In addition, be sure to mark your calendars for December 6th! Author Elena Palladino will be at the State Library discussing her new book, Lost Towns of the Swift River Valley: Drowned by the Quabbin. Please sign up for our Author Talks Series mailing list or follow us on Facebook or Instagram to get the latest updates!
Have you been keeping up with the Massachusetts Reading Challenge? Sponsored by the Massachusetts Center for the Book, this year-long challenge is a great way to read more! To participate, readers must read a book that falls under the theme or genre for that month. The year is not quite yet over, so please find below some suggested titles to finish up the challenge!
How Will I Know You? By Jessica Treadway - Looking for a good mystery to cozy up with this fall? Look no further than How Will I Know You? The tragic murder of a high school student in a small town and the ensuing investigation will pull you in as the story is told in four different perspectives - the victim’s mother, one of the suspects, someone from the investigation, and the victim’s best friend. Also available as an ebook.
The Revolutionary Samuel Adams By Stacy Schiff - Perhaps historical nonfiction is more your cup of tea. This 2022 biography of Samuel Adams sets the scene of the American Revolution in Boston and sheds light on Adams, the leader of it all. Schiff is a Pulitzer Prize winning biographer, and her account of Adams is both entertaining and insightful. Also available as an ebook.
Search the catalog using the ‘Author’ field to find an author who shares your name!
October: A bestseller from the year you turned 18.
This is a fun one as it gives you a glimpse into what was popular at the time! Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you need assistance finding archived bestseller lists. For example, I turned 18 in 2010. Some bestsellers of 2010 included The Help by Kathryn Stockett, Change Your Brain, Change Your Body by Daniel G. Amen, and Caught by Harlan Coben.
November: A book recommended by a local bookseller.
Check out our neighbor, Beacon Hill Books, for recommendations. A tip - check to see if your favorite local book shop has social media. Oftentimes, staff will post top picks, book suggestions, plot summaries, and more!
December: A book published in 2023.
Interstellar: The Search for Extraterrestrial Life and Our Future in the Stars By Avi Loeb - Published in August of this year, comes Avi Loeb’s anticipated follow up to his 2021 book Extraterrestrial. Interstellar is an exciting and accessible read on the advances in technology to make contact with alien life. In addition, author Avi Loeb was at the State Library this month speaking on Interstellar. You can view the recorded author talk on our YouTube channel!
Harvard Square: A Love Story By Catherine J. Turco - Author, economic sociologist, and Harvard Square resident, Catherine Turco delves into the history of this Cambridge neighborhood. Described as intellectual and emotional, this book explores urban change and what it means for the people who inhabit, frequent, and enjoy marketplaces like Harvard Square.
More 2023 Titles Below!
We continually add new titles to the collection, so stop by room 341 of the State House to browse!
As a Reading Challenge Partner, please contact the Reference Department (reference.department@mass.gov) with any questions! September is Library Card Sign-Up Month! Massachusetts State Employees are eligible for a State Library Card. Sign up today so you can check out any of the titles above or read as ebooks!
April Pascucci
Legislative Reference Librarian
You’ll find lots more information in addition to those events, so be sure to stop by to see this exhibit for yourself! The exhibit is up now through December 2023 and is located outside the State Library, Room 341 of the State House. Our hours are Monday-Friday, 9am-5pm. Be sure to check out our other display cases in the reading room while you’re here and to chat with our friendly reference librarians! You can also see the exhibit online through the library’s Flickr page.
It is nearly impossible to think about Fall and Back-to-School without thinking about apples. And an American figure who is closely associated with apples is, of course, Johnny Appleseed. Massachusetts is known for many notable politicians, athletes, and celebrities hailing from the Bay State, but did you know the legendary folk hero was born in Massachusetts? Yes, Johnny Appleseed was a real person—John Chapman. The son of a farmer, he was born in Leominster on September 26, 1774 to Elizabeth and Nathaniel Chapman.
During his childhood Chapman was an apprentice at an apple orchard. His mother and a younger brother had died from tuberculosis when he and his sister were very young. His father, Nathaniel Chapman, remarried in 1780 and would have 10 children with his second wife, Lucy Cooley Chapman. The Chapmans relocated to Longmeadow, Massachusetts where John Chapman lived for the rest of his childhood into early adulthood. In 1792 when Chapman was in his early twenties, he set out to seek his fortune outside of New England along with his younger half-brother. Some accounts say that in addition to Chapman’s half-brother venturing out West with him, his sister Emily joined them.
His first destination was Pennsylvania, specifically the Wilkes-Barre region where he was a nurseryman and orchardist for apple orchards. According to accounts the first orchard he planted was in Warren, Pennsylvania. Now contrary to the myth the apples grown in these orchards were the juicy kind perfect for baking and snacking, the varieties Chapman specialized in growing were apples used for making hard cider. These apples were smaller, less uniform in shape, and sourer than their larger counterparts—hence earning the colloquial term “spitters.” Historians think during the 1790s he also embraced Swedeborgian Christianity and began proselytizing as he journeyed throughout Pennsylvania into the Potomac region of Virginia.
Two factors contributed to John’s success as a businessman. One was that many early American households consumed cider at meals. In fact, it was common for households to have small orchards for growing apples to make cider. This was because at this point in history the production of cider guaranteed a safe, bacteria-free drink. Since the Swedeborgian faith prohibited the practice of grafting apples, Chapman’s planting of the seeds directly into the ground would result in only apples suitable for cider. Grafting is a practice which allows for apples to be grown for consumption as a food source rather an alcoholic beverage. Many of Chapman’s contemporaries considered grafting to be a time-consuming process and preferred growing apple trees directly from seed.
Secondly there was a Frontier Law that stated if a person wanted to form a homestead beyond the first permanent settlement in Ohio, they would be granted 100 acres. In order to prove the permanency of the homestead and to make a land claim legitimate, a settler had to plant 50 apple trees and 20 peach trees within 3 years. Chapman certainly made sure each of his land claims from Ohio to Illinois were legitimate. When groups of pioneers arrived in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, Chapman would sell them the apple saplings. Chapman returned every two years to each of his land claims to tend to orchards. By the time of his death in 1847 in Fort Wayne, Indiana, Chapman had established a 1,200 acre-estate of apple nurseries.
The legend of Johnny Appleseed continued to grow after he died in 1847. An 1871 issue of Harper’s Monthly Magazine published an article is credited to creating the modern-day mythos which surrounds John Chapman today. There are many places in the U.S. which commemorate “Johnny Appleseed”--one of which can be found in Leominster, Massachusetts today. In 1963 the Leominster Historical Society placed a marker near the site where John Chapman was born. Since 1993 Leominster hosts an annual Johnny Appleseed festival in late September celebrating his birthday and legacy with plenty of apple treats and fall fun.
Emily Crawford
Technical Services Librarian
Some of the most-used resources we have in the State Library are our collections of books that contain facts and images of legislators and public officials of the Commonwealth. These books, dating from 1885-2018, include the Official Gazette, the Souvenir of Massachusetts Legislators, and the Public Officers of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, also known as Bird Books. These books are particularly useful when researching the terms of legislators and for finding biographical information about them. They also contain photographs of legislators in the early 1900s which can be difficult to come by otherwise.
The library’s copies of these books are very fragile, so if you’d like to use them to do your research, please handle them with care. As always, photography is welcome as long as you don’t use flash.
While the physical copies of the Bird Books are great, we also have them available on our digital repository. They are keyword searchable and are available as PDFs. Take a look at these volumes here.
Back in 2008, the library undertook a project to preserve some of the more fragile volumes. The volumes that were focused on were from the 1920s-1940s, as many of their leather covers were deteriorating. Read more about this project in this blog post. If you have any questions about these resources, contact us at Reference.Department@mass.gov.
Jessica Shrey
Reference Librarian
