The Boston Massacre: A Family History with Professor Serena Zabin

Apr 26

Sat, April 26, 2025 • 10:00am - 11:30am (1h 30m) • The Newberry Library 60 W Walton Street Chicago, IL 60610

Carls in the Chicago area
are invited to

The Boston Massacre: A Family History
with Professor Serena Zabin, in conversation with Susie An

Saturday, April 26, 2025

Time
10:00 - 11:00 a.m.
11-11:30 a.m. book signing

Location
The Newberry Library
60 West Walton Street
Chicago, IL 60610

The story of the Boston Massacre—when on a late winter evening in 1770, British soldiers shot five local men to death—is familiar to generations. But from the very beginning, many accounts have obscured a fascinating truth: the Massacre arose from conflicts that were as personal as they were political.

Join us as Serena Zabin, in conversation with Susie An, discusses her book, The Boston Massacre: A Family History, in which she draws on original sources and lively stories to follow British troops as they are dispatched from Ireland to Boston in 1768 to subdue the increasingly rebellious colonists. The book reveals a forgotten world hidden in plain sight: the many regimental wives and children who accompanied these armies. We see these families jostling with Bostonians for living space, finding common cause in the search for a lost child, trading barbs, and sharing baptisms—becoming, in other words, neighbors. When soldiers shot unarmed citizens in the street, it was these intensely human, now broken bonds that fueled what quickly became a bitterly fought American Revolution.

Cost
This program is free and open to all. Advance registration required.

Registration
For more information and to register, visit the Newberry Library website. This program will be held in-person at the Newberry and livestreamed on Zoom. The online version of this event will be live captioned.

Parking and Transportation
Information on getting to the Newberry can be found on the Newberry Library FAQ webpage.

Serena Zabin is the Stephen R. Lewis Jr. Professor of History and the Liberal Arts at Carleton. Her research focuses on families, gender, and politics in the era of the American Revolution. She is the author of Dangerous Economies: Status and Commerce in Imperial New York and the prizewinning The Boston Massacre: A Family History. At Carleton, she has served as the chair of the history department, the director of the American studies program, and the Broom Fellow for Public Scholarship. In that last role, she and her students crafted civic engagement projects in partnerships with public history organizations in Minnesota, Boston, and Washington, DC. In 2024–25 she was awarded the Robert C. Ritchie Distinguished Fellowship in Early American History at the Huntington Library to work on her new research project, American Affections: The Life of Mary Fish Noyes Silliman Dickinson, 1736–1818.