Vita Brevis

Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula is no stranger to tragedy. Every November, the haunting ballad “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” by Gordan Lightfoot can be heard across radio stations throughout the region, commemorating the tragic loss of 29 lives aboard the SS ..

I am very happy to share the news that I am chairing a session at the upcoming National Council on Public History (NCPH)/American Association of State and Local History (AASLH) joint conference in Providence, RI, this September! The roundtable session is titled "The..

Two years ago today, on August 1, 2024, I climbed into my car and drove to one of my favorite places in the world, the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

“There is a superlative that we use for those that go to sea out of this port, the ones that we hold up high, the ones that we honor, the ones whose legacy we treasure…. We call those people the finest kind.” – Massachusetts Senator Bruce E. Tarr.

As the country celebrates the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, it is vital to highlight the contributions of People of Color (and particularly Black Bostonians) to the Revolutionary Era. One of the most notable Black Bostonians..

If your family is anything like mine, you may have inherited boxes of photos and heirlooms passed down through generations—items that often end up in closets or the basement once you’ve been designated the “family keeper.”

Image 1: Charles Bulfinch by Mather Brown, 1786 (courtesy of the Harvard Art Museums).

In 1897, Havelock Ellis and John Addington Symonds published Sexual Inversion, among the first scientific books written about LGBTQ+ individuals. Within it, LGBTQ+ experiences were explored through case studies. These were presented as natural expressions of the human..

Summer has finally come to New England, and I’m getting ready to pack my bags and head north to the islands of Casco Bay, Maine, for my annual sojourn to “Vacationland.”