Community Day Open House

The Boston Athenaeum invites the Boston community to its fourth annual Community Day open house on Saturday, September 19, welcoming all residents, visitors, families, and friends across the city to explore the landmark historic building at 10½ Beacon Street from 10 am - 3 pm. The event is free and open to everyone. Guests will have the opportunity to view rare items from the Athenaeum’s special collection, share stunning views of the Granary Burial Ground, Boston Public Garden, and State House, enjoy live music performances from local artists, and immerse themselves in the architectural beauty of the twelve floors housing over half a million books.

Boston Athenaeum

Slow Art Day

Visit the Boston Athenaeum to experience Slow Art Day, an annual celebration of the joy of looking at art! Drop in anytime from 9 am to 3 pm on Saturday, April 11, to explore our first floor on your own or register for one of three scheduled guided looking sessions on our website (<a href="https://community.bostonathenaeum.org/s/events?event=a2KUm0000099xN3">11 am</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://community.bostonathenaeum.org/s/events?event=a2KUm0000099wvd">1:30 pm</a>, or&nbsp;<a href="https://community.bostonathenaeum.org/s/events?event=a2KUm0000099w9F">2 pm</a>). In the guided sessions, you will spend 10 minutes looking slowly and closely at a selected piece of art on the Athenaeum’s first floor. You’ll then share your thoughts and reflections, followed by a discussion with one of our docents. If you explore on your own, you can also select a piece of art and use our written guiding questions to have a mini slow art session with a friend. First-floor admission includes access to the Norma Jean Calderwood Gallery, art and special collections installations, and stunning reading rooms. To enhance your visit, you can access our digital guide with any smartphone—just bring your headphones!

Jennifer Putzi - The Reconstruction Diary of Frances Anne Rollin

In 1867, Frances Anne Rollin, a Black writer and teacher from South Carolina, traveled to Boston to seek a publisher for her biography of famed Black abolitionist, writer, and Civil War veteran Martin R. Delany. Beginning in January 1868, Rollin kept a diary while in Boston documenting her progression on Delany’s biography, negotiations with publishers, visits from friends, attendance at lectures and readings, and her marriage to William J. Whipper, a Black politician and jurist. Rollin’s diary is one of the earliest known diaries by a Southern Black woman. In this critical edition Jennifer Putzi offers the first complete transcription and annotation of Rollin’s diary, along with a robust introduction providing important biographical, historical, cultural, and literary contexts for readers. Rollin’s diary provides one of the fullest pictures of an African American woman as an author, activist, and well-connected and politically involved individual during the Reconstruction era—filling a gap in the literature and scholarly analysis of such preserved works by nineteenth-century African American women.

The Schoolcraft Collection of Books in Indigenous Languages

The Schoolcraft Collection of Books in Indigenous Languages at the Athenaeum contains over 200 published translations of nineteenth-century catechisms, tracts, Bibles, primers, grammars and vocabularies. Over the past year, as part of a grant-funded project from the Lyrasis Foundation, Sage Innerarity, the Boston Athenaeum’s Indigenous Collections Fellow, has been exploring this remarkable collection and developing a new guide to help researchers better understand its historical and cultural context. Join us for a special presentation where Sage will share her work on this project. Learn more about how these materials came to the Athenaeum, as well as how the materials reflect the complex relationships between Indigenous peoples, missionaries, and the organizations responsible for funding and governing missionary efforts.

The Boston Athenaeum will host a free “Community Day” open house, opening its iconic red doors at 10 ½ Beacon Street for attendees to enjoy all five floors of one of the country’s oldest and most distinguished independent libraries. Activities include up-close views of the Athenaeum’s special collections and rare books, live music from local artists, remarkable views of the city from the Athenaeum iconic fifth-floor reading room and outdoor terraces, and free access to their two exhibitions, “Wild Flowers of New England” and “Exhibiting China.” The Athenaeum’s children’s library will host story times and activities. Register for FREE tickets here: <a href="https://events.bostonathenaeum.org/en/4W52KhR7/community-day-open-house-5a2KUm5XuJt/cart-dynamic">https://events.bostonathenaeum.org/en/4W52KhR7/community-day-open-house-5a2KUm5XuJt/cart-dynamic</a>

 Author Talk with Liz Walker – No One Left Alone

As the first Black woman to anchor the Boston-area evening news, Liz Walker found herself in an industry that defined the neighborhood of Roxbury largely by violence. But when she became a pastor there, Walker grew close to households marked not only by trauma but by courage — including the family of Cory Johnson, a young father who was murdered. In the wake of their worst nightmare, the family reached out for help. As Walker's congregation invited neighbors to gather, they created soft spaces for others' grief to land. There, in the stories told, the meals shared, the tears shed, and the silences kept, people found a space to receive their sorrow. Out of this ministry grew a grassroots trauma-healing program, one now being replicated across the country. Through this groundbreaking book, begin to imagine what story-sharing groups might look like in your context. Face the disparity of grief that comes from racism and systemic inequality, and learn to confront legacies of harm. Discover the healing power of listening, as well as the art and skills of accompanying someone in pain. Further, grasp how caregivers, pastors, counselors, and other healers — many with their own wounds — can benefit from soft spaces too. Marked by history and surrounded by violence and loneliness, we all long for healing. In the tradition of esteemed writers like Bryan Stevenson and Cole Arthur Riley, Walker writes about how community helps us transfigure trauma. There is nothing dramatic about listening to someone's story or sharing our own. But there is mystery here, and sacredness. No one has to be left alone.

Exhibition Lecture – Emily Dickinson’s Herbarium: The Poet as Botanist

Emily Dickinson's Herbarium is a beautiful and fascinating collection of 424 pressed plants, showing the same kind of careful attention to detail she later applied to her poetry. The Herbarium is not just a reflection of Dickinson's love for nature – it also includes many of the flowers that appear in her poems and letters. By exploring these plants, we can get a deeper understanding of her work. Her collection also offers a glimpse into the local ecology of Amherst, Massachusetts, where she spent her life, with over 220 wildflowers revealing the area’s diverse natural landscape. In this talk,&nbsp;Peter Grima&nbsp;will dive into Dickinson's botanical interests and explain how she created her Herbarium. He’ll show how these plants connect to her poetry and how they can add to the way we interpret her work. He’ll also explore the wildflowers and share what they tell us about the Amherst landscape that Dickinson would have known so well.

Wally and Amanda Koval - Accidentally Wes Anderson: Adventures

Adventure awaits in this new visual odyssey from Accidentally Wes Anderson (AWA), taking readers on stunning trips to every continent and sharing oddly moving human tales along the way. For lovers of travel, design, and exploration, AWA presents a brand-new collection of real-world places that seem plucked from the films of Wes Anderson, and the stories that bring each location to life. You’ll meet the father of American skydiving, who created the officially-sanctioned center of Earth — a California town with a population of two. You’ll visit the “post office at the end of the world” — and meet its mustachioed letter carrier, who runs an anarchist island nation in his free time. And you’ll travel to a town in the Arctic Circle where cats are prohibited, humans may not be buried, and doomsday vaults hold all we need to survive an apocalypse — including the secret recipe for the Oreo cookie. ﻿Authorized by the legendary filmmaker himself, Accidentally Wes Anderson Adventures reminds us that the world is ours to explore.

Nigel Hamilton - Lincoln vs. Davis: The War of the Presidents

From&nbsp;New York Times&nbsp;bestselling presidential biographer&nbsp;Nigel Hamilton&nbsp;comes the greatest untold story of&nbsp;the Civil War: how two American presidents faced off as the fate of the nation hung in the balance—and how Abraham Lincoln came to embrace emancipation as the last, best chance to save the Union. With a cast of unforgettable characters, from first ladies to fugitive coachmen to treasonous cabinet officials,&nbsp;Lincoln vs. Davis&nbsp;is a spellbinding dual biography from renowned presidential chronicler&nbsp;Nigel Hamilton: a saga that will surprise, touch, and enthrall. Tickets are free for members and their guests, and $20 for visitors. More information and registration:&nbsp;<a href="https://events.bostonathenaeum.org/en/nigel-hamilton-lincoln-vs-davis-the-war-of-the-presidents-5a2KUm54Jvd/overview">https://events.bostonathenaeum.org/en/nigel-hamilton-lincoln-vs-davis-the-war-of-the-presidents-5a2KUm54Jvd/overview</a>

Robert W. Fieseler - American Scare

In January 1959, Art Copleston was escorted out of his college accounting class by three police officers. In a motel room, blinds drawn, he sat in front of a state senator and the legal counsel for the Florida Legislative Investigation Committee, nicknamed the “Johns Committee.” His crime? Being a suspected homosexual. And the government of Florida would use any tactic at their disposal—legal or not—to get Copleston to admit it. Using a secret trove of primary source documents that have been decoded and de-censored for the first time in history, journalist&nbsp;Robert W. Fieseler&nbsp;unravels the mystery of what actually happened behind the closed doors of an inquisition that held ordinary citizens ransom to its extraordinary powers. Tickets are free for members and their guests, and $20 for visitors. More information and registration:&nbsp;<a href="https://events.bostonathenaeum.org/en/robert-w-fieseler-american-scare-5a2KUm4yw3d/overview">https://events.bostonathenaeum.org/en/robert-w-fieseler-american-scare-5a2KUm4yw3d/overview</a>

Resist, Endure, Adapt: The Ethics and Practice of Plant Conservation

You have probably heard that diversity is good for the environment, but have you ever wondered how exactly plant diversity benefits ecosystems and the life (including yours) that these ecosystems support? Join CEO of Native Plant Trust Tim Johnson for a wide ranging talk about the history of the conservation movement in the United States, the tools plant conservationists use to protect plants from extinction, and what plant ecology can teach us about how to resist, endure, and adapt when the things we hold dear come under attack. Tickets are free for members and their guests, and $20 for visitors. More information and registration: <a href="https://events.bostonathenaeum.org/en/resist-endure-adapt-the-ethics-and-practice-of-plant-conservation-5a2KUm4yr3x/overview">https://events.bostonathenaeum.org/en/resist-endure-adapt-the-ethics-and-practice-of-plant-conservation-5a2KUm4yr3x/overview</a>

Harder Endowed Lecture: Andrea di Robilant - This Earthly Globe

In&nbsp;This Earthly Globe,&nbsp;&nbsp;Andrea di Robilant&nbsp;brings to life the palace intrigues, editorial wheedling, delicate alliances and vibrant curiosity that resulted in this coup by the editor Giovambattista Ramusio. Learned and self-effacing, he gathered a vast array of both popular and closely guarded narratives, from the journals of Marco Polo (he fact-checked them!) to detailed reports on Northern African cultures from the Muslim scholar and diplomat al-Hasan ibn Mohammad al-Wazzan (later known as Leo Africanus). Diverse voices spill out from these chapters as di Robilant recounts how Ramusio pursued the sources, and how he understood both the darker episodes of “exploration” involving colonial violence and the voyage stories which included accounts of people from African and Asian lands, who had a great deal to share about their cultures. The result is a far-flung and delightful homage to one of the founding fathers of modern geography. Tickets are free for members and their guests, and $20 for visitors. More information and registration:&nbsp;<a href="https://events.bostonathenaeum.org/en/harder-endowed-lecture-andrea-di-robilant-this-earthly-globe-5a2KUm54uVN/overview">https://events.bostonathenaeum.org/en/harder-endowed-lecture-andrea-di-robilant-this-earthly-globe-5a2KUm54uVN/overview</a>

Pressing Matters: The Impact of Print Across the Atlantic, featuring UMass Boston students

The Boston Athenaeum’s Head of Special Collections, John Buchtel, will provide the opening remarks ahead of presentations by UMass-Boston students around the newly installed collective curation,&nbsp;Pressing Matters: The Impact of Print Across the Atlantic, on display this summer in the Athenaeum’s Leventhal Room cases on the first floor. This student-created installation features printed objects that reveal how their printers captured the attention of their audiences through authorial frontispieces, detailed engravings, and tantalizing title pages.&nbsp;This installation is a collaboration between the University of Massachusetts—Boston and the Boston Athenaeum that aims to allow graduate students to work closely with rare books and special collections and to think about the work of public-facing humanities. Tickets are free.

Author Talk with Sara Franklin – The Editor

The Boston Athenaeum will welcome best-selling writer, Sarah B. Franklin, in conversation with Boston-based writer Jessica Carbone, for a discussion on Franklin’s newest biography,&nbsp;The Editor, about legendary editor Judith Jones, the woman behind some of the most important authors of the 20th century—including Julia Child, Anne Frank, Edna Lewis, John Updike, and Sylvia Plath. The book outlines the decades of Judith Jones’ work, starting with her career-defining publishing of&nbsp;Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl&nbsp;through her role at the forefront of the cookbook revolution. &nbsp; Tickets are free for members and their guests, and $20 for visitors.

  Salon Series | The Art and Life of Francesca Alexander

Francesca Alexander and her parents moved from Boston to Florence in 1853 and became part of a thriving international community. She was a largely self-taught artist, and both her art and writing focused on Italians and Italian life. Her portraits and nature studies, and her translations of songs and stories, were much admired by her contemporaries, including John Ruskin, who published three of her manuscripts and promoted her work to his followers. She used her earnings from the sale of these publications, and her art, to fund her many charitable endeavors; both friends and admirers marveled at her saintly character, which they linked to a romantic view of Italy itself. Nonetheless, in spite of her celebrity on both sides of the Atlantic, she and her work have been largely forgotten. Drawing on her work, as well as other sources including letters, diaries, guidebooks, newspapers and magazines, some of them in the collections of the Athenaeum, this talk will provide a vivid biography of Francesca Alexander, her art, and her place in history. ABOUT THE SPEAKER Jacqueline Marie Musacchio&nbsp;is Professor of Art at Wellesley College. Her scholarship examines the intersections of women and art from the Renaissance to the early twentieth century. This talk is based on her recently published book of the same title, which relies in part on manuscripts by Francesca in the collection of the Athenaeum.

S22: conversations

Wondering what to do in Boston? Places to eat? Free activities? Good for a group? Date night spot? Girls night out? The best things to do? Ask Joyraft!

Best places to go in Boston? Things to do? Places to eat?

Questions & answers about things to do in Boston

Recs 💬

Community recs 💬

S4: top picks

The most fun, cool and unique things to do in Boston. Can’t miss events, shows and experiences. Concerts, restaurants, bars, free things in Boston and beyond.

The most fun and cool events happening around Boston

Hot and new things to do in Boston

Hot & new

Hot & new 🔥

S11: happening this weekend

What to do in Boston this weekend? From festivals, concerts, performances, free events, screenings and more, Joyraft has the best things to do in Boston.

25+ things to do in Boston/Cambridge/Somerville this weekend

Things to do in Boston this weekend

This wknd

This weekend for you

S21: roundups

Our top picks: outdoor dining, free events, spring festivals, best bars, upcoming concerts, museum parties - the latest in and around Boston.  Slug: joyraft-top-picks-best-things-to-do-boston-ma

Top picks of the best things to do in and around Boston

Joyraft picks: Boston’s best things to do

Roundups ⭐️

Curated by Joyraft ⭐️

S28: calendar experiences

This week in Boston

This week in Boston 📆

This week 📆

S20: c+d experiences

Discover new, unique events and experiences happening in and around Boston. Perfect for date night, good for a group or with a friend. Be the first to know.

The newest events happening in and around Boston

The newest events on Joyraft

Just added

Just added to Joyraft

S16: editor picks

The most unique and can’t miss things coming up in Boston / Cambridge / Somerville and beyond. Festivals, food, drinks, fairs, concerts, art and free activities.

Unique and Can’t Miss Things to Do in Boston

Can’t-miss things to do in Boston 🚨

Can't-miss things to do 🚨

S2 (A): top experiences

The most popular things to do on Joyraft. Concerts, restaurants, bars, events, parties, openings, kid friendly, date ideas, free things in Boston and beyond.

Top 20 things to do in Boston

Top 20: Joyraft’s most popular

Top 20

Top 20 on Joyraft

S3 (A): trending experiences

Discover can’t miss events and things to do in Boston. The most fun, unique and cool events coming to the Boston area this spring and summer.

The hottest events happening in Boston

Trending events on Joyraft

Trending 📈

S19: interest based

Kid-friendly events in Boston

S18: interest based

Where to eat and drink in Boston? Joyraft has Boston’s newest bars, restaurants and specials. Drinks and pre fixe dinner menus. Cambridge & Somerville too.

Where

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Experiences

Community Day Open House

Slow Art Day

Jennifer Putzi - The Reconstruction Diary of Frances Anne Rollin

The Schoolcraft Collection of Books in Indigenous Languages

Community Day Open House

Author Talk with Liz Walker – No One Left Alone

Exhibition Lecture – Emily Dickinson’s Herbarium: The Poet as Botanist

Wally and Amanda Koval - Accidentally Wes Anderson: Adventures

Nigel Hamilton - Lincoln vs. Davis: The War of the Presidents

Robert W. Fieseler - American Scare

Resist, Endure, Adapt: The Ethics and Practice of Plant Conservation

Harder Endowed Lecture: Andrea di Robilant - This Earthly Globe

Pressing Matters: The Impact of Print Across the Atlantic, featuring UMass Boston students

Author Talk with Sara Franklin – The Editor

Salon Series | The Art and Life of Francesca Alexander