‘The Greatest American: Benjamin Franklin'
With the observances of the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution now underway, this is a perfect time to reconsider Benjamin Franklin, the most audacious and unpredictable of the Founding Fathers.
Economist Mark Skousen, an eighth-generation direct descendant of Franklin, authored 'The Greatest American: The Genius of Benjamin Franklin' as a user-friendly guide to the Colonial era's most intriguing celebrity. Indeed, calling Franklin a 'celebrity' is the easiest way to classify him, as Skousen points out Franklin enjoyed prominence in 22 different careers.
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Boston Globe
2 days ago
- Boston Globe
Five things to do around Boston, June 30-July 13
July 1 No Strings Attached Become a puppet master at the Boston Public Library's Puppet-Making Workshop. From 10:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. at BPL's Egleston Square branch, professional puppeteer and performer Nicola McEldowney will guide you in creating your own finger puppets. The workshop is recommended for children ages 4 -7 and their families. All materials will be provided. Free. Advertisement July 2-July 4 Harbor of Revolution Commemorate the American Revolution — and the state where it began — at the annual Boston Harborfest celebration. At venues across the city, listen to a kick-off speech by Mayor Michelle Wu, hear the Declaration of Independence read from the balcony of the Old State House (just how Bostonians first heard it in 1776), watch fireworks over the harbor, enjoy patriotic music from the Boston Pops Orchestra, and more. Prices vary, but most Harborfest events are free. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up July 11 Royal Refrain Discover history-making women alongside one of America's most talented vocalists at African Queens with Karen Slack. Slack, a Grammy Award-winning soprano, will perform newly commissioned music that honors seven African queens, interspersed with spoken word and displays of African artwork. At 7:30 p.m. at the Shalin Liu Performance Center, witness these queens' lives and legacies. Find tickets, starting at $38, at Advertisement July 11-July 12 Flavor Island Taste the city's finest Jamaican flavors at Boston JerkFest. This food and culture festival will take over Harvard's Athletic Complex from 5:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Friday and from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday. Friday, sip from more than 50 spirits, cocktails, and other specialty brew samples. On Saturday, try jerk dishes (for purchase) from dozens of local vendors, enjoy steel drum music and dancing, and make your own Caribbean-inspired crafts. Ticket prices vary, starting at $44 for a Friday concert only. This edition of Your Week Ahead covers two weeks. Look for the next edition of Globe Magazine on July 13. Share your event news. Send information on Boston-area happenings at least three weeks in advance to week@ Adelaide Parker can be reached at
Boston Globe
2 days ago
- Boston Globe
It may be a silent protest, but the message is loud and clear. And ‘temporary graffiti' is building a following.
'I'm coming to Boston, I'm bringing hell with me,' Homan In early March, on the night before Mayor Michelle Wu was due in Washington, D.C., to testify before Congress about the city's immigration policies, a group of activists had an answer for Homan. Advertisement 'You can't bring hell to Boston,' the artists projected in vintage typeface on the brick facade of the Old State House. 'It's been waiting for you since 1770.' Photographic evidence of the temporary installation quickly made the internet rounds. Get Love Letters: The Newsletter A weekly dispatch with all the best relationship content and commentary – plus exclusive content for fans of Love Letters, Dinner With Cupid, weddings, therapy talk, and more. Enter Email Sign Up The Silence Dogood display at the Old State House. Handout Not by happenstance, that day was the anniversary of the skirmish that came to be known as the Boston Massacre, when the colonists' disagreements with the British Parliament and King George III's occupying troops boiled over into deadly violence. That kind of link to this city's revolutionary past is what drives the folks behind Advertisement The group borrowed the name from the Boston native Benjamin Franklin, who used it as an alias early in his illustrious life. At 16, while apprenticing at his older brother's print shop, Franklin adopted the pen name after James Franklin declined to print his young sibling's letters in his weekly newspaper, the New-England Courant. A display on Old North Church. Aram Boghosian Benjamin Franklin imagined his alter ego to be a middle-aged widow, a defender of 'the Rights and Liberties of my Country' and 'a mortal Enemy to arbitrary Government & unlimited Power.' Silence is 'a bit of a busybody,' explained Diane Dwyer, who has become the default spokesperson for the Silence Dogood project. On a recent Friday afternoon, Dwyer sat in a shared artist space on the second floor of an old brick building in the Fort Point district. Scale models covered most flat surfaces; artists' renderings were pinned up across much of the available wall space. A display in Boston Harbor. Handout Dwyer, who grew up in Maryland, moved to Boston a few years ago, after earning a master's degree in narrative environments from the University of the Arts London. She has a background in theater, 'and I'm a huge history nerd,' she said. She was recently named a grant recipient of the Mayor's Office of Arts & Culture's 'We're inviting people to write their own plaques,' Dwyer said. While she's currently compiling a database of Boston's existing markers — and noting the overwhelming prevalence of white men (there are, she says, as many references to Paul Revere as all women combined, and more than all Black people) — she still gets excited about making connections to the country's founding fathers. Advertisement A display on Faneuil Hall. Handout Silence Dogood's projections have featured statements attributed to George Washington ('The cause of Boston now is and always will be the cause of America,' projected in the water at the base of the Boston Tea Party Museum), Joseph Warren ('May our land be a land of liberty,' at the Bunker Hill Monument, on the site where Warren was killed), and, yes, the aforementioned silversmith Revere ('One if by land, two if by D.C.,' projected on the Old North Church, though that's not a direct quote). Silence Dogood's work at Old North Church on April 17, 2025. Mike Ritter The Rev. Dr. Matthew Cadwell, the vicar at Old North Church, didn't know about those projections until he saw them on 'The Rachel Maddow Show.' Silence Dogood's warning came during a busy week for the church, which doubles as an active Episcopal mission and a historical site. It was the 250th anniversary of Revere's famous ride. One of the projections borrowed from the last stanza of 'In the main, people were very enthusiastic about it,' Cadwell said over the phone. 'It was neat. It was a powerful capstone on that night of historic remembrance.' To stage the Silence Dogood protests, Dwyer borrows state-of-the-art projection equipment — and sometimes enlists production help — from the small circle of Boston creatives who specialize in outdoor art. At one 'activation,' an unexpected hailstorm sent volunteers scrambling to cover the expensive projector with their jackets. Advertisement Visual artists Jeff Grantz and Diane Dwyer are part of a grassroots group that uses high-powered projectors to beam protest messages on the facades of Boston historical buildings, reminding people of connections between Boston's revolutionary history and the present day. Ken McGagh for The Boston Globe In recent years, projection-mapping artists have fine-tuned the art of 'temporary graffiti.' Some say the practice of projection mapping as a form of protest took off during the Occupy demonstrations of 2011. During the first Trump administration, Another group, In Boston during the racial reckoning of 2020, some of the city's projectionists partnered with street artist Cedric Douglas after the removal of a Christopher Columbus statue in the North End. They While redefining the nature of public protest, these artists have also been grappling with the unresolved debate about the legality of their protests. Some legal experts cite property rights and laws governing trespassing. Others argue that the right to free speech covers projections just as it does signs and banners. Arists Diane Dwyer and Jeff Grantz project a quotation from George Washington on the wall of a vacant Dorchester tire store on Tuesday, June 24, 2025. Ken McGagh for The Boston Globe Dwyer and her colleagues talk often about their First Amendment right to protest and the potential collateral damage to the other work they do, for advertisers, art festivals, and more. Dwyer, who heads Advertisement For her, the commitment to activist work came into sharp focus on a Friday in May, when she watched the live feed of a 'They were speaking to the coordinated resistance without hemming and hawing,' Dwyer recalled. After another period of despair, she said — 'Who can remember the headline of the day?' — the Town Hall discussion fortified her. It also made her feel, for the first time, like she'd become a bona fide Bostonian. You just hope, she said, 'that we're not screaming into the void.' James Sullivan can be reached at .
3 days ago
Army officer traces family's military legacy back 250 years
Lt. Col. Brandon Mace traces his family's military history from the American Revolution to the modern era with ABC News Live anchor Kyra Phillips as the Army celebrates its 250th anniversary.
