MARBLEHEAD – Community News – MSONEWSPORTS.COM
Featured Speaker at the Friends of Abbot Library’s Annual Meeting Sunday, April 24th
“Two Hundred Years in the Making:
Writing a Feminist History of Marblehead in the 19th Century”
Robert Booth To Discuss His New Book
The Women of Marblehead
Commissioned by the Marblehead Female Humane Society In Celebration of the Society’s 200th Anniversary
On Sunday, April 24th, to enjoy refreshments, beginning at 1:30 pm, and, immediately following, at 2:00 pm, to hear Marblehead author Robert Booth discuss his new book, The Women of Marblehead, an illustrated feminist history of the town in the 19th century, tracing the role of women from poverty and invisibility to autonomy and working-class self-sufficiency. Its publisher is the Marblehead Female Humane Society, which commissioned the book in connection with the organization’s bicentennial. Bob will share the story of the book’s creation, as well as talk about its content: how does a historian approach a subject and then gather and organize the material? Bob will use The Women of Marblehead as the focus, and also refer to his other books, where appropriate.
Light refreshments will be served at 1:30 pm, with the talk beginning at 2:00 pm.
This event is free and open to the public!
Robert Booth works as Executive Director of the Center for Clinical Social Work, a national credentialing and advocacy organization in the field of mental healthcare. He is a native of Marblehead, where he resides with his family.
He began his working life as an assistant offset printer in Marblehead, became a newspaper reporter and book writer, and later worked in Baltimore-Washington in advertising/PR agencies and as a corporate marketing communications manager.
He has had three books published in the past five years, including The Women of Marblehead. In 2011, St. Martin’s Press of New York published his history of Salem in the period 1815-1830. Death of an Empire was named Best Book of New England History in 2012 by the New England Society of the City of New York.
Mad For Glory, brought out by Tilbury House Publishers in November, is about American intervention in the Pacific in 1813, told in terms of a U. S. Navy captain who went rogue with the frigate Essex, and a U.S. diplomat who led the patriot armies during the Chilean revolution.
The Marblehead Female Humane Society [MFHS], the oldest philanthropic organization in Marblehead and among the oldest in Massachusetts, is celebrating its 200th Anniversary throughout 2016. “For 200 years, the Marblehead Female Humane Society has remained faithful to its original mission of Marbleheaders helping Marbleheaders,” said Lee Weed, the organization’s directress. “Since its founding, the Society has continued to quietly and respectfully help Marblehead residents in need.”
On November 19, 1816, the Marblehead Female Humane Society was formally organized by a membership of 125 women with the objective of helping the indigent, sick and infirm in Marblehead. The idea for the Society was first proposed by Reverend John Bartlett in response to the town’s unusual level of poverty after Thomas Jefferson’s Embargo of 1807 and its impact on fishing and commerce; the devastation of The War of 1812; the seizure of American ships and impressment of American sailors into the British Navy, and the year of “no summer” in 1816 when there was a frost every single month of the year, causing gardens and crops to fail. Bartlett had come to Marblehead in the spring of 1811 as the pastor of the Second Congregational Church. A graduate of Harvard College, he was already well-known in Boston where he had served as Chaplain of the Almshouse of Boston from 1807 to 1810, and had initiated the movement which resulted in the founding of McLean Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital
For its bicentennial, the Society commissioned Marblehead historian and author Robert Booth to document the organization’s founding and the women who were at the heart of its history. The Society is very pleased with Bob’s manuscript and the research he conducted to provide a new and inspiring insight into Marblehead’s remarkable 19th century women.
The Abbot Public Library is located at 235 Pleasant Street, Marblehead, MA 01945. For additional information, please call 781-631-1481 or visit www.abbotlibrary.org.
