Abby Epplett, Historian

Last night — June 13, 2024, from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. — I attended the webinar How NOT to Make Films: 15 Years of Failures, Mishaps, and Lessons Learned hosted by documentarian Adam Mazo and educator Dr. Mishy Lesser , co-founders of Upstander Project , and moderated by N. Bruce Duthu , a professor at Dartmouth. For a portion of the talk, they were joined by special guest speaker Ben Pender-Cudlip , a filmmaker and cinematographer. I appreciated how each speaker described their cultural and ancestral background before speaking so the audience could better understand their point of view. Mazo and Dr. Lesser are Ashkenazi Jewish, Duthu is from Houma Nation in Louisiana, and Pender-Cudlip has British ancestry. Dr. Lesser and Mazo created their first film, Coexist , in 2014 to bring awareness to communities in Rwanda twenty years after a genocide. Mazo had first visited Rwanda in 2006 and returned to attend workshops. Dr. Lesser wrote a teacher’s guide to accompany the fil...

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 ...

In this week’s installment of my mini-series on the Appendixes of The Lord of the Rings , I focus on Appendix A (ii), which is divided into two sections — “The Northern Line: Heirs of Isildur”, and “The Southern Line: Heirs of Anárion”. This section reads similar to a genealogy, last discussed during my overview of Appendix A , but instead of moving from father to son, the lists move between kings, and later to chieftains or stewards. The many names and dates become overwhelming, even to a seasoned reader, so I am selecting a few notable kings in the lists and drawing comparisons between their fictional stories and those in real world history. Founding an Empire Both lists begin with Elendil, discussed last week in my essay on Appendix A (i) as a flood survivor character, similar to Noah in Genesis 6 or Utnapishtim in The Epic of Gilgamesh . Upon arriving in Middle-earth, Elendil took a different role: the founder of an empire. History is filled with famous first king...

On Thursday, June 6, 2024 from 6:30 p.m. to 7:45 p.m., I watched a webinar about an upcoming exhibit at Historic New England’s Eustis Estate Museum : “The Importance of Being Furnished: Four Bachelors at Home”. This exhibit was curated by R. Tripp Evans , an art history professor at my undergraduate alma mater Wheaton College, along with a material culture and historic preservation expert. The talk was introduced by public program administrator Moriah Illsley and site manager Karla Rosenstein. I first learned about this exhibition during  Day 1 of Historic New England Summit 2023  and wanted to find out more. Evans’ is based on his book by the same name, which was released on June 4 by Rowman & Littlefield . Both book and talk began with an anecdote about his grandmother’s house at 1821 Park Avenue in Richmond, VA. His grandmother moved into the house in December 1944, and his grandfather died suddenly only three days after moving in. Evans recalled being more ...

Have you ever wanted to explore a lighthouse nowhere near a major body of water, but very close to a major league sports stadium, and learn history along the way? If you live in New England, you are in luck. Gillette Stadium Lighthouse in Foxborough, MA is just that. This addition to the recently renovated Gillette Stadium, home to the National Football League (NFL) team New England Patriots and Major League Soccer (MLS) team New England Revolution, is the tallest “lighthouse” in America, the quotes being that while the building is a lighthouse in form, it does not serve the practical purpose of a lighthouse in guiding ships to safety. Instead, LED lights at the top of the Lighthouse are “programmed to show colors and movement”, with additional lights on its side. I visited during the day when no game was happening, so the Lighthouse was unlit.

Last Sunday, I took a day trip to see places of history and culture in southeastern Massachusetts. My third stop was D.W. Field Park , located across the street from Fuller Craft Museum. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 2000 , the park currently encompasses 800 acres with seven miles of paved roads, multiple ponds, a sixty-five foot tall Central Memorial Tower, and an eighteen hole municipal golf course. The park has been described as the “Jewel of Brockton”.

My second stop during my adventure last Sunday was Fuller Craft Museum in Brockton, MA. This small, two-story museum with an outdoor sculpture garden doubles as a venue for programs and events, weddings, and classes. Five exhibits were on display during my visit, including a portrait collection, illustrations by a local high schooler, a basketball-inspired installation, button-ladened fashion pieces, and sci-fi sculptures.

Yesterday, — on Sunday, June 2 — I went on an adventure to southeastern Massachusetts and visited a few historical places. The first stop was Borderland State Park in Easton and Sharon, MA, which included a stone mansion once owned by the Ames family and now listed on the National Register of Historic Places , walking trails, and Smith Farm.

Continuing with my miniseries on the Appendixes at the end of The Lord of the Rings , I came to the first part of the first section of the Appendix A, which focused on First and Second Age history of the Valar, Elves, Númenóreans, and magical objects. J.R.R. Tolkien packed an excessive amount of information into these six pages, which explained references found in the Prologue and dialogue portions of the books. I imagine scholars have written postgraduate papers on the subject, likely pairing these descriptions with additional material found in the Silmarillion and other prequels. To make this material manageable for a blog post, I will focus on how these people, places, and things relate to similar examples found in real-world mythology and folklore. Three Jewels, Two Trees, One Greedy Valar The large number of powerful rings floating around Middle-earth were not the first form of magic objects gone bad to be made in Arda, the Earth-like planet where Middle-earth was...

Today marks the second birthday of Abby Epplett, Historian . Two years ago, I posted my first review, which featured the “How Do You See the World?” Experience & Mapparium . Last year, on the first birthday of the blog , I counted down my top ten best performing posts, along with giving a general overview about blog viewership, and I will do the same this year. This is the 281 st post for the blog, bringing me to 156 posts in my second year, compared to 125 posts in my first year.

For the second week of my miniseries on the Appendixes of The Lord of the Rings , I look at the brief introduction to “Appendix A: Annals of the Kings and Rulers”, which appears on page 341 of Part Three The Return of the King , directly opposite the final page of dialogue. Annals — written histories focusing on political leaders — are found across the real world in literate cultures, but few survived in legible forms or are deemed interesting enough to study. J.R.R. Tolkien successfully managed both when construction the fictional history of Middle-earth. This introduction described how the following parts of the section were written in-universe. Bilbo Baggins had an interest in the First Age, as Elrond’s family was influential during that time, although the text does not clarify if these sections were part of his translations from Elvish languages that he gifted to Frodo. “Appendix A III Durin’s Folk” was based on work by Gimli, noted in the text for maintaining a friends...

Last Sunday, March 19, I visited Old Slater Mill from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. and joined a host of community groups advocating for the building of a fish passage. This is the third event I have attended to raise awareness around this issue, the first two being the Fish Passage Celebration in May 2023 , and Be the Voice of Kittacuck in October 2022 . Since the construction of dams in the 18th century to control water power on the Blackstone River and its tributaries, herring and other migratory fish have been unable to properly make their seasonal journeys. This has disrupted the ecosystem and badly affected fishers.