American Studies Seminar for Undergraduates: Poetry in the Press

Who in the twenty-first-century reads newspapers and journals for poetic inspiration? Yet in the nineteenth-century, newspapers and magazines featured poems covering a wide variety of topics: labor, fashion, abolition, temperance, war, women’s rights, death, love, nature, religion, and more. In this year's American Studies Seminar, students will examine poetry in nineteenth-century periodicals and other forms of mass printing (broadsides, chapbooks, compilations).

Finding Materials for Enviornmental Studies

Researchers can find a variety of primary and secondary sources for environmental studies through approximately 1900 in North America. The following research guide is intended to serve as a starting point for your research.

Finding Primary Sources

The General Catalog uses genre/form terms to make findable enivonmental studies materials through approximately 1900. Researchers can use the following terms:

The Inaugural Harry and Jane Dewey Lecture with Jeffrey Rosen

Join us in person or virtually as Jeffrey Rosen discusses his newest book, The Pursuit of Happiness: How Classical Writers on Virtue Inspired the Lives of the Founders and Defined America.  The Declaration of Independence identified “the pursuit of happiness” as one of Americans' unalienable rights, along with life and liberty. In his book, Rosen profiles six of the most influential founders of the United States—Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton—to show what pursuing happiness meant in their lives.

Chat with a Curator: Finding William Lewis

During this free, drop-in program you will learn about William Lewis (1819 – 1897), who kept a daily diary for fifty-nine of his seventy-eight years.  Many of his journals and record books will be available to view and read. In addition, Christie Higginbottom and Bruce Craven, who in 2012 first discovered Lewis's diaries in a wooden box at the Tolland (Connecticut) Antiques Show, and Ashley Cataldo, AAS curator of manuscripts, will be available to answer questions and give deeper insights into Lewis's life.

Artist in the Archive: New Works with Jazzmen Lee-Johnson

Join us virtually or in person for a conversation between visual artist Jazzmen Lee-Johnson and AAS councilor Deborah Hall about Lee-Johnson's work creating the textile installation Not Never More, a visual response to nineteen-century French wallpaper Les Vues d’Amérique du Nord (The Views of North America). Created in 1834 by Jean-Julien Deltil, this wallpaper adorns the foyer and staircase of the historic Nightingale-Brown House in Providence, RI.

Living in New England in the Age of Revolutions

Popular accounts of the American Revolution often emphasize the contributions of New England. When they invoke the region, they frequently mean Massachusetts, more specifically Boston, and often a set of fifteen to twenty men in particular—occasionally narrowed down simply to two Adamses, a Hancock, perhaps an Otis and Cushing, and maybe a Benjamin Edes or Paul Revere. This course will expand that perspective. New England encompassed a broad geography and range of experiences during the second half of the eighteenth century.

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