2023 Bay State Legacy Award

Martin H. Blatt, Northeastern University

Marty Blatt, emeritus professor of public history, Northeastern University, previously served as program director. He worked for 24 years in the National Park Service (NPS), 18 in Boston and 6 in Lowell. He is the recipient of the Kelly Memorial Award from the National Council on Public History for outstanding achievement in public history (2020) and the NPS Director’s Award for excellence in cultural resource management (2013).

Some public history programs Blatt has organized include:

Public reading of William Apess’s eulogy to King Philip at Old South Meeting House (2023)
Part of a national team, Humanities Action Lab, which organized exhibit on mass incarceration. The Northeastern exhibit component focused on the role of Malcolm X on the Norfolk Prison debate team. (2017).
Historical pageant, “Roots of Liberty – The Haitian Revolution and the American Civil War.” (2013)
Program entitled, “Abolitionism in Black and White: The Anti-Slavery Community of Boston and Cambridge” (2009).
Traveling exhibit, “Gulag: Soviet Forced Labor Camps and the Struggle for Freedom,” (2006).
Program entitled, “Hope and Glory: The Centennial Celebration of the Monument to Robert Gould Shaw and the 54^th Massachusetts Regiment” (1997).
Program in Lowell, “The Meaning of Slavery in the North,” (1993).

Blatt has published books, articles, and reviews in a wide variety of venues. His books include:

Editor, Violence and Public Memory, Routledge, 2023
Editor, with Thomas Brown and Donald Yacovone, Hope and Glory – Essays on the Legacy of the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Regiment, University of Massachusetts Press, 2001.
Author, Free Love and Anarchism: The Biography of Ezra Heywood, University of Illinois Press, 1989.

His essays include two pieces in The Public Historian (2012 and 2002) which interweave family history with a discussion of public history of the Holocaust in Heidelberg, Germany. His forthcoming review in that journal is a sharp critique of the documentary film produced by the Atlanta History Center focused on the Confederate memorial on Stone Mountain.

The Bay State Legacy Award goes to an individual who has made outstanding contributions to the interpretation and presentation of Massachusetts history. For many years, the Bay State Historical League presented the John F. Ayer Award in recognition of an individual’s contributions to the interpretation and presentation of Massachusetts history. After 101 years of service, the BSHL dissolved on January 1, 2005, at which time the Massachusetts History Conference planning committee decided to continue this recognition of an individual’s contribution to Massachusetts history by inaugurating the Bay State Legacy Award.

2022 – Lee Blake, New Bedford Historical Society and Jim Lopes, New Bedford

As the leader of the New Bedford Historical Society, Lee Blake spearheads the preservation of African American history in New Bedford and the region. She is the visionary behind Abolition Row Park, a project that will create a city park out of an abandoned lot across the street from the Nathan and Mary Johnson House. She also collaborates with other non-profit organizations across the Southcoast to share the stories of the Underground Railroad, Frederick Douglass, and African American history in public art and history projects, which have included a mural and brick walkway celebrating the MA 54th Volunteer Infantry Regiment; a public trail exploring the legacy of Captain Paul Cuffe in New Bedford and Westport, Massachusetts; and an exhibit in Boston and New Bedford with University of Massachusetts Dartmouth on the Abolition Row Project, entitled Black Spaces Matter. Blake has been awarded six National Endowment for the Humanities grants over the past 15 years for the professional development of teachers across the country on the intersection between New Bedford’s history as a maritime port, the Underground Railroad, and African American history. Throughout, she has been a tireless leader, fundraiser, advocate, and resource for researching, interpreting and sharing local and regional histories of minoritized people. Blake was awarded the National Park Service Robert Stanton Network to Freedom Award for her work in preserving the history of people of color in 2018 and the Massachusetts Governor’s Award in the Humanities in 2019.

2021 – Darius C. Coombs, Mashpee Wampanoag Museum

Darius C. Coombs has long been a leading force in the interpretation of Native American history in Massachusetts. In 2021 Coombs joined the Mashpee Wampanoag Museum as their new Cultural & Outreach Coordinator for Education. Formerly, he was Director of Wampanoag and Algonquian Interpretation at Plimoth Patuxet (formerly Plimoth Plantation). He worked at Plimoth for over 30 years, starting as an Interpreter on the Wampanoag Homesite, and subsequently becoming the Program Manager. He organized and conducted interpretative training for all staff; constructed and maintained traditional Wampanoag homes, or wetuash, for a number of exhibit sites at the museum; and presented Wampanoag history and culture programs to groups, conferences, and schools. Coombs has served as an exhibits consultant for the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian as well as an historical adviser and on-camera expert for PBS, History Channel, and Smithsonian Channel productions. He is a sought-after guest speaker for audiences of all ages, from elementary schools to higher education.

2020 – Conference canceled due to COVID-19. No award conferred.

2019 – Joanne Riley, University Libraries, University of Massachusetts Boston

Joanne Riley, Interim Dean of University Libraries, University of Massachusetts Boston, received the Bay State Legacy Award for her dedication to preserving and interpreting Massachusetts history through her early and ground-breaking involvement in digital humanities work. Joanne’s efforts to preserve Massachusetts history began in 1998 when she joined the Massachusetts Studies Project, founded by her mentor Barbara (Bobby) Robinson. Joanne went on to develop the Massachusetts Studies Network in 2007, which provided an “online social network specifically for those who are involved in local studies in Massachusetts” – several years before platforms like Facebook became widely used by the general public.

Joanne is most-frequently associated with the Mass. Memories Road Show, an event-based public history project she launched in 2004 that digitizes family photos and memories shared by the people of Massachusetts. The Road Show has preserved 11,000 photographs and stories from more than 75 Massachusetts communities and has engaged hundreds of volunteers and contributors across the Commonwealth.

Joanne led the 1919 Boston Police Strike Project, working with the Boston Police Department Archives, UMass Boston colleagues and community volunteers to research the 1,100+ policemen who participated in that historic event. Joanne trained volunteers to research the strikers’ lives and developed a publicly-accessible database to store and share the researched data. She also co-developed a free, online course on how to conduct accurate biographical research using open resources, and for the strike’s centennial in 2019 she spearheaded the coordination of a community celebration honoring the strikers, their descendants, and the project volunteers. As University Archivist and Curator of Special Collections at UMass Boston (2011-2017), Joanne oversaw unprecedented growth of the department, bolstering the department’s mission to document the social and cultural history of Boston.

2018 – Ralmon Black, Williamsburg Historical Society (posthumously)

Kathie Gow of the Hatfield Historical Society hands the 2018 Bay State Legacy Award plaque to Candy (Black) Smith, Ralmon’s sister, and Collin Black, Ralmon’s son (June 4, 2018)

Ralmon Black, historian of the Williamsburg Historical Society, was utterly devoted to Williamsburg and the vast resources of its history. He believed vitally in the importance of both the past and the present. To spend an hour (or a day) with Ralmon was to discover anew that history surrounds us all of the time and to experience the joy of being alive in this moment. He had an encyclopedic, ever-growing knowledge of Williamsburg and Western Mass. and to anyone who asked he freely shared not just his knowledge but his research, documentation, and insights. His generosity was truly staggering. For him, the history of Massachusetts, of the Pioneer Valley, and of his hometown of Williamsburg was the gateway into a broader understanding of humanity, of place, and of home. He has helped so many people discover local history, family genealogy, a relationship and connection to the past. A consummate historian, he invariably deepened a sense of community within us all.

2017 – Chuck Arning, National Park Service

Chuck Arning, starting his 24th year in the National Park Service, has spent all his time in the Blackstone Valley, formerly in the National Heritage Corridor and now in the “new” Blackstone River Valley National Historical Park. Arning has produced over 95 television/videos focusing on the history, cultures, preservation, and stewardship issues of the Blackstone Valley. He produces, writes, and hosts the award-winning series “Along the Blackstone” which has aired on the History Channel (1996 – 1998) and has earned Ranger Arning numerous regional and national video awards. Arning was awarded the 1997 National Freeman Tilden Award for Excellence in Interpretation by the National Park Service. In 2002, he was awarded the Freedom Star Award by the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom. Recently Arning was awarded the 2014 Leadership in Preservation Award from the Blackstone Valley Chamber of Commerce. Arning has worked in partnership with many of the Blackstone Valley’s historical societies, museums, and historic sites on programs connecting history and “sense of place” preservation efforts to stewardship concepts for the people of the Valley. Arning has written for the National Association of Interpreter’s Magazine Legacy and the National Park Service’s Cultural Resource Management Magazine. He is a Member & former Councilor for the American Antiquarian Society, Membership Co-Chair for the National Council on Public History, and a former 3-term Board member for the New England Historical Association.

Bill Wallace is celebrating forty years as Executive Director of Worcester Historical Museum, which has expanded and relocated under his directorship. A native of northern New Hampshire, Bill is a graduate of the University of New Hampshire. In addition to his day-to-day responsibilities at 30 Elm Street and Salisbury Mansion, he is chair of the Hope Cemetery Commission. When not interacting with Worcester history, Bill can probably be found in a cemetery, researching the mid-19th century history of Mt. Washington’s Tip-Top House, or spending time at a Disney property.

2015 – Brian Donahue, environmentalist, Brandeis University

Brian Donahue, an associate professor of American Environmental Studies on the Jack Meyerhoff Fund and the director of the Brandeis Environmental Studies program, teaches courses on environmental issues, environmental history. and sustainable farming and forestry. He holds a B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. from the Brandeis program in the History of American Civilization. He co-founded and for 12 years directed Land’s Sake, a nonprofit community farm in Weston, and was director of education at The Land Institute in Salina, Kansas. Donahue is the author of Reclaiming the Commons: Community Farms and Forests in a New England Town (1999), which won the 2000 Book Prize from the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities. His book The Great Meadow: Farmers and the Land in Colonial Concord (2004) won the 2004 Marsh Prize from the American Society for Environmental History, the 2005 Saloutos Prize from the Agricultural History Society and the 2004 Best Book Prize from the New England Historical Association. His primary interest is the history and prospect of human engagement with the land.

2014 – Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Harvard University

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich is 300th Anniversary University Professor at Harvard University and a past President of the American Historical Association. She is the author of many articles and books on early American history, including A Midwife’s Tale, which won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1991. Her 2001 book, The Age of Homespun, is organized around fourteen domestic items, including a linen tablecloth, two Indian baskets, and an unfinished stocking. She has consulted for museums and historical societies nationwide. During her tenure as a MacArthur Fellow, she worked on the production of a PBS documentary based on A Midwife’s Tale. Her work is also featured on an award-winning website called dohistory.org. Her more recent work includes Well-behaved Women Seldom Make History (2007) and “Tangible Things,” a 2011 exhibit of artworks and artifacts from Harvard’s many collections that she co-curated with Ivan Gaskell. A book based on the exhibit will be published next year by Oxford University Press. She is currently completing A House Full of Females: Faith and Family in Nineteenth-century Mormon Diaries.

2013 – Ray Raphael

During the past decade, Raphael has emerged as one of the leading writers on the birth of the United States, whose work is of profound importance to public history in Massachusetts. In 2002 The First American Revolution: Before Lexington and Concord led to a marked rethinking about the Revolution’s beginnings. 2004’s Founding Myths: Stories that Hide Our Patriotic Past established new standards for future renderings of our nation’s birth. His new Constitutional Myths: What We Get Wrong and How to Get It Right was released in March 2013. Currently, Raphael is working on a revised and expanded edition of Founding Myths, in which he addresses the question why myths persist.

2012 – Jessie little doe baird, Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project

We are giving jessie little doe baird this award in recognition of her outstanding work in reviving the Wampanoag language, a vital part of the history and cultural heritage of the peoples of Massachusetts. Her work in the Wampanoag Language Reclamation Project promotes the reclamation, preservation and understanding of linguistic traditions of indigenous peoples central to Massachusetts’s past and present, and serves a broad range of audiences and participants–from academic scholarship to educational programming for all ages. Because this year’s conference theme concerns the “Peopling of Massachusetts,” it is especially appropriate that we honor this project dedicated to reviving and reclaiming the culture of one of the first nations in the region—the Wampanoag. The story of peopling begins here.

2011 – Peter and Jane Benes, Dublin Seminar for New England Folklife

Peter and Jane Montague Benes are synonymous with the Dublin Seminar for New England Folklife. As founders of this more than 30-year series of conferences and publications, they have helped professional and avocational historians alike explore an extraordinary range of subjects in the everyday life, work, and culture of the Commonwealth and the region. In dozens of co-edited volumes, and publications from the 1977 Masks of Orthodoxy to the forthcoming Meetinghouses of Early New England, the breadth and depth of Peter and Jane’s contributions to Massachusetts History are unequalled.

2010 –Ellen Rothman, Jewish Women’s Archive

Ellen Rothman is Deputy Director of the Jewish Women’s Archive, a national non-profit based in Boston that is dedicated to uncovering, chronicling, and transmitting the rich history of Jewish women in North America. Before moving to JWA, she spent 11 years as Associate Director of Mass Humanities, where she was responsible for Massachusetts history (including the Scholar in Residence and Research Inventory grants and this annual conference). In addition to her work with grant applicants, she directed three very different special projects which had in common a focus on bringing to life stories from the Commonwealth’s past. The first was the State House Women’s Leadership Project, which used art and education to honor the contributions of six remarkable women to public life in Massachusetts. The second developed a prototype of an interactive website that linked Plimoth Plantation, the Paul Revere House, and Lowell National Historical park thematically and digitally. The third was Mass Moments, a daily almanac of Massachusetts history delivered originally via radio and the Web, now via email, RSS feed or podcast. Visitors to the Mass Moments website can choose to listen to a one-minute audio spot or read the script, and then explore the story further by reading a background essay and clicking on a primary source document, links to follow, and places to visit.

2009 – Henry Hicks

Henry Hicks has served the history field for over a half century, connecting classrooms and resources throughout Massachusetts through his many professional activities. He was a history teacher and Director of Social Studies in the Needham Public Schools for well over 30 years. He has been a leader in the New England History Teachers Association and the Massachusetts Council for the Social Studies. After retiring, Henry became even more active in museum work, as President and Curator of the Needham Historical Society, President and longtime Board member of the Bay State Historical League, and on other boards ranging from Old Sturbridge Village to the Battleship Massachusetts and the State Archives Advisory Committee.

2008 – Abbott Lowell Cummings

Abbott Lowell Cummings’ meticulous scholarship and unique vision–into the past as well as the future–has transformed the practice of material culture study in Massachusetts. An architectural historian perhaps best-known for his longtime association with the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities, Abbott also helped found Boston University’s New England and American Studies Program, and the Vernacular Architectural Forum. He has made tremendous contributions to institutions beyond Massachusetts as well, including Antioch College, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Yale University. Cummings’ landmark study The Framed Houses of Massachusetts Bay, 1625-1715 is but one of dozens of influential books and articles he has produced since 1953. His continuing impact is felt, too, in museum and historic site interpretation across the Commonwealth. Abbott Cummings’ work is keenly observant, analytically penetrating and richly humane, and has come to define the way we understand our shared landscapes.

2006 – Peter O’Connell, Tsongas Industrial History Center

For many years, the Bay State Historical League presented the John F. Ayer Award to an individual who had made an outstanding contribution to the interpretation and presentation of Massachusetts history. We are delighted to continue the tradition of the Ayer Award through awarding the second annual Bay State Legacy Award to Peter S. O’Connell, longtime Director of Museum Education at Old Sturbridge Village and since 1996, Director of the Tsongas Industrial History Center in Lowell.

2005 – Jack Tager, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

We are delighted to honor the BSHL and continue the Ayer Award tradition by presenting the first Bay State Legacy Award to Jack Tager, Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. During his 40-year career, Professor Tager introduced hundreds of students to the delights of Massachusetts history. He is the author of Massachusetts at a Glance: A User’s Guide to the Bay State (2004), Boston Riots: Three Centuries of Social Violence (2001) and co-author with Richard Wilkie of the Historical Atlas of Massachusetts (1991) and with Richard D. Brown of Massachusetts: A Concise History (2000).