The Province of Affliction: Illness and the Making of Early New England
The Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum presents The Province of Affliction: Illness and the Making of Early New England with Ben Mutschler in conversation with Robert Gross on Wednesday, August 18, 2021 at 5pm. Long before Covid, Americans wrestled with the severe disruptions that illness presented in daily life. This session turns our attention to the social and political implications of sickness in early America, featuring Ben Mutschler in conversation with Robert Gross about Mutschler’s new book, The Province of Affliction: Illness and the Making of Early New England (Chicago, 2020). Their discussion will explore the ways in which the routine presence of illness in everyday life shaped and strained the most basic institutions of eighteenth-century New England, from families and households, to neighborhoods and towns, all the way to the highest reaches of government. The early modern world suggests ready comparisons with our own -- enduring problems that were accommodated in ways both strange and familiar.
Ben Mutschler is Associate Professor of History at Oregon State University, where he teaches courses on early America. He earned his Ph.D. in history from Columbia University and has received long-term fellowships from the Omohundro Institute and the Woodrow Wilson Foundation. He is currently undertaking a new book project that explores the ways in which discussions of citizenship in the era of the American Revolution engaged questions of ability and disability. This work asks what qualities of body, mind, and temperament separated the monarchical subject from the new republican citizen?
A social and cultural historian focusing on New England in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Robert A. Gross is the James L. and Shirley A. Draper Professor of Early American History Emeritus at the University of Connecticut. His first book, The Minutemen and Their World (1976) received the Bancroft Prize for 1977; it was reissued in a 25th anniversary edition in 2001 and will appear in a new, revised edition in 2022 to mark the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution. His latest book, The Transcendentalists and Their World, continues his exploration of Concord, Massachusetts into the era of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. It will be published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux in November 2021.
All of the Bridging the Past and Present talks are free and open to the public. This series is made possible by a grant from the Bridge Street Fund, a special initiative of Mass Humanities to enable open access to local history. To view past talks, click here or visit the museum’s website at https://www.pphmuseum.org/bridging.
The Porter-Phelps Huntington Museum’s summer 2021 programs are funded, in part, by grants from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state Agency; the Amherst Cultural Councils, local agencies, supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council; Mass Humanities Bridge Street Fund; Easthampton Savings Bank, Gage-Wiley & Co. and with the generous support of many local businesses and the public.
The Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum will remain closed for onsite public programming for its 2021 season to protect the health and safety of the community and its employees. However, the museum grounds and scenic byway trail systems remain open for your use and enjoyment. The Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum is located at 130 River Drive (Route 47) in Hadley, two miles north of the junction of Routes 9 and 47. The house, which remains unchanged since the family’s occupancy, tells the story of six generations of prominent Hadley residents. The family, prosperous traders turned farmers and prominent members of the local government and social scene, embodied a consistently progressive social consciousness. For further information about tours or other programs, please call the Museum at (413) 584-4699 or visit our website at http://www.pphmuseum.org.
