Abby Epplett, Historian

This post marks the 300 th entry to my blog! I visited the Berkshires in the summer of 2023 and stopped by First Congregational Church of Lee, MA . During a December blog post , I hinted that I might review the virtual tour hosted on the church website , so here it is a year after the first visit.

While planning day trips to the Essex National Heritage Area, I stumbled upon The Beacons Are Lit: The Lighthouse Keepers of Bakers Island . I was intrigued by the bizarre juxtaposition of a late 18 th century lighthouse in Salem, MA and a line from Peter Jackson’s The Return of the King , so I had to further investigate this short online exhibit. The exhibit begins with a quick review on the history and importance of lighthouses with a special focus on the Pharos of Alexandria in Ancient Greece. Then the exhibit dives right into the importance of the lighthouse on Bakers Island. The current lighthouse is “Pa”, as it was the “husband” of “Ma”, a slightly older and shorter lighthouse next door that was torn down in 1926. Lighthouses have been on the island since 1798, and a keeper was needed to run them. This work was incredibly risky, as third keeper Nathaniel Ward and his assistant Marshall (with no clarity in the exhibit over whether this was a first name or last name...

I recently watched the documentary Primary 1960 , a cinéma vérité or direct cinema documentary created by the director team of Richard Leacock , Albert Maysles , D.A. Pennebaker , and Terence Macartney-Filgate . I first learned about this documentary while researching for my essay “Introduction to the History of Documentaries” , which I posted back in early May. Covering the Wisconsin 1960 primary race between John Fitzgerald Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey , the film takes viewers around the state to get a personal look at the two candidates. Radio and television actor Joseph Julian narrated the documentary in a raspy but soothing voice. The opening scenes introduced viewers to the two candidates. Kennedy signed autographs for city crowds, while Humphrey wore a cool hat while traveling through the countryside. Julian explained in voiceover that many candidates were dreamers, and the primaries were a “process of eliminating these dreamers to select a president.” This type of ...

For all my gallivanting across Massachusetts, I have never toured the Massachusetts State House! Fortunately, the government website provides a virtual tour of these space , allowing me to see panoramic images on the interior from the comfort of my home. This tour highlights nine areas in the statehouse with unique artwork and furniture. 1 st Floor The 1 st Floor of the State House has no artifacts and lists only a few points of interest: house clerk, house council, hearing rooms, house minority, and state bookstore. I wish some explanation had been offered on why this section was left blank, or that details were giving for what business happened in each of the points of interest. 2 nd Floor The 2 nd listed the state auditor, state treasurer, senate counsel, and another hearing room as points of interests in addition to listing several featured areas. Each featured area was represented by a colorful circle on the map of the floor and also in a list underneat...

I had been meaning to watch the Ann & Hope Documentary by David Lawlor from  Run of the Mill , which debuted on YouTube in August 2023, and I finally got around to doing it! This fact-paced film gave the history of the three iterations of Ann & Hope — a boat, a mill, and a department store chain — through twelve chapters, with plenty of interviews, drone shots, music, and animation segments. Rhode Islanders who grew up near an Ann & Hope store will have the chance to reminisce, historians will enjoy the fact-packed content, and cinefiles will appreciate the clever editing. After an opening music video, “Chapter 1: The Creation of the Blackstone River Valley” and “Chapter 2: William Blackstone” focused on the history of the Blackstone valley before the Industrial Revolution. The film introduced park rangers Allison Horrocks (who frequent readers of the blog will remember from Parked at Home ) and Kevin Klyberg of Blackstone River Valley National Historical P...

My latest online exhibit adventure was visiting A Portrait of Tenochtitlan by Dutch technical artist Thomas Kole . Debuting a few months ago in September 2023, this blend of digital models and modern drone photography taken by Andrés Semo Garcia allows visitors to better understand the early 16 th century layout of what is now Ciudad de México [Mexico City] . Translations of the informational signage into Spanish and Nahuatl provided by Rodrigo Ortega Acoltzi add authenticity to the project. Tenochtitlan was the capital of the Mexica empire, a people also known as the Aztecs. Located inside the salty sea that once flooded the Basin of Mexico, the metropolis merged with its twin city, Tlateloco, to become a major place of trade. At its height, the population of Tenochtilan reached 200,000 people, about the size of the nearest city to me, Worcester, MA . As for the entire Triple Alliance [ Triple Alianza , Excan Tlahtoloyan ] formed with the city-states of Tlacopan and T...

While researching for the Lord of the Rings: The Animated Musical installment “Prologue, 2 Concerning Pipeweed” , I came across an online exhibit hosted by Forbes House Museum , a historic house in nearby Milton, MA not far from Historic New England’s Eustis Estate , which I last visited in December 2022 and posted about exactly a year ago . This straightforward, to the point exhibit presents a candid look to one wealthy American family’s contribution to addiction and war in China during the Qing Dynasty , or late 18 th to mid-19 th century. The exhibit give a quick introduction and museum statement before diving into six topics concerning the China trade. Introduction & Museum Statement In 1784, American merchants began their trade with China in a range of products, including tea, porcelain, and opium. A long list of Boston Brahmin families — a term once used for wealthy Anglo-Americans who ran the government in colonial, federalist, and early constitutional Am...

While the physical exhibition currently touring the country through the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES) will not reach the northeast until late 2025 and early 2026, the online equivalent of The Bias Inside Us can be viewed at any time from anywhere in the world. This succinct and informative conversation piece on understanding bias comes with an educators toolkit and links to research used when created the exhibit. The experience includes a brief introduction, a six-part online exhibition, and a thorough “About” section to learn highlighting the many contributing voices. Introduction A clever scrolling digital art piece at the start of the introduction gave the definition of bias as used in the exhibition along with the increasingly familiar quote, “We are all members of the same race… the human race.” Unfortunately, because I usually set my browser font size to “large” due to visual impairment, the bottom of each card in the section overv...

Last year during Day 2 of Smithsonian National Education Summit 2023 , I learned about Becoming US , a high school level educational resource for teaching about immigration and migration. Based on the website of the National Museum of American History (NMAH) , this resource includes classroom guides, a glossary, news articles, videos, and activities for students in 8 th through 11 th grade. Although I have not been in that demographic for over ten years, I enjoyed learning about these topics from multiple perspectives. About This section explained that the online project began in 2014 as part of a collection of in-person, print, and virtual productions. The exhibit Many Voices, One Nation and accompanying book Many Voices, One Nation: Material Culture Reflections on Race and Migration in the United States provided much of the material found in the lessons. Resources Preparing to Teach NMAH provides a forty-four page guide made in collaboration with Teachi...

While I have often read about the Dead Sea Scrolls and referenced them in my work, I did not know the detailed history of the scrolls. Fortunately, Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) — the current holder of the scrolls — has created The Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library to share these artifacts, explain how the scrolls were written, and give a timeline for how they came into the IAA collection. Google assisted in the creation of the website, which is available in English, Modern Hebrew, German, Russian, and Arabic, allowing a wide range of people to study the scrolls. The website contains images of the scrolls themselves, along with opportunity to “Learn about the Scrolls” and “About the Project” of digitization. Featured Scrolls While all scrolls found during “the greatest archaeological event of the twentieth century” (although the website might be biased) are highly important to the understanding of life in Ancient Israel, some scrolls contain more or bett...

For my birthday, I received the book Greek and Roman Technology by K.D. White , published in 1984 by Thames & Hudson with Cornell University Press . While the author claimed this book was “no more than a survey, and a starting-off point” (173), his work was by far the most extensive information I have found on the subject. The book was divided into two parts. In Part I, White outlined the technologies available in Ancient Greece and Rome while explaining the environment in which these were developed. In Part II, White divided technologies into categories and explains each category in detail. At the back of the book were extensive information on White’s sources, several appendices, tables, a bibliography, endnotes, and an index. White opened his book with his “Introduction” pointing out what he claims to be inaccurate work done by other historians and archaeologists. He had written this book to fill “the need for an up-to-date account of the technical resources of the...