massachusetts State House, Mount Auburn Cemetery, and many other sites around New England.

This episode uses materials from:

Sanctuary 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)

Join us on January 6, 2025 for Historians & Their Histories, the new podcast from the Massachusetts Historical Society. In this new series, we are introducing you to the historians who write the histories. In each episode, we sit down with a scholar who has received fellowship support from the Massachusetts Historical Society. We learn about their origin stories and ask them about why they became students of the past. And we get a sneak peek at their current projects, too.

On this season of The Object of History, we are visiting institutions and organizations that have a connection to the MHS either through collections that we house or objects that we have loaned to them. But, first, we begin this season by discussing our very own headquarters in Boston. We sit down with various MHS staff members to learn more about the construction of the building, its maintenance, and their own experiences at 1154 Boylston Street.

Learn more about episode objects here: https://www.masshist.org/podcast/season-4-episode-1-1154

Email us at podcast@masshist.org.

Episode Special Guests:

Dan Sweeney is the Facility Manager at the MHS. He began working at the Society in 2010.

James P. Harrison III has been Custodian at the MHS since 1990.

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)

In a recent episode of The Object of History, titled "The Mortal & Everlasting Life of Frederic Augustus James: Enduring Life Behind the Deadline of a Civil War POW Camp", we discussed Frederic Augustus James's experience in the Andersonville prisoner of war camp during the Civil War. In this bonus episode, we sit down with MHS Library Assistant Brandon McGrath-Neely. Brandon shares his impressions of James's writings and discusses his experience as a Park Ranger at the Andersonville National Historic Site and National Prisoner of War Museum.

Learn more about episode objects here: https://www.masshist.org/podcast/season-3-bonus-episode-inside-andersonville

Email us at podcast@masshist.org.

Listen to "The Mortal & Everlasting Life of Frederic Augustus James: Enduring Life Behind the Deadline of a Civil War POW Camp".

Episode Special Guest:

Brandon McGrath-Neely is a current student at Simmons University's dual-degree Masters of Library and Information Science and History program. He is a graduate of Gettysburg College, where we worked as a Civil War Fellow, documentary filmmaker, and a Brian C. Pohanka Intern at Andersonville National Historic Site and National Prisoner of War Museum.

This episode uses materials from:

Bald Eagle 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 a recent episode of The Object of History, titled "Events That Did Not Happen", we examined several items from the MHS collections that marked events that did not actually take place. In this bonus episode, we sit down with MHS Library Assistant Hannah Goeselt to learn more about Boston's statue of Leif Erikson and Eben Horsford's efforts to commemorate Norse discoverers of America.

Learn more about episode objects here: https://www.masshist.org/podcast/season-3-bonus-episode-eben-horsfords-nordic-nostalgia

Email us at podcast@masshist.org.

Listen to "Events That Did Not Happen".

Read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 of Hannah's blog post on "Horsford's Vikings of New England".

Episode Special Guest:

Hannah Goeselt joined the MHS as a Library Assistant in October of 2023 after graduating from Simmons’ Master of Library and Information Science program. She mostly writes and thinks about manuscripts as material objects and their individual journeys through history.

This episode uses materials from:

Ginger 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)