Skip navigation

Winter Lecture Series 2023

• Ann Gass presented material from her book, We Demand: The Suffrage Road Trip.
  In 1915, four women left San Francisco for Washington D.C. on a desperate and dangerous mission to demand an amendment to the U.S. Constitution enfranchising women. The story unfolds through the eyes of unsung heroes Ingeborg Kindstedt and Maria Kindberg, middle-aged Swedish immigrants who own the car, do all the driving, and fix what goes wrong. Among many other adventures, the women lose their way in a trackless Nevada desert and get stuck in the mud in Kansas. Can they arrive in Washington at the appointed day and time?
• Nicholas Bonneau presented "An Accounting of the Dead" about the Arch Street Project in Philadelphia.
  In 2016, developers in Philadelphia discovered their building site at 218 Arch Street was a cemetery thought to have been moved to the Mount Moriah Cemetery across town in 1860. Volunteers from the Arch Street Project have worked to understand not only why these interments were not moved, but also about the lives and deaths of these individuals.
  Dr. Bonneau, the primary historian of the project, took us through the history of this congregation and community of the dead (1709 to 1859) using techniques that combine the modern technologies of skeletal, DNA, and isotopic analysis with related church documents to identify these individuals. As this was presented virtually, there's a link to the recording:
  Bonneau Presentation Archived on Zoom (passcode: a$S1+dae)
• Ted Fleischaker presented "India & Congress Streets – The Ethnic History of an Intersection."
  In the 1920s and before, many Jewish immigrants settled on Portland’s Munjoy Hill and adjoining streets. There was a Jewish community along Hampshire Street. This included a Kosher bakery, butchers, shops, and homes. Two synagogues still stand: Etz Chaim at India and Congress Streets and the building that housed Shaarey Tphiloh on Newbury Street. Fleishaker told us what happened to Punsky’s Drug Store, Levinsky’s Army & Navy, the bakeries, and other synagogues that dotted this area. He also identified remaining historic remnants of this once robust Jewish neighborhood.
• Herb Adams presented his updated talk, "And the Sea Shall Take Them All—The Wreck of the SS Portland," on the sinking of the SS Portland and how it affected the town and its residents.
  125 years ago, the wreck of the SS Portland, became the largest loss of life at sea in a single storm in New England history. Some 200 souls were lost in a storm so severe that it was known as "The Great Portland Gale." On the weekend after Thanksgiving 1898, the sidewheel steamship carried home a cross-section of city life—immigrants, politicians, servants, businessmen, brokers, infants, and entire families—all lost in "The greatest wind that ever swallowed New England." The city’s African American population was especially hard-hit. Adams told us why the ship sailed and where it was lost. His illustrated talk featured underwater remotely operated vehicle (ROV) images of the wreck as it is today deep off Cape Cod, still holding its secrets.