Happy New Year! I’m a firm believer in “anniversary history” and I like to start out the new year previewing (or guessing) what commemorations we might see. This past year was a busy one with the 400th anniversary of two major ports in our area, Gloucester and Portsmouth, as well as Rye and Dover, New Hampshire. I was really impressed with Gloucester’s year-long commemoration, especially its 400 Stories project, which will be a lasting legacy. Salem’s 400th is coming up in 2026, and I’ve been working on a book though all of last year and part of 2022 for that big anniversary: I’m handing it off to the publisher this month and eager to work on some other projects. 2024 looks a bit quiet in comparison with some other years but I’m sure there will be several Revolution 250 events. Salem was very much the center of the action in 1774 so I hope our city can rise to the occasion. Here’s where I think/know/hope we will see some reflective/commemorative activity:
Indigenous History: It seems to0 large a concurrence to me to have the 100th anniversary of Indian Citizenship Act occur in 1924 and the 200th anniversary of the establishment of the Bureau of Indian Affairs not to have a major reflective moment, especially given the current and intensifying historiographical interest in Native American history. We certainly need one (or two or three or…….) moments of reflection. Again, NOT an American historian, so a bit shocked that unqualified citizenship was not granted to Native Americans until 1924 (actually, I don’t think I can use the word unqualified) and their voting rights were still challenged after that!
Essay on citizenship by a student at the Leech Lake Indian School, 1917-1920, Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Record Group 75. “the ones who steal or TELL LIES are not good citizens.” (capitalization mine)
Winter Olympics (on a much lighter note): the first Winter Olympics was held in 1924 in Chamonix, France, and in the following year the International Olympic Committee voted to make it a regular event every four years. Now of course the summer and winter Olympics are staggered, and as this summer’s games are in Paris I think there will be some kind of recognition of the centennial from a cultural and/or French perspective.
Courtesy Swann Auctions
Impressionism: Speaking of France, the first impressionist exhibition happened in Paris in 1874, and this cultural watershed will be marked with a major exhibition at the Musée d’Orsay that will travel to the US later in the year. 130 works will be featured, including paintings by Monet, Renoir, Degas, Morisot, Pissarro, Sisley and Cézanne and some of their lesser-known contemporaries, as well as an “immersive expedition in virtual reality” entitled “Tonight with the Impressionists.” Looking over all the previews for this commemoration, I realize that I’ve never appreciate how radical the Impressionist movement was—looking forward to this spring.
Claude Monet, Impression, soleil levant (détail), 1872-1873, musée Marmottan Monet, Paris © RMN-Grand Palais
Salem as center of pre-Revolutionary activity: 1774 was a big year for Salem in terms of Revolutionary activity. Royal Governor Thomas Gage moved the location of the Massachusetts General Court from Boston to Salem, where he hoped it would be “more inclined to comply with the King’s Expectations,” in June but compliance was not forthcoming. Not at all. The Salem assembly would not comply or even be disbanded after Gage’s order, instead resolving to endorse “a meeting of Committees, from the several Colonies on this Continent … to consult upon the present state of the Colo¬ nies, and the miseries, to which they are, and must be reduced, by the operation of certain Acts of Parliament respecting America ; and to deliberate and determine upon wise and proper measures to be by them recommended to all the Colonies, for the recovery and establishment of their just rights and liberties.” This “meeting of Committees” became known as the Continental Congress. Later in the summer, after Gage prohibited town meetings without his prior approval, Salem held one which drew over 3000 attendees, and in the fall a Salem “tea party” on October 3 was followed by a de facto declaration of independence. After yet another Gage cancellation, of a meeting of the Massachusetts General Court, its members met anyway on October 5 and voted “to resolve themselves into a Provincial Congress” which was not answerable to London.
Print depicting the arrivl of Rochaembeau’s troops in Newport in July 1780, Daniel Chodowiecki, The Society of the Cincinnati, Washington, DC.
Gloves with Lafayette’s image from the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; a silk bag from the Smithsonian’s Cooper Hewitt Museum, and a ribbon from the collection at Lafayette College.
