“Stirring the Pot: Women in Early Massachusetts”

A Panel Discussion in honor of Boston Charter Day
Co-presented by the Bostonian Society and the Partnership of the Historic Bostons

Our panel of distinguished scholars will explore continuity and change in the lives of women in early Massachusetts and will pay special attention to their vital role in creating and sustaining community.  Women had a finger in many pots in the years after Boston’s founding.  Even as they contributed their labor to the household economy and helped to bring food to the table, women nourished kin and neighbor in other ways:  as educators, caregivers, and models of piety.  In this sense, ordinary women were “authors” of community in their homes, their neighborhoods, and their congregations.  Panelists will consider how women from a variety of backgrounds navigated the tensions that surrounded their important and visible place in community life.

Welcome:  Nathaniel Sheidley, Director of Public History, the Bostonian Society

Moderator:  Jonathan L. Fairbanks, Director, Fuller Crafts Museum and Brockton and Katherine Lane Weems Curator Emeritus of American Decorative Art and Sculpture, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Panelists:
Charlotte Gordon, Author, Poet, and Assistant Professor of English at Endicott College
Cornelia H. Dayton, Associate Professor of History at the University of Connecticut

This program is free and open to the public.