Abby Epplett, Historian

Yesterday — Monday, October 30, 2023 at 6:00 p.m. — I watched the three-expert panel Bringing Phillis to Life hosted by Massachusetts Historical Society (MHS) at their headquarters in Boston and streamed via Zoom. The talk focused on the life and work of Phillis Wheatley , a colonial American poet who was the third woman, first Black person, a first enslaved person in British North America to publish a book of poetry, called Poems on Various Subjects Religious and Moral . Each speaker presented for about ten minutes, followed by a twenty minute Q&A. Dr. Tara Bynum, professor at University of Iowa , recently published the book Reading Pleasures: Everyday Black Living in Early America . She spoke in a lyrical style describing surviving letters between Wheatley and her friend, Obour Tanner , another formerly enslaved Black woman who lived in Newport, RI. The letters were written between 1772 and 1779, and they are currently held by MHS , and the story of how they got there

During my trip to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic in June 2023, I visited Museo de las Casas Reales [Museum of the Royal Houses] on Calle Las Damas in Ciudad Colonial . Also known as  Palacio de los Gobernadores [Palace of the Governors], this 512-year-old building housed artifacts related to European settlement on Hispaniola. The building served its original purpose as a government office from its construction in 1511 to 1821, when then-president of Spanish Haiti,  Don José Núñez de Cáceres , declared the island independent from Spain. The Trujillo government modified the building in 1947 to store an armory and weapon collection. The constitutional government restored the building in 1973 and kept the museum open to the public since 1976. In the entrance of Muso de las Casa Reales, a large mural depicted a conquistador, likely Diego Colón , the son of Cristóbal Colón [Christopher Columbus], standing beside a cacique or leader of the Taíno. At the front de

Earlier today — October 26, 2023 at 3:00 p.m. — I watched the webinar Stories from the Archives: Scrapbooks hosted by American Ancestors – New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS) . Leading the talk were collections management archivist Gabrielle Roth and conservator Todd Pattison . Together they covered the history of scrapbooks, the collection of scrapbooks held by The Wyner Family Jewish Heritage Center Archives (JHC) , preservation of scrapbooks, and best practices when creating a scrapbook. Roth began by describing the oldest records in America: petroglyphs carved by Native Americans. Visitors to parks around the country, including Fremont Indian State Park in Utah , can view intricate carvings up to 2000 years old. More recently, European diaries recorded mundane aspects of daily life in private journals, although the demographics of this practice skewed towards wealthy, educated men. During the time of the Enlightenment, Renaissance scribes kept commonpl

During my trip to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic in June 2023, I visited the oldest cathedral in the western hemisphere, Catedral Primada de América , located next to Parque Colón . Its complete name with all epithets is Basílica Catedral de Santa María la Menor, Nuestra Señora de la Encarnación o Anunciación, Primada de América, de Santo Domingo [Basilica Cathedral of Saint Mary the Younger, Our Lady of the Incarnation or Annunciation, First of America, from Santo Domingo]. As a major factor in the decision for Ciudad Colonial to become a UNESCO world heritage site , the five hundred year old Gothic style cathedral offers audio tours in multiple languages, along with supporting a regular parish. To reach the tourist entrance, visitors enter La Plazoleta de los Curas [Little Plaza of the Priests], so called because this was a place for the clergy to gather. The early line of leadership in the church was as interesting as it was confusing. In 1511, Pope Juli