History 1055: Globalization I
Boston College, Fall 2014
MW 2:00 – 2:50 PM, Devlin Hall 008
Global Boston
For this component of the course, you will visit historical sites around the city of Boston in order to
get a better sense of how Boston functioned as a global city throughout its history. You must
complete THREE of the outings and submit the written work, as indicated below, in order to
receive full credit.
Option 1. “The Soul of a Man: Toussaint Louverture & the Haitian Slave Revolt”
Boston Public Library
***GO SOON! CLOSES SEPT 30***
www.bpl.org/exhibitions
Free admission
Visit the exhibit and examine two of the images of Toussaint Louverture very carefully.
Write a two-page essay: What do you think the creators of these portraits wanted readers to
think about Toussaint Louverture? Are there other clues visible (eg on the other visible
pages of the book) that support your hypothesis?
When you submit this essay to your TA, you must show your TA a photo of yourself at the exhibit.
Option 2. Fort Independence, Castle Island
***GO SOON! CLOSES OCT 13***
http://www.mass.gov/eea/agencies/dcr/massparks/region-boston/castle-island-pleasurebay-m-street-and-carson-beach.html
http://www.bostonfortindependence.com
Free guided tours meet at the front gate of the fort on Sundays, 12:00PM, September 7
through October 12, as well as on Oct 11 and Oct 13. Fort is open, free admission, on these
dates, 12PM-3:30PM.
Calling in advance is recommended: Bill Spain, Castle Island Association, 617.268.8870
Write a two-page essay explaining how this fort has helped make Boston a “global city.”
Evidence for this argument should include detailed descriptions of at least two physical
characteristics of the fort, the island, and/or the harbor that someone just reading about the
fort in a book might not easily understand.
When you submit this essay to your TA, you must show your TA a photo of yourself at the fort.
Option 3. Massachusetts Historical Society
1154 Boylston St, Boston, MA.
Masshist.org
Free admission
**GO SOON! EXHIBIT CLOSES OCT. 6**
At the Massachusetts Historical Society, there is a very small exhibit of Revolutionary-era
materials relating to the Magna Carta, a copy of which was on display at the Museum of Fine
Arts this summer. Read the MFA’s description of the Magna Carta here:
http://www.mfa.org/exhibitions/magna-carta. Then go to the Massachusetts Historical
Society and view the exhibit.
Read the paragraph from the Supplement to the Boston Evening-Post that refers to the Magna
Carta, as well as Harbottle Dorr’s notes on that newspaper. Additionally, view the detail
from Christian Remick’s A Perspective View of the Blockad[e] of Boston Harbour, 1768. More
information about this artwork is available here:
http://www.masshist.org/database/viewer.php?item_id=234&pid=15.
Take detailed notes, and write a two page essay: given what you have seen and read, what did
the Magna Carta mean to Americans in the late 1760s? What does this tell us about the
spread of ideas from one place and time to another? This essay will be graded based on your
own observations, interpretations, and overall argument, not on your use of outside evidence.
When you submit this essay to your TA, you must show your TA a photo of yourself recognizably the MHS.
Option 4. Georges Island, Boston Harbor Islands
***GO SOON! CLOSES OCT 13***
http://bostonharborislands.org
Round trip tickets $15
Take the ferry to Georges Island. Listen to the historical narrative given on the ferry ride and
examine the historical markers on the island. Write a two-page essay: What does the
National Park Service most want the public to know about the history of this island? Do you
think the information is communicated effectively? What kinds of information are not
communicated about the island’s history, and do you agree with the decision to omit this
information?
When you submit this essay to your TA, you must show your TA a photo of yourself on the island.
Option 5. Museum of Fine Arts
Free admission with presentation of Boston College Student ID
465 Huntington Ave., Boston, MA 02115
T: Green Line, E Trolley, Museum of Fine Arts
Locate two objects in the MFA (produced between 1450 and 1815) that bear evidence of
interaction between peoples of two continents, and observe them closely. Write a two-page
essay: what do these objects tell us about interactions among far-flung? Do they tell the same
story of globalization, or are there two very different kinds of globalization at work?
When you submit this essay to your TA, you must show your TA a photo of yourself recognizably at the
location.
Option 6. O’Neill Library
Online catalogs are so effective these days that it is very easy to think of a library as just a
storage cabinet for books. But there is a logic behind the organization of libraries and the
selections of books they make for students and scholars to use. For this assignment, find a
section of the O’Neill Library stacks that contains academic history books. Find five
sequential books on a shelf that focus on any historical topic between the years 1450 and
1815. Write a 2 page essay that describes the contents of these books and explains what they
have in common—why are these books next to each other on the shelf? For what kind of
project might each book be useful? If the five books address very similar topics, describe this
topic and then explain the ways in which the books differ.
When you submit this essay to your TA, you must show your TA a photo of yourself in the library with the
five books you examined.
Option 7. Haunted Boston: Ghost Tour
http://www.hauntedboston.com
$15 with use of online discount coupon
Tour meets in the Boston Common at the entrance to the Central Burying Ground
Cemetery on Boylston Street. See website for details.
Participate in the ghost tour. Write a two-page essay that begins with one of the ghost stories
told by the guides and proceeds to explain how this story could have been a part of the
broader tale of globalization in Boston. For example, “Little Katie O’Neill, who fell out of
the window, might have been among the many thousands of Irish children who immigrated to
Boston with their families in the 1840s.” A minimum of two legitimate scholarly sources
must be cited in this essay (e. g. university press books, articles in academic journals) and
they must be appropriately cited in Chicago or Turabian style. Make up your backstory, think
of what kind of sources it would require, and then (if you need help) ask a reference librarian
at O’Neill library for guidance in locating these sources.
When you submit this essay to your TA, you must show your TA a photo of yourself at one of the haunted
locations and/or with the tour guide. Extra credit if there is a ghost in the photo.
Option 8. Boston Tea Party Reenactment (December 16, 6:30PM, Old South Meeting
House
Old South Meeting House, Boston, MA
http://bostonteapartyship.com
Attend the December 16 reenactment of the Boston Tea Party (begins 6:30PM at the Old
South Meeting House), and write a 2 page essay about your experience. You will receive
extra credit if you attend wearing a piece of period dress (e.g. a tri-cornered hat. See
http://teachers.history.org/resources/lesson-plans/three-cornered-hat-pattern for a pattern
you can use to make your own). Note that your TA must receive your essay no later than
December 18 in order to give you credit for it.
When you submit this essay to your TA, you must show your TA a photo of yourself recognizably at the
event.
Option 9. Peabody Museum
Cambridge, MA
Peabody.harvard.edu
$10 admission with student ID, free on Wednesdays from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. (September
through May) and Sunday mornings (year-round) from 9 a.m. to 12 noon.
Visit the museum collection. Pick one object in the museum and write a two-page essay. The
first page should be a thorough description of the object. The second page should describe
how this object reflects the process of globalization and connect the object to at least one of
the course readings (although they do not have to be direct connections—you can compare
an object produced in the Mayan empire to globalization processes taking place through the
British empire, for example). Remember that globalization does not have to involve an
encounter between Europeans and Americans. You could even write about the object tells
the story of 19th, 20th, or 21st century globalization.
The “Translating Encounters” and “Encounters with the Americas” exhibits feature a
number of objects that would be appropriate topics for this essay.
When you submit this essay to your TA, you must show your TA a photo of yourself next to the object you
have examined.