Victorian Boston

An Interdisciplinary Summer Institute

July 11-12, 2014
Boston University College of General Studies
871 Commonwealth Avenue
Boston, MA 02215

Victorian Boston explored how nineteenth century reformers challenged conventional wisdom about their world and the people who inhabited it. In Boston political, environmental and scientific landscapes changed radically. Open spaces, increasingly rare in the growing urban environment, were designed to preserve nature and enhance public welfare. At the same time, abolitionists were singing about equality. How did these environmental and social changes forever alter Boston?

Lectures and Discussions

  • Millard Baublitz, College of General Studies associate professor in the Division of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, presented “Victorian Era Demonstrations in Electricity and Magnetism: Real-time Recreations of Experiments by Victorian Scottish and English Scientists”
  • Cheryl Boots, CGS senior lecturer in the Division of Humanities and author of Singing for Equality: Hymns in the American Indian Rights and Antislavery Movements, 1640-1855, presented on “British Hymns and American Abolitionists, the Mid-century Sounds of Social Protest in Boston”
  • A Mount Auburn Cemetery guide led a field trip at Mount Auburn Cemetery to discuss how nineteenth century Boston created urban open spaces
  • Kathleen Martin, CGS senior lecturer in the Division of Social Sciences and author of Hard and Unreal Advice: Mothers, Social Science, and the Victorian Poverty Experts, presented “A Science of Society: Victorian Reformers and the Quest for Scientific Validity.”