Thomas Paine’s Common Sense was published in Philadelphia on January 9, 1776, and immediately became the best-selling book in American history. Paine used plain language to blast King George III as “the Royal Brute of Britain” and helped convinced the embattled thirteen colonies to unite and declare Independence. 250 years later, our nation is experiencing a remarkable Paine revival. He is one of the stars of the “No Kings” protests, with a line from Common Sense written on signs and placards: “In America, THE LAW IS KING!”. The Boston Athenaeum holds in its rare books collection George Washington’s copy of Common Sense. He received the pamphlet while stationed in Cambridge, MA, as Commander in Chief of the Continental Army, with Boston was under British occupation. Washington credited Paine with convincing Americans that separation from Britain was the only appropriate response to the war that started on April 19, 1775. Inspired by Washington’s copy of Common Sense, and its arrival in Cambridge during the Siege of Boston, in this lecture Joe Rezek explored why it was so important in 1776 and why it still resonates so much today.

About the Speaker

Joseph Rezek is Associate Professor of English and Director of American Studies at Boston University. He is an internationally renowned scholar of early American literature, history, and print culture, and he recently published an essay about the 250th anniversary of Common Sense in The New York Times Book Review.

Attendees joined us for an evening with the National Museum of Women in the Arts and met the Massachusetts area Women to Watch 2027. Women to Watch is a bi- or triennial exhibition program designed to increase the visibility of, and critical response to, promising women artists who are deserving of national and international attention. The Massachusetts Committee’s nominees have been curated by the Boston Athenaeum’s own John Buchtel, Curator of Rare Books and Head of Special Collections.

About the Speakers

Amy Borezo’s artists’ books exhibit the same structural ingenuity and sensitive selection of appropriate materials, wedding them to her often-abstract visual explorations of philosophical and literary questions around such topics as artificial intelligence or a failed Buckminster Fuller architectural project. For each of her books, Borezo adapts book structures and materials to underscore and embody the work’s central concept. She is also a highly sought-after edition hand bookbinder; bindings have contributed to the success of some of the best collaborative artists’ book projects of the past two decades.

Abigail Rorer’s intricate prints, drawings, and watercolors center on a delight in nature and natural forms. One of the most skilled living practitioners of the art of wood engraving, Rorer started out in the great tradition of book illustration. In recent years, Rorer has gone one step further, collaborating with leading specialists in other aspects of bookmaking to create artist’s books that integrate text and image with material and structure to compellingly convey not only her love of plants and animals, but also her concern over their ecosystems’ fragility.

Sarah Hulsey’s sophisticated body of work leverages the unique characteristics inherent in each artistic medium she uses—drawing, printmaking, and book structures—to explore the complex, multi-layered worlds of the scientific fields of linguistics and physics. Her work exhibits a mastery of the expressive and communicative potentialities of the hand-printed book as an artistic form: investigating ideas sequentially, engaging an audience with interactive immediacy, slowing a reader down and encouraging reflection.

Anneli Skaar’s work as a visual artist and graphic designer converge in both her own artist’s books and her contributions to other artists’ books. In addition to luminous paintings of landscapes and nature objects, paperflowers of astonishing variety and verisimilitude, and commercial graphic design, Skaar has produced three artist’s books of her own, each an engaging multi-part book object in which Skaar imaginatively combines text, image, materials, and form to create an artistic whole greater than the sum of its parts, addressing some of today’s most pressing environmental and social issues in ways that draw readers in, captivate them, and encourage reflection.

Groundbreaking filmmaker, photographer, and Professor Emerita Liane Brandon presented Still Marching 1970-2017; which featured her historic photographs documenting two landmark Boston women’s marches held nearly 50 years apart. Through her images and personal recollections, Brandon offered a unique perspective on both events – as participant and observer – while reflecting on the early days of the Women’s Movement. On March 8, 1970, Brandon, then a member of Bread and Roses of Cambridge – one of the nation’s earliest women’s liberation organizations – photographed the International Women’s Day march. It was the largest demonstration for women’s equality in Massachusetts since the Boston Suffrage March of 1914. Her photographs are believed to be the only existing color images of that historic event. Nearly five decades later, on January 21, 2017, Brandon returned with her camera to document the Women’s March for America. An estimated 175,000 people gathered on Boston Common the day after Donald Trump’s inauguration, joining similar marches in more than 600 cities nationwide where nearly six million Americans demonstrated for women’s rights, healthcare reform, reproductive rights, LGBTQ rights, and racial equality. Brandon’s photographs capture the events and issues that still resonate in women’s ongoing fight for equality – and revealing the enduring spirit, energy, and determination of those who continue to march.

About the Speaker

Liane Brandon is an award winning independent filmmaker, photographer and University of Massachusetts/Amherst Professor Emerita. She was one of the first independent women filmmakers to emerge from the Women’s Movement. She is a co-founder of New Day Films and was a member of Bread and Roses, one of the earliest “women’s liberation” collectives in Massachusetts. Her groundbreaking films Sometimes I Wonder Who I Am (1970), Anything You Want To Be (1971), and Betty Tells Her Story (1972), were among the most frequently used consciousness raising tools of the Women’s Movement. Her films, which also include Once Upon A Choice (1980) and How To Prevent A Nuclear War (1987), have won numerous national and international awards, and have been featured on HBO, Cinemax and the Criterion Channel. They have twice received Blue Ribbons at the American Film Festival, and have been presented at the Museum of Modern Art, the Barbican Centre in London, the Tribeca Film Festival and many other venues worldwide. Her film Betty Tells Her Story was inducted into the National Film Registry in 2022. Currently working as a photographer, her credits include stills for the PBS series American Experience, Nova, and American Masters. Her photos have been published in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe and many other publications. Actively involved with the rights of media artists, her lawsuit (Brandon v. The Regents of the University of California) won a landmark victory for filmmakers’; protection of their titles. Brandon’s historic films and papers are held in the Archive of Documentary Arts at Duke University. Her films are in active distribution through New Day Films. Before becoming a filmmaker and professor, Brandon worked as a ski instructor, lifeguard, waitress, high school teacher and professional stunt woman.

The adjectives used to describe Edward Gorey seem almost endless: visionary, gothic, frivolous, solitary, flamboyant, odd—and genius. To this list, Anne Bromer adds two more: generous and delightful. Anne had the privilege of collaborating with Gorey on five book-related projects in the mid-1980s and 1990s, including two miniature books, two posters for the Boston Antiquarian Book Fair, and a cover illustration for a Bromer Booksellers catalogue. Gorey was meticulous and exacting in his work, and the results of that dedication have captivated millions of readers worldwide. Long a cult figure, Gorey reached an even broader audience through his iconic sets for Masterpiece Theatre on PBS and his Tony Award–winning costume designs for Dracula on Broadway. These works —along with his swooning Victorian ladies and doomed toddlers—have become enduring fixtures of popular culture. Anne Bromer shared her personal experiences working with the legendary author and artist Edward Gorey.

About the Speaker

Anne Bromer is the author of Strings Attached, a biography of Dorothy Abbe, and of Miniature Books: 4000 Years of Tiny Treasures. Anne and her husband began Bromer Booksellers in the 1960s and were located in Copley Square for 45 years. At the end of 2024, Anne closed the business, having traveled the world buying and selling rare books for sixty years. During the decades she met fascinating people, none more curious and special than Edward Gorey. Anne says “being welcomed into his world for more than a decade was an honor”.

This virtual discussion examined Richard Morris Hunt’s expansive architectural vision for a new Gilded Age, considering both his formative, familial, and professional connections to Boston and the ways in which these relationships informed such landmark projects as The Breakers and Marble House in Newport, Rhode Island. It also assessed his now-lost Boston commissions as significant, if overlooked, touchpoints that illuminate the city’s role in shaping the cultural ambitions and architectural innovations of the Gilded Age.

About the Speakers

Dr. Catherine Moran is an art & cultural historian whose research explores the intersection between material culture, architecture, and identity as an expression of the human experience. Catherine has over ten years of experience as a lecturer of art and design history at the College of Visual and Performing arts at The University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, and is the former Gallery Director for Bernard and S. Dean Levy, New York. She is engaged with local cultural, historic preservation, and arts based non-profit organizations and has lectured at several local universities, professional conferences, and cultural institutions. Catherine currently serves as the Manager of Academic Partnerships and Research Fellows Program at The Preservation Society of Newport County.

Tiziana Dearing is the host of WBUR’s Morning Edition. Prior to helping listeners start the morning with news from around the corner and around the world, Tiziana hosted Radio Boston, WBUR’s daily local magazine, for five years. Tiziana came to journalism after a career that spanned academia, nonprofits and for-profit management consulting. She taught graduate students at the Boston College School of Social Work and chaired its program in Social Innovation and Leadership. Tiziana ran a start-up foundation focused on breaking generational cycles of poverty in Boston neighborhoods and was the first woman president of Catholic Charities for the Archdiocese of Boston. Earlier in her work life, she ran a research center at the Harvard Kennedy School and worked in management consulting. Tiziana has won a number of awards in the city, including a Pinnacle Award from the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce and Boston Business Journal’s 40 Under 40.

This talk was presented in partnership with the Institute of Classical Architecture and Art and The Preservation Society of Newport County.