Inventing Boston: Design, Production, and Consumption-1680-1720

Join us as Edward S. Cooke, Jr. (Yale University) presents his new book, which gives overdue attention to rich history of material culture and consumption in Boston in the late 17th and early 18th centuries.

During this period, Boston was both a colonial capital and the third most important port in the British empire. The city was also an independent entity that articulated its own identity while appropriating British culture and fashion. Edward Cooke examines period dwellings, gravestones, furniture, textiles, ceramics, and silver, revealing through material culture how the inhabitants of Boston were colonial, provincial, metropolitan, and global, all at the same time. This detailed account demonstrates how Bostonians constructed a distinct sense of local identity, a process of hybridization that exhibited a desire to shape a culture as a means to resist a distant power.

There is a pre-talk reception at 5:30. Please follow the ticketing link to register.

There is a $10 per person fee (no charge for MHS Fellows and Members, EBT or ConnectorCare cardholders).