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Timothy O'Sullivan is one of America’s most famous war photographers. His image A Harvest of Death, taken at Gettysburg, is an icon of the Civil War.  He also photographed the American West. Now writer Robert Sullivan shows us the artist’s life and work, the history of photography and our country, as he follows O’Sullivan’s path on his own personal exploration of the West.

O'Sullivan was among the first photographers to elevate the trade of photography to the status of fine art. The images of the American West he made while traveling with the surveys led by Clarence King and George Wheeler display a prescient awareness of what photography would become. At the same time, we know very little about O'Sullivan the man and landscapes he captured.

Robert Sullivan’s Double Exposure sets off in pursuit of these two enigmas. This book documents the author’s own road trip across the West in search of the places, many long forgotten or paved over, that O'Sullivan pictured. It also shows how changes to our country and its landscape were already under way in the 1860s and '70s, and how these changes were a continuation of the Civil War.

In celebration of the July 4 holiday, join us for a fascinating presentation and discussion of one phrase from the Declaration of Independence, “the pursuit of happiness.”  With Jeffrey Rosen of the National Constitution Center and host of the We the People weekly podcast, we’ll look at what this unalienable right meant to our nation’s Founders, how it defined their lives and became the foundation of our democracy.

In profiles six of our country’s most influential founders—Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton—this new, thought-filled book shows what pursuing happiness meant in their lives. It was a quest for being good, not feeling good, demonstrating a pursuit of lifelong virtue, not short-term pleasure. Among those virtues were the habits of industry, temperance, moderation, and sincerity. Their views were inspired by readings of the classical Greek and Roman moral philosophers. More than an elucidation of the Declaration’s famous phrase; The Pursuit of Happiness is a revelatory journey into the minds of the Founders. Join us to hear from Jeffrey Rosen and gain a deep, rich, and fresh understanding of the foundation of our democracy.

When Women Ran Fifth Avenue: Glamour and Power at the Dawn of American Fashion is a glittering portrait of the golden age of American department stores and of three visionary women who led them. Journalist Julie Satow draws back the curtain to reveal the masterminds behind the creation and shopping experience at Hortense Odlum’s Bonwit Teller, Dorothy Shaver’s Lord & Taylor, and Geraldine Stutz’s Henri Bendel.

The twentieth century American department store was a palace of consumption where every wish could be met under one roof – afternoon tea, a stroll through the latest fashions, a wedding (or funeral) planned. It was a place where women, shopper and shopgirl alike, could stake out a newfound independence. Whether in New York or Chicago or on Main Street, USA, men owned the store buildings, but inside, women ruled. In this hothouse atmosphere, three women and their department stores rose to the top, Hortense Odlum (Bonwit Teller), Dorothy Shaver (Lord & Taylor), and Geraldine Stutz (Henri Bendel). They took great risks and forged new paths for the women who followed in their footsteps. Her new book captures the department store in all its glitz, decadence, and fun, and showcases the women who made that beautifully curated world go round.

Join us for this stylish account, an illustrated presentation by the author followed by a discussion with fashion curator Petra Slinkard.

Drawn from never-before-published records and letters, this heralded work of history offers an intimate account of the horrors witnessed and endured during the Great San Francisco Earthquake and Fire. Join us to hear more from the award-winning author Matthew Davenport about his research, see rare photographs, and listen to tragic tales of loss and survivors’ experiences on the morning of April 18, 1906. 

More than 118 years ago, San Francisco, the largest city in the Western U.S. shook, crumbled, burned, and was completely devastated in an incomprehensible show of force by nature. In less than a minute, shockwaves shook the city, buckled its streets, shattered water mains, collapsed buildings on slumbering residents, and crushed hundreds. Then came the devastating fires, a second round of destruction that lasted weeks. From archival sources and hundreds of previously unpublished letters, many from private family collections; Matthew J. Davenport weaves a harrowing tale of the fateful day. Meticulously researched and gracefully written, The Longest Minute is both a harrowing chronicle of devastation, and a portrait of a city’s resilience in the burning aftermath of the Great San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906.

Historic preservationist and Civil War reenactor Joseph McGill Jr. has logged more than 200 nights sleeping in slave dwellings at historic sites in twenty-five states and the District of Columbia. In this enlightening personal account, he tells the story of his groundbreaking Slave Dwelling project. His quest to share the experience of the enslaved took him throughout the South, but also the North and the West, where people are often surprised to learn that such structures exist.

With journalist Herb Frazier, McGill reveals the fascinating history behind these sites and sheds light on larger issues of race in America.

Celebrating women throughout our country’s diverse history, Tiya Miles, award-winning Harvard historian, converses with Pulitzer Prize winner Laurel Thatcher Ulrich about the natural world and the women who changed America. 

Louisa May Alcott ran wild, eluding gendered expectations in New England. Harriet Tubman, forced to labor outdoors on a Maryland plantation, learned from the land a terrain for escape. The Indigenous women’s basketball team from Fort Shaw, Montana, recaptured a sense of pride in physical prowess as they trounced competitors at the 1904 World’s Fair. Spotlighting such women who acted on their confidence outdoors, Wild Girls brings new context to misunderstood icons like Sacagawea and Pocahontas, and to underappreciated figures like Native American activist writer Zitkála-Šá, also known as Gertrude Bonnin, farmworkers’ champion Dolores Huerta, and labor and Civil Rights organizer Grace Lee Boggs.

For these trailblazing women of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, navigating the woods, following the stars, playing sports, and taking to the streets in peaceful protest were not only joyful pursuits; they were techniques to resist assimilation, racism, and sexism. Lyrically written and full of archival discoveries, this beautiful, meditative work of history puts girls of all races—and the landscapes they loved—at center stage, and reveals the impact of the outdoors on women’s independence, resourcefulness, and vision.

In this special Writing History event presented by American Ancestors in partnership with Massachusetts Historical Society, Steve Inskeep, the popular historian-author and host of NPR’s Morning Edition and Up First, discusses his new book, Differ We Must, a compelling and nuanced exploration of Abraham Lincoln’s political acumen. His presentation closes with an extended conversation about the hows and whys of writing about history.

The author of Jacksonland and Imperfect Union joins us to discuss his-just released work about Abraham Lincoln and his political times. In this fresh and compelling narrative, rich in detail and enlightening commentary, Steve Inskeep expands our understanding of the great politician, a man led by his moral compass, but also his priorities. He shows how many of Lincoln’s greatest acts came about through his engagement with people who disagreed with him.

Following Inskeep’s discussion of Lincoln and his new book, he engages in an extended conversation and Q+A session with Ryan Woods and Catherine Allgor about his process for writing histories and the importance of such story-telling. Past authors featured in the Writing History series include Nathaniel Philbrick, H. W. Brands, Eric Jay Dolin, and Stacy Schiff.

Presented by American Ancestors' American Inspiration author series in partnership with The Massachusetts Historical Society, GBH Forum Network, and Porter Square Books.

Join us on an genealogical quest – an author’s exploration of her family and its history, brought to life in Benjamin Banneker and Us: Eleven Generations of an American Family, named a Best Book of the Year by the New Yorker. Don’t miss Rachel Webster’s presentation and conversation with historian Kendra Field about her experience connecting with relatives across lines of color, culture, and time.

In 1791, Thomas Jefferson hired a Black man to help survey Washington, DC. That man was Benjamin Banneker, an African American mathematician, a writer of almanacs, and one of the greatest astronomers of his generation. Banneker then wrote what would become a famous letter to Jefferson, imploring the new president to examine his hypocrisy, as someone who claimed to love liberty yet was an enslaver. More than two centuries later, Rachel Jamison Webster, an ostensibly white woman, learns that this groundbreaking Black forefather is also her distant relative. Acting as a storyteller, Webster draws on oral history and conversations with her DNA cousins to imagine the lives of their shared ancestors across eleven generations, among them Banneker’s grandparents, an interracial couple who broke the law to marry.

Two journalist-professors discuss the history of women in American journalism from 1840 to the present; and the new book Undaunted, which showcases the exceptional careers of such impactful reporters as Margaret Fuller, Rachel Carson, Joan Didion, and Martha Gellhorn.

Join us in Women’s History Month to examine the lives of some of the best-remembered and long-forgotten woman journalists, standout reporters who covered the major news stories and every conflict at home and abroad since before the Civil War. In addition to chronicling the careers of journalists and newsroom leaders, Undaunted explores the larger story: the nearly two-centuries-old struggle for women’s rights as it manifests in a field where women have never found easy welcome. The book documents their collective fight for equity from the gentle stirrings of the late 1800s to the work, actions, and pronouncements of celebrated journalists such as Ida Tarbell, Ida B. Wells, and Kate Masterson as the century turned, on to Pauline Frederick, Anne O'Hare McCormick, Martha Gelhorn, and Charlayne Hunter-Gault in the first half of the 20th; through the legal battles of the 1970s to the #MeToo movement and onward. With Tracy Lucht, Kroeger will discuss the huge and singular impact women have had on this vital profession still dominated by men.

This program is presented by the American Inspiration Series from American Ancestors/NEHGS and presented in partnership with with the Boston Public Libraryand the GBH Forum Network.

In this dual biography of two famous women whose sons changed the course of the 20th century, the award-winning historian Charlotte Gray breathes new life into Jennie Jerome Churchill and Sara Delano Roosevelt. Passionate Mothers, Powerful Sons offers a fulsome portrait of how leaders are not just born but made. 

Sara Delano, the mother of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Jennie Jerome, the mother of Winston Churchill, were both born into upper-class America in 1854. A vivacious extrovert, Jennie married Lord Randolph Churchill, a rising politician and scion of a noble British family. Deeply conventional Sara Delano married a man as old as her father. As mothers, both woman turned their energies toward enabling their sons to reach the epicenter of political power on two continents. Set against one hundred years of history and filled with intriguing social insight, Passionate Mothers, Powerful Sons reveals how these two remarkable individuals with dramatically different personalities shaped the characters of their adoring sons, men who would go on to change the world.