Would there have been a Malcolm X or a Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. without W. E. B. Du Bois? Most likely, but the civil-rights world they led and shaped would undoubtedly have looked much different. Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, in 1868, at the dawn of Reconstruction, Du Bois died in 1963, during […]
Yankee
Magazine
Samantha Smith | New England’s Gifts
In the summer of 1983 the most famous child in the world was Samantha Smith, the 10-year-old girl from Maine who sent a letter to Soviet leader Yuri Andropov: “My name is Samantha Smith … I have been worrying about Russia and the United States getting into a nuclear war …” Her subsequent journey to […]
Magazine
Winslow Homer | New England’s Gifts
Prouts Neck thrusts out into the Atlantic, exposed on three sides to the water and completely exposed to easterly storms, and the rugged, weatherbeaten rocks show the effects of the pounding surf. It was here that Winslow Homer was most at home for the last 27 years of his life. He captured the storm-whipped Maine […]
Photo/Art by Roger Tory Peterson Tanagers Few people in their lifetimes achieve worldwide influence. Fewer still have an impact that will endure for generations yet to come. Roger Tory Peterson is one of that latter group—a true rara avis. Starting with his own love of birds and of the natural world in which they belong, […]
Magazine
Ashley Bryan | New England’s Gifts
Ashley Bryan’s life story is among the most extraordinary in American arts and letters. The son of West Indian immigrants from Antigua, Bryan was raised in the Bronx. After serving in a segregated Army unit in World War II, he completed a degree at the Cooper Union Art School and pursued a doctorate in philosophy […]
Magazine
Dr. Seuss | New England’s Gifts
Born in Springfield, Massachusetts, Dr. Seuss (also known as Theodor S. Geisel) wrote and illustrated children’s books that sold more than 200 million copies in some 20 languages. Probably no other American has been so totally subsumed by an alter ego as Theodor S. Geisel, born on March 2, 1904 in Springfield, Massachusetts. To the […]
One day in 1948 a woman named Mary H. Sullivan became the very first Framingham Heart Study participant. More than 11,000 participants later, the people of Framingham, Massachusetts, 21 miles down the Mass. Turnpike from Boston, still troop along to the clinic to be studied. In all these years, the Heart Study has never treated […]
Before Christa McAuliffe was selected to be the first teacher in space aboard the Challenger, capturing the country’s hearts and imaginations, she was a popular social-studies teacher at Concord High School. When she became a hometown hero, a young reporter, Bob Hohler, was assigned to follow her journey for the Concord Monitor. He filed more […]
When she was 88, Doris Haddock — affectionately known as Granny D — said she’d walk across the country to call attention to campaign-finance reform. What followed would inspire an entire community, and beyond. When she was 88 and a great-grand-mother, Doris Haddock, who lived in Dublin, New Hampshire, said she’d walk across the country […]
Nature and landscape, these are some of the gifts New England gave to America, all the more treasured during autumn.
In April of this year, Charlotte’s Web was declared “the most popular children’s book ever” in a survey produced by BBC.com. E. B. White’s spartan boathouse, where much of the book was written, is still standing in a town in Midcoast Maine, although now the building has been prettied up by new owners. White’s granddaughter […]
Gruesome images today of refugees, fleeing poverty and war in North Africa and the Middle East, only to drown in Mediterranean waters, are arousing horror and sympathy around the world. European governments are faced with painful decisions: How many can they take in without being overwhelmed? The crisis is a reminder that New England has […]