Abby Epplett, Historian

On the same street as Florence Griswold Museum, Old Lyme Historical Society wrote a self-guided walking tour available on their website . This tour provided brief histories and custom watercolor illustrations of buildings. While an audio tour would have been easier to follow, the tour was straightforward and gave plenty of information without requiring too much reading. Sidewalks for most of the route allowed visitors to safely traverse the fairly quiet center of town.

Last Saturday, April 13, I finally visited the Massachusetts State Police Museum located down the street in Whitinsville, MA, which had received three previous mentions on my blog: during the 250 th anniversary of the founding of Northbridge, MA ; the National Park Service Ranger Walkabout “Wonders of Whitinsville” ; and my Quick History Stops of Whitinsville from a few weeks ago. I received a personalized one-on-one tour from a retired state trooper and learned both the history of the police force along with its connections to other events in Massachusetts history.

At last, I reach the conclusion of my journey to visit all thirty-eight properties owned by Historic New England (HNE) . In late September 2023, I made a special day trip to Yarmouth, MA on Cape Cod to visit several historic sites. My first major history stop was Winslow Crocker House , built in nearby West Barnstable around 1780 by maritime trader Winslow Crocker . I received an especially warm welcome from the excellent guides and celebrated my completion of the HNE passport book. This lovingly renovated home filled with antique furniture was the perfect way to bring this phase of my adventure to a close.

For the 1965/1966 edition of The Lord of the Rings released in the United States by Ballantine Books , J.R.R. Tolkien wrote a five-page foreword giving context to his writing process, explaining inspirations behind the story, and rebuking his critics. While Tolkien insisted in this essay, just as he did in letters to fans and during interviews, that little in the book was based on reality, the influence of industrialization and the World Wars, trends in music and art, and historical discoveries affected his ideology presented in the novels. I will use the literary criticism theory of cultural studies to examine this foreword by describing important events that occurred concurrently with the many drafts of the manuscript. Future posts will demonstrate how these events influenced the text itself and my hypothetical animated musical. Near the beginning of the letter, Tolkien explained that one of his primary interests was writing “the mythology and legends of the Eldar Days” ...

In September 2023, I went on another long weekend adventure to northeastern Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire. My first major stop was Rocky Hill Meeting House , a church turned museum owned by Historic New England (HNE) This is the only building out of the thirty-eight HNE properties that was never residential. Rocky Hill Meeting House was built with a vision in mind: creating a Congregationalist church in preparation for the population boom that was sure to come. A smaller meeting house had stood near the site since 1716, but the parishioners wanted bigger and better things. Reverend Samuel Webster had pastored the church since 1741 and dedicated his entire career to this one church community. He had already led the church for forty-four years when he proposed a new building for the coming revival. During construction in 1785, only two years after the end of the American Revolutionary War, this property was part of Salisbury, MA, as modern Am...

On October 24, 2023 at 6:00 p.m., I watched a talk hosted by Skyscraper Museum focused on the book Times Square Remade: The Dynamics of Urban Change by Dr. Lynne Sagalyn , published by MIT Press a few days ago. Sagalyn is a professor emerita and founding director of Paul Milstein Center for Real Estate at Columbia Business School . Her latest book is a sequel to Times Square Roulette: Remaking the City Icon published by MIT Press 20 years ago in 2003. Joining Sagalyn were Carol Willis , the founder and director of the Skyscraper Museum, and Alison Isenberg , a history professor in the Department of History at Princeton University and fellow author who specializes in urban architecture. Willis opened and closed the webinar, while Isenberg acted as a moderator during the conversational second half. Sagalyn began the webinar with a presentation covering the history of Times Square from the 1890s to the present. The area was originally called Longacre Square and served as...

On Thursday, September 21, 2023 at 7:00 p.m., I watched the webinar Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, & Abstract Expressionism lead by Jane Oneail of Culturally Curious . I have previously watched three talks by Oneail: Revolutionary Design: Modern Architecture in New England in May 2023, George Tooker: Modern Life & Magical Realism in June 2023, and Seaside Escapes: The Art & Architecture of the New England Coast in August 2023. Just like for the past two talks, the event was sponsored by the Greater Manchester Integrated Library Cooperative or GMILCS , which describes itself as “a nonprofit consortium of public and academic libraries in New Hampshire”.