Lowell Lecture Series presented by the Paul Revere Memorial Association at Old South Meeting House Lead, Glass, Paper, Tea: The Townshend Acts, Colonial Unrest, and the Occupation of Boston, 1768

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Lowell Lecture Series presented by the Paul Revere Memorial Association at Old South Meeting House

Lead, Glass, Paper, Tea: The Townshend Acts, Colonial Unrest, and the Occupation of Boston, 1768

Wednesdays in September, 2018, 6:30 pm to 7:30 pm

September 5, 12, 19, 26

Free and open to the public

 

Wednesday, September 5

"A certain sloop called the Liberty:” Charles Townsend, John Hancock and the Boston Madeira Party

On June 10, 1768 the King's Commissioners of Customs, seized John Hancock’s sloop Liberty and its smuggled cargo of Madeira wine.    Already agitated by the imposition of the hated Townsend Duties, Bostonians took to the streets. William Fowler, Jr., Distinguished Professor of History, Northeastern University, will describe how the Commissioners, fearing for their lives, fled to the   safety of Castle William, while John Adams argued his case in defense of Hancock and Liberty at the Old State House. 

 

Wednesday, September 12

Paul Revere’s Sons of Liberty Bowl:  An American Icon

American patriot Paul Revere is wrapped in the swirling mixture of myth and poetry through which history often descends, but as a craftsman he left behind more tangible    traces as well. Gerald W. R. Ward, Senior Curator of American Decorative Arts and Sculpture, Emeritus, at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, will relate the story behind Revere’s Sons of Liberty Bowl, crafted in 1768 to commemorate the “Glorious    92” legislators who bravely opposed King and Parliament’s imposition of the Townshend Acts and other untenable legislation.

 

Wednesday, September 19

Liberty Teas and Nervous Collectors: The Townshend Acts in Boston

From the emergence of "homegrown" industries in response to British taxes on imports, to harassment of officials by the Sons of Liberty, the Townshend Acts set the stage for tensions that would erupt in 1770 with the Boston Massacre. Learn how these new  laws impacted 18th-century Bostonians'

everyday life in an interactive, first-person presentation featuring costumed actors from The Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum™! 

 

Wednesday, September 26

Tyranny Unmasked: The Townsend Acts in Britain, Ireland, and America 

The Townshend Acts marked a new radical phase in the crisis that eventually destroyed Britain’s American empire. When Parliament enacted the law in 1767, it seemed as though the imperial stresses at the end of the Seven Years’ War could be contained. Just over a year later, occupied Boston was the toast of radical patriots throughout George III’s dominions, and observers began to wonder whether      Britain’s days as an imperial power were numbered. University of New Hampshire Professor of History Eliga Gould will tell the fascinating story of this transformation — as it appeared to Bostonians and from the standpoint of people on the far shores of the Atlantic.