Events

Couldn’t attend the live lecture of House Histories and Fascinating Finds on January 12? View a video of the lecture here. Need the Handout? Download a copy of the accompanying handout in PDF format here.

UPCOMING:

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Murder at the Harvard Medical School
In person, speaker: Honorable Dennis J. Curran, Justice, Massachusetts Superior Court (ret.)
Thursday, April 13, 7:00 p.m.
Location: Charlotte and William Bloomberg Medford Public Library
Free. Register on Eventbrite here.

The case Commonwealth v. Webster, the most legally historical trial in the history of Massachusetts, established the legal principal “proof beyond a reasonable doubt” a requirement that has since been adopted by most other states. This was the first trial to use forensic science, forensic evidence, forensic experts and dental forensic evidence in trial. It also defined “murder” and “manslaughter”.  Few, if any, cases have produced the number of fundamental legal principles used throughout our nation today as Commonwealth v. Webster.  This presentation will address the compelling and intriguing facts behind this landmark decision on so many issues in criminal jurisprudence.
This program is supported in part by a grant from the Medford Arts Council, a local commission that is supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council and the City of Medford.

For more on the case, you might be interested in:
Blood & Ivy: The 1849 Murder That Scandalized Harvard
By Paul Collins

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Chasing Me to My Grave: An Artist’s Memoir of the Jim Crow South
Speakers: Patsy Rembert and Erin I. Kelly
Thursday, May 4, 7:00 p.m., Charlotte and William Bloomberg Medford Public Library
Free. Register on Eventbrite here.

Patsy Rembert and Erin I. Kelly, will discuss Winfred Rembert’s memoir, Chasing Me to My Grave: An Artist’s Memoir of the Jim Crow South, which in 2022 was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in biography. This program will include slides of Rembert’s remarkable paintings on leather.  Winfred Rembert grew up in Cuthbert, GA, where he picked cotton as a child. As a teen-ager, he got involved in the civil-rights movement and was arrested in the aftermath of a demonstration. He later broke out of jail, survived a near-lynching, and spent seven years in prison. Following his release, in 1974, he married Patsy, and eventually set­tled in New Haven. At the age of 51, he began carving and painting memories from his youth onto leather, using skills he had learned in prison. Rembert passed away on March 31, 2021. He was honored by the Equal Justice Initiative in 2015 and awarded a US Artists Barr Fellowship in 2016.

Patsy Rembert met Winfred while he was in prison and doing forced labor near her home in Turner County, GA. After four years of letter-writing, the two married upon his release in 1974 and moved north, settling in New Haven, CT, where they raised eight children and Mrs. Rembert became a longtime youth advocate.  It was Patsy who first convinced her husband to pursue art seriously, and to tell his life story visually, using the leather-tooling skills he’d learned in prison.

Erin I. Kelly is Professor of Philosophy at Tufts University and co-author of Chasing Me to My Grave. She is also the author of The Limits of Blame: Rethinking Punishment and Responsibility (Harvard University Press, 2018). She writes and speaks about ethics and social justice, especially in connection with criminal law.  Her current work aims, among other things, to develop a philosophical understanding of restorative justice as an alternative to retributive accounts of punishment.

Presentation Supported by a grant from the Medford Community Fund.

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HISTORY BOOK CLUB

Deliberate Cruelty: Truman Capote, The Millionaire’s Wife, and The Murder of the Century
Discussion Leader: Barbara Kerr
Wednesday, May 17, at 7:00 p.m., Local History Room a Charlotte and William Bloomberg Medford Public Library
Register through the Library Calendar here.

When Ann Woodward shot her husband, her life changed forever. Though she claimed she thought he was a prowler, few believed the former showgirl, and no one was more obsessed with the tale than Truman Capote. Capote decided the story of Ann’s turbulent marriage would be the basis of his next masterpiece—never thinking that it would eventually lead to Ann’s suicide and his own scandalous downfall.
Roseanne Montillo, the author, lives outside of Boston, and is a former resident of Medford.

Co-Sponsored by MHSM and the  Charlotte and William Bloomberg Medford Public Library

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“Coming Together” with Frederick Law Olmsted
Speaker Brianne Cassette, Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site
Thursday, June 15, 7:00 p.m., Charlotte and William Bloomberg Medford Public Library
Free. Register on Eventbrite here.

As the nation’s first landscape architect, Frederick Law Olmsted designed parks with purpose- and none more important than for people to be their best selves. To better connect with their health, their spirit, with nature and with each other. Olmsted wrote how time spent in a public park could animate local citizens “with a common purpose, not at all intellectual, competitive with none, disposing to jealousy and spiritual or intellectual pride toward none, each individual adding by his mere presence to the pleasure of all others, all helping to the greater happiness of each,” that we “must come together, and be seen coming together.” Join staff from Olmsted National Historic Site to discuss Olmsted’s lofty goals and how he aimed to achieve them in his public works. We will also look at how some key design ideals and features can be seen in the work of his sons and their predecessors in community planning, public buildings, and private estates.