• Date: October 29, 2008
• Location: NARA
• Time:9AM - 3PM
Address and Directions



Using ESSEX History is pleased to welcome back Dr. Cynthia Lyerly (Boston College) to lead us in a discussion of the culture of Jim Crow. This seminar will provide nuance for your discussions of segregation by taking us out of the courtrooms and voting booths to examine how the Jim Crow system affected everyday life and how depictions of race in popular culture complemented and supported both legal and de facto segregation. Readings for this seminar will focus on the turn of the 20th century and will bring together a diverse amount of scholarship including: Dr. Lyerly’s own work on The Clansman author Thomas Dixon, Jr., studies on the segregation of consumption and public spaces, and investigations into popular cultural icons such as Shirley Temple and Scarlett O’Hara. This seminar will take place at the NARA facilities in Waltham and will include screenings of portions of several films including Gone With the Wind, The Littlest Rebel, and Within our Gates, as well as investigations into NARA’s archives.The primary sources for the day reveal surprising ways in which the culture of segregation affected life here in New England.
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• Dr. Lynn Lyerly
• Boston College
  
  Dr. Cynthia Lyerly is an Associate Professor of History at Boston College and specializes in the history of American women with an interest in gender ideology, religion, women and race, and the history of the South. Currently Dr. Lyerly is working on a biography entitled Thomas Dixon, Jr.: Apostle of Hate. Dixon was the popular author of The Clansman, upon which D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation was based.
  

Address and Directions

360 Trapelo Road
Waltham, MA
Map


From 95 South
Take exit 28 for Trapeol Road towards Belmont. At the end of the exit ramp, take a left onto Trapelo Road. Follow Trapelo Road for almost 3 miles, and NARA will be on your right