Articles by Steven Gilchrist

O n October 25, 2003, the Boston Women’s Memorial was dedicated.   The idea for the memorial was developed by the Boston Women’s Commission.   The memorial, which is located on the Commonwealth Avenue Mall, was sculpted by Meredith Bergmann.   The memorial depicts three bronze sculptures of important women in Boston’s history.   The sculptures pay tribute to the lives and contributions of Abigail Adams, Lucy Stone, and Phillis Wheatley.  Boston Women's Memorial sculpted by Meredith Bergmann Stone (1818 – 1893) is shown with a pen in her hand and Wheatley (ca. 1753 – 1784) is shown with a quill pen in her hand.   Stone was one of the first women in Massachusetts to graduate from college.   She was an abolitionist, orator and founder of The Woman’s Journal – the leading women’s suffrage publication of the era.   Wheatley was born in West Africa and sold into slavery.   Later she would go on to be the first African American to publish a book – ...

R ecent news headlines have been dominated by the tragic death of award-winning singer and actress Whitney Houston.   Houston died in Beverly Hills, California last month in an apparent drowning.   Although the cause of her death was ruled an accident, much of Houston’s career was consumed by drug abuse.   Similar to Houston there are other entertainment stars who died young, partially from the effects of alcohol or drug abuse.   Other celebrities who have passed away at a young age include: Michael Jackson, Amy Winehouse, and Heath Ledger.   Each of these deaths were tragic, however, circumstances regarding alcohol and drug overdoses are not confined to Hollywood superstars.   Statistics indicate that prescription drug abuse amongst the general U.S. population is now an epidemic.   “In 2007, approximately 27,000 unintentional drug overdose deaths occurred in the United States, one death every 19 minutes.   Prescription drug abuse is the fas...

Cambridge, MA. - Charles Sumner (1811 – 1874) served as a U.S. Senator from Massachusetts for 23 years.   Sumner was born on January 6, 1811 in Boston, Massachusetts.   He attended the Boston Latin School and later graduated from Harvard College in 1830 and from Harvard Law School in 1833.   After law school, he started a legal practice in Boston.   In 1851, Sumner was elected to the U.S. Senate as a member of the Free Soil party.   Sumner would serve in the U.S. Senate until his death on March 11, 1874.   As an abolitionist, Sumner was an outspoken critic of slavery.   His ardent antislavery beliefs put him at odds with a number of his political colleagues.   In May 1856 during an impassioned diatribe on the Senate floor, Sumner condemned southern slave owners.   His speech was titled “The Crime Against Kansas.”   In response to Sumner’s criticism of the South, Congressman Preston Brooks savagely assaulted Sumner in Senate chambers on...

I n early November 2011, the U.S. Census Bureau released new data regarding poverty in the United States.   The data indicated that 1 in 15 people in the U.S. are amongst the poorest of the poor – a record high since the Census Bureau began maintaining poverty records 35 years ago. According to a November 4, 2011 article written by Associated Press reporters Hope Yen and Laura Wides-Munoz, “About 20.5 million Americans, or 6.7 percent of the US population, make up the poorest poor, defined as those at 50 percent or less of the official poverty level.”   There are approximately 46.2 million people living below the federal poverty line.   In 2010, the poorest of the poor was defined as an income of $5,570 or less for one person and $11,157 for a family of four.   Since 2007, 40 states and the District of Columbia have had increases in the number of people considered the poorest of the poor.   No states saw a decrease in these numbers.   The District ...

Clinton, MA. – Towards the end of last year, I had the opportunity to visit the Museum of Russian Icons located in Clinton, Massachusetts.   The museum, which was founded in October, 2006 by Gordon B. Lankton, is the only museum in the United States dedicated to Russian iconography.   The museum is also home to the largest collection of Russian icons in North America. The museum is located at 203 Union Street adjacent to Clinton’s Central Park – the oldest public park in the United States.   Within the museums walls are over 500 Russian icons and artifacts spanning from the 15 th century to the present.   Lankton selected a 19 th century building as the location for the museum.   The building, which has 3 separate exhibit levels, was renovated and is equipped with advanced technological equipment.    Lankton – an avid collector of Russian icons chose Clinton, Massachusetts as the location for the museum because of his longstanding relationship w...

Lincoln, MA. -  I recently visited the DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln, Massachusetts.   The museum has several works of art in its outside park as well as exhibit halls inside the museum.   DeCordova, which is a public museum, specializes in contemporary and modern sculpture art. Founded in 1950, DeCordova encompasses 35 acres of well-groomed land adjacent to Flint’s Pond and has more than 60 pieces of art in its sculpture park venue at any given time.   The inside of the museum hosts rotating exhibits and offers guided programming. OZYMANDIAS is my favorite work of art in the sculpture park.   The 18’ x 16’ x 2’ wood, paint, and steel piece was created in 2009 by contemporary artist and educator Douglas Kornfeld.   The completely red OZYMANDIAS is a large sculpture that references ancient Egyptian worship monuments such as the Sphinx and Ramses the Great.   In displaying the larger-than-life sculpture, Kornfeld also “questions how c...

W orld War II was the most destructive war in human history.   The United States played an integral role in defeating the Axis powers during the war. Located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., The World War II Memorial pays tribute to the 16 million Americans who served in the United States military during the Second World War.   Of those 16 million who served, 400,000 died.   The Memorial is also dedicated to the supporters of the American soldiers who fought in the war. The war was fought across six continents and all of the world’s oceans.   “It killed 50 million human beings, left hundreds of millions of others wounded in mind and body…,” British historian John Keegan wrote concerning WWII.    In 1987, the concept of the memorial was first introduced by Ohio congresswoman Marcy Kaptur.   However, construction for the memorial did not begin until 2001 and the dedication was on May 29, 2004.   Friedrich St. Florian designed the ...