Monday, March 20, 2023

Author Talk with Jacqueline Jones

Register Online    

  • No Right to an Honest Living: The Struggles of Boston’s Black Workers in the Civil War Era by Jacqueline Jones
  • Monday, April 3, 2023—Noon to 1:00pm
  • State Library of Massachusetts—Room 341, Massachusetts State House
  •  Livestream: https://www.youtube.com/user/mastatelibrary 

We invite you to join us at the State Library on Monday, April 3, for an author talk with Pulitzer Prize Nominee and Bancroft Prize Winner Jacqueline Jones. Dr. Jones will be speaking about her latest book, No Right to an Honest Living: The Struggles of Boston’s Black Workers in the Civil War Era




For anyone unable to attend this talk in person, we will be livestreaming this event on our YouTube channel, courtesy of the Massachusetts House of Representatives Broadcast Services.

About the book: No Right to an Honest Living is described by the publisher as a harrowing portrait of Black workers and white hypocrisy in nineteenth-century Boston. Impassioned antislavery rhetoric made antebellum Boston famous as the nation’s hub of radical abolitionism. In fact, however, the city was far from a beacon of equality. In No Right to an Honest Living, Dr. Jones reveals how Boston was the United States writ small: a place where the soaring rhetoric of egalitarianism was easy, but justice in the workplace was elusive. Before, during, and after the Civil War, white abolitionists and Republicans refused to secure equal employment opportunity for Black Bostonians, condemning most of them to poverty. Still, Jones finds, some Black entrepreneurs ingeniously created their own jobs and forged their own career paths. Highlighting the everyday struggles of ordinary Black workers, this book shows how injustice in the workplace prevented Boston—and the United States—from securing true equality for all.

About the author: Jacqueline Jones is the Ellen C. Temple Professor of Women’s History Emerita at the University of Texas at Austin, and she has also previously taught at Wellesley College and Brandeis University. Her fields of study include U.S. labor, urban, southern, African American, and women’s history. She is the author of ten books, two of which were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize in History. Dr. Jones has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the Bancroft Prize in American History, a MacArthur Fellowship, and the Taft Prize in Labor History, and in 2021 she served as president of the American Historical Association.

Dr. Jones’ talk is free and open to everyone, and those who attend in person will have the opportunity to participate in a question-and-answer session with the author. Additionally, assistive listening devices will be available upon request, courtesy of the Massachusetts State House ADA Coordinator.

If you’d like to learn more about the State Library’s author talk series, including our lineup of future speakers, please visit our website at https://www.mass.gov/state-library-author-talk-series


Laura Schaub
Cataloging Librarian

Monday, March 13, 2023

What's in our Reading Room? We’re more than just a pretty face!

If you haven’t visited the State Library before, one of the first things you’ll notice when you walk in--after the high ceilings, beautiful stained-glass windows, and artwork throughout--are the books that line the walls of our reading room on the third floor of the State House. Though these books give the room that “old library feel” and add to the overall look of the space, Reference staff here use them all the time, as do our researchers. So what are those books that we have? Who is allowed to use them? Do you need to wear gloves while handling them? Today we’ll give you a “virtual tour” of the resources in our reading room.

Before we get into that though--all are welcome at the State Library! While we are here to serve the legislature, governor, public officials, and Massachusetts state employees, the library is also open to the general public. Anyone is welcome to use and view our collections or just sit and enjoy our space while doing work. And no--you don’t need permission to take a book off the shelf and you don’t need to wear white gloves when using our materials (but please do make sure your hands are clean and you keep your snacks and beverages in your bag).

When you walk through our doors and look to your right, you’ll notice an elevator which is original to our 1895 reading room. While people cannot ride in it, staff use this elevator to move books between the reading room and the 4th and 5th floors of the library. To the right of the elevator starts our wall of resources that encase the room in its entirety. Some of the first things you’ll see here are the Massachusetts Law Reporter, Massachusetts Digest, Shepard’s Massachusetts Citations, and the current set of official Massachusetts General Laws (in burgundy). You can also look at the unofficial version of the MGL on the Massachusetts Legislature’s website if you’re interested.

After the MGL, you’ll find several volumes of Massachusetts Reports, Supreme Court Reporter, and even the United States Supreme Court Digest. To the right of the entrance as you’re looking out of the library starts our collection of legislative documents and House and Senate Journals. These volumes wrap around most of our Reading Room and definitely help to provide that “old library feel” that so many love. 

The House and Senate Journals contain a record of the daily happenings in the House and Senate and are used quite often. They’re especially helpful when working on a legislative history, which is something that comes up regularly for us. Please note that while the Journals in our reading room start at 1900, you can find earlier volumes of the House Journals online courtesy of the State Archives and earlier volumes of House and Senate Journals in our digital repository.

Next up come the shorter bookshelves along the windows. These shelves contain more House and Senate Journals, plus the Bulletin of Committee Work, which is also helpful when doing a legislative history. On the last side of these short shelves, you’ll find a set of black binders which contain the Code of Massachusetts Regulations, also known as the CMR. The CMR is updated bi-weekly by filings in the Massachusetts Register. You can use our physical copy of the CMR in the Library or you can look at the unofficial copy online via the Massachusetts Trial Court Law Libraries. The State Library also has the Mass Registers available in our digital repository. For more information on the CMR, take a look at our webpage.

After that you’ll come across a couple tall, thin shelves containing Massachusetts Legislative Documents, an assortment of other materials, and then the Annotated Massachusetts General Laws by LexisNexis (black). You’ll then find an assortment of Reference materials, including the Dictionary of American Biography, a facsimile of “Of Plimoth Plantation,” also known as the Bradford manuscript, and a set of books called “Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors of the Revolutionary War.” 

Phew! That was quite the tour around the reading room! Are you still with me? We’ve just got the resources around the Information Desk left to cover. Starting with the shelves that jut out from the Information Desk are Massachusetts Acts and Resolves dating back to 1802 and continuing to the present. These have been digitized and are available in our digital repository, but you are always welcome to use these print copies as well.

Moving on to the front of the Information Desk you’ll find the Annotated Massachusetts General Laws by West (green). You’ll note that we have two different versions of the annotated MGL. While they contain similar information, some people have a preference of one over the other due to variations in citations included in the volumes. I personally like to look at the West and LexisNexis versions when I need to use an annotated version of the MGL--but that is up to you!

Your tour is now complete! Next time you come into the library, take a look around for the resources mentioned in this blog. If you can’t make it into the library, you can always take our virtual tour as well! We covered a lot of information today, so please don’t hesitate to reach out to the State Library with any questions you may have. You can reach us at reference.department@mass.gov or by calling 617-727-2590.


Jessica Shrey
Reference Librarian


Thursday, March 9, 2023

Woodpeckers have landed in the library!

Happy March! If you're looking for a little bit of luck this month, you don't need to find a leprechaun, you just need to visit the library through April 4 to see Audubon's Pileated Woodpecker (plate 111) on display! Woodpeckers are seen as a sign of good luck in many cultures and are associated with wishes coming true.

Audubon has depicted the adult male, adult female, and young male woodpecker. They are pictured among the branches of the racoon grape. Read more from Audubon's account here.

Friday, March 3, 2023

State Library Newsletter - March Issue

What do phone chargers, woodpeckers, and the RMV's "History of the Plate" have in common? They're all part of our March newsletter! Pictured here is a preview, but the full issue can be accessed by clicking here. And if you'd like to receive the newsletter straight to your inbox, be sure to sign up for our mailing list.

We're pleased to share that we've recently launched a notification list for our Author Talk series. To sign up for that list, please click here.  

Monday, February 27, 2023

On Display in the State Library

One of the earliest incidents of the Revolutionary War was the Boston Massacre, which occurred in front of the Old State House on March 5, 1770. As we approach that anniversary, we’re sharing two items from our collection related to the incident: an account published in the March 12, 1770 edition of the Boston Gazette and Country Journal and a 1970 restrike of Paul Revere’s engraving The Bloody Massacre perpetrated in King Street, Boston, March 5, 1770, by a party of the 29th Regiment.

In the winter of 1770, tensions were high in Boston. British troops had been stationed there since 1768 to enforce Parliamentary legislation, and in late February an eleven-year-old named Christopher Seider had been killed by a British customs officer during a protest. On the night of March 5, a group of Bostonians gathered in front of the Old State House where a member of the British 29th Regiment of Foot was standing sentry. The group verbally assaulted the soldier and the incident escalated. Additional soldiers were called the scene as the number of participants grew to between 300 and 400. The crowd grew more agitated and rowdier, and shots were fired by the British soldiers. In the end, five individuals died; Crispus Attucks, Samuel Grey, and James Caldwell at the scene, and Samuel Maverick and Patrick Carr from their injuries in the days that followed. The event turned public sentiment even further against King George and British rule, and in describing the day, John Adams wrote that the "foundation of American independence was laid."

The March 12, 1770 edition of the Boston Gazette and Country Journal included a description of the incident. The Boston Gazette was an influential colonial newspaper published by John Gill and Benjamin Edes. Printed weekly, it shared news from abroad as well as from within the colonies, and its patriot-leaning content was critical of British rule. The State Library holds a run of the newspaper, including the March 12 edition which was the first printed account of the massacre and comprised four columns across two pages. The account covers not just the event of March 5, but also provides a description of the days that followed up to the victims’ funeral on March 8. The funeral account describes a large procession that moved through the city from Faneuil Hall to the Granary Burying Ground, and stated that “on this occasion most of the shops in town were shut, all the bells were ordered to toll a solemn peal, as were also those in the neighboring towns of Charlestown, Roxbury, etc.”

Immediately following the Boston Massacre, Paul Revere engraved a print known of as The Bloody Massacre that went on to become an iconic representation of the incident. It takes a patriotic view, by placing the victims of the massacre in the foreground and including the sign “Butchers Hall” above the British soldiers. The print was then printed by Boston Gazette publishers Edes and Gill, and garnered further support for the patriotic cause while moving public sentiment away from the crown. Only around twenty-five copies of Revere’s print are still in existence, but his original engraving copperplate is part of the collection at the Massachusetts State Archives. In 1970, the Imprint Society of Barre, Massachusetts requested that restrikes be taken from the original plate, and after consultation with the Massachusetts Historical Commission, it was determined that a limited number of restrikes could be produced without damaging the plate. The result was a beautiful publication that included the restrike as well as a reprint of the account from the Boston Gazette. A limited number of these commemorative publications are in existence, and the State Library was gifted one from the President of the Imprint Society in 1972.

Visit the library throughout March to see the Boston Gazette article exhibited alongside the 1970 restrike of Paul Revere’s Bloody Massacre print. These two items together provide a vivid contemporaneous account of a key moment in our nation’s formation. And to read more about the Boston Massacre, check out The Boston Massacre: A Family History by Serena Zabin.

Elizabeth Roscio
Preservation Librarian

Monday, February 20, 2023

Author Talk with Kate Clifford Larson

  • Walk with Me: A Biography of Fannie Lou Hamer by Kate Clifford Larson
  •  Wednesday, March 8, 2023—Noon to 1:00pm
  • State Library of Massachusetts—Room 341, Massachusetts State House
  • Livestream: https://www.youtube.com/user/mastatelibrary

Celebrate International Women’s Day this year at the State Library! Join us on Wednesday, March 8, for an author talk with acclaimed historian Kate Clifford Larson, author of Walk with Me: A Biography of Fannie Lou Hamer. If you’re unable to attend this talk in person, be sure to visit our YouTube channel to watch the livestream, courtesy of the Massachusetts House of Representatives Broadcast Services.

About the book: Walk with Me is the most complete biography ever written about civil rights icon Fannie Lou Hamer. Born the youngest of 20 children in an impoverished sharecropping family in rural Mississippi, Hamer became one of the most important and powerful voices of the civil rights movement. Starting in the early 1960s, she worked with the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee to help with voter-registration drives, and she went on to become a community organizer, women's rights activist, and co-founder of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. She used her brutal beating at the hand of Mississippi police as the basis of her televised speech at the 1964 Democratic Convention, a speech that the mainstream party tried to contain. Meticulously researched, Walk with Me draws from recently declassified sources, including unredacted FBI and Department of Justice files, as well as interviews conducted by the Smithsonian and the Library of Congress and also the author’s own extensive interviews with Hamer’s family and contemporaries.

About the author: Dr. Kate Clifford Larson is a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of three previous biographies: Bound for the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman, Portrait of an American Hero; Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter; and The Assassin's Accomplice: Mary Surratt and the Plot to Kill Abraham Lincoln. She also works as a consultant on projects such as feature film scripts, documentaries, public history initiatives, and museum exhibits, including award-winning consulting work for Maryland's Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad State and National Historical Park, the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Byway and All-American Road, and the Harriet Tubman Home in Auburn, NY. You can read more about Dr. Larson and her works on her website: http://www.katecliffordlarson.com/

This event at the State Library is free and open to all, and those who attend in person will have the opportunity to participate in a question-and-answer session with the author. Additionally, assistive listening devices will be available upon request, courtesy of the Massachusetts State House ADA Coordinator.

For more information about the State Library’s author talk series, please visit our website at https://www.mass.gov/state-library-author-talk-series


Laura Schaub
Cataloging Librarian


Monday, February 13, 2023

Black History Month, Selected Titles

In February 1926, historian Carter G. Woodson organized a week-long event to honor and raise awareness of the contributions of African Americans to the United States. Support for this event would grow throughout history, culminating in 1976 with President Gerald Ford designating February as Black History Month. February continues to be an important and educational month for communities across America. See Governor Healey’s Proclamation declaring February 2023 as Black History Month. For more information, webinars and exhibits happening this month, visit BlackHistoryMonth.gov

In honor of Black History Month, the State Library has selected a few recently published titles from our collection that explore different facets of black history within America. To access any of the titles listed below, please contact the Reference Department (reference.department@mass.gov, 617-727-2590) or visit us in room 341 of the State House! 


Half American: The Epic Story of African Americans Fighting World War II at Home and Abroad (2022) by Matthew F. Delmont – Half American highlights the history of African American troops serving in World War II. Author Matthew Delmont details the vital service of black troops in the battlefield and on the homefront, but also exposes the mistreatment and denial of benefits for black veterans. Delmont is a Professor of History at Dartmouth College. 

The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin Shaped a Nation (2021) by Anna Malaika Tubbs – Described as a celebration and testimony of the importance of black women in American society, Three Mothers, tells the stories of Alberta King, Louise Little, and Berdis Baldwin. These women raised, inspired, and instilled in their sons a sense of social justice. Through their influence as mothers, their sons changed America’s history. Tubbs is an educator, consultant, and Cambridge Ph.D. candidate. In addition, check out this past Author Talk with Tubbs as she discusses her work.

Black Radical: The Life and Times of William Monroe Trotter (2020) by Kerri K. Greenidge – A name often overlooked in the history of civil rights, William Monroe Trotter (1872-1934), was a Harvard graduate and founder of the Guardian, a Boston based newspaper devoted to activism. In this engaging biography, Greenidge rightfully places Trotter as a leader in the American civil rights movement. Greenidge teaches at Tufts University and is codirector of the African American Trail Project

Say I'm Dead: A Family Memoir of Race, Secrets, and Love (2020) by E. Dolores Johnson – In this poignant memoir, Johnson explores her childhood and the impact of her parents’ interracial marriage. The daughter of a black man and white woman, Johnson explores her identity, family, and the larger history of race relations in America. Watch Johnson discuss her memoir in a previous Author talk!


April Pascucci
Reference Librarian