A pleasure to participate this summer as one of the faculty scholars at the NEH Landmarks program for teachers in Concord, MA, on "Living and Writing Deliberately: The Concord Landscapes and Legacy of Henry David Thoreau"

Hooray for good weather and an enthusiastic crowd in May (during the ALA conference) for our walking tour of reformist Boston, jointly sponsored by the Louisa May Alcott and Lydia Maria Child Societies. 

Enjoyed speaking with Dr. Rochelle Johnson and Maine filmmaker Huey at a showing last fall of Thoreau: Surveyor of the Soul, a film by Huey, at Dietrich Theatre in beautiful Tunkhannock, PA.

Kicking off summer break to talk about the 150th anniversary of Little Women with Louisa May Alcott Society friends, we are given a wonderful welcome at Walnut Creek Public Library (near San Francisco) in May!

Some great press for the hard work of 
PSU Altoona alumna Olivia Wertz !

Penn State Student Transcribes 100 Letters Written in 1863-1870 by Ellen Garrison Jackson By Olivia Wertz • Penn State Altoona • 2017 Graduate

Olivia Wertz presenting her research on the Robbins House at Penn State Altoona. Image Courtesy of Penn State

I took multiple classes with Dr. Sandra Petrulionis, professor of English and American studies, so she was very familiar with my work ethic and academic interests. She approached me about the opportunity to do research with her, and I began working on the project my junior year. The research included examining and transcribing approximately 100 manuscript letters written by little-known 19th-century African American activist and educator Ellen Garrison Jackson, a native of Concord, Massachusetts. Through this research, I learned the principles of scholarly editing, including how to create a diplomatic transcription, as well as the fundamental concerns of textual scholarship. These transcriptions of Jackson's letters are now on public display in the exhibits at The Robbins House Center for African American history in Concord.

Hot off the Press! January 2017

NEH Humanities, Winter 2017: cover story, "The Youngest Person in Concord: Mary Moody Emerson Was a Thinker, a Writer, and an Inspiration to All Who Knew Her"
---Noelle A. Baker and Sandra Harbert Petrulionis

Photos of NEH Summer Institute on "Transcendentalism and Reform in the Age of Emerson, Thoreau, and Fuller," held in Concord, MA, June 18-July 1, 2017; directed by Sandy Petrulionis

Celebrating Henry Thoreau's 200th Birthday at the Huntington Library in San Marino, CA: "West of Walden: Henry David Thoreau and the Ends of Nature"

Enjoying The Morgan Library's exhibition, July 2017

Summer 2016 Talks and Travels

Honored to take part with Maria Madison and David Wood in "Making the Invisible Visible: Restoring Black Lives and History in Concord"--September 17, 2016, on the lawn of the Old Manse

An evening of Mary Moody Emerson and her writings at the Concord Museum, as part of their exhibit on "The People of Concord" (July)

Talking Thoreau and Wyeth with David Michaelis and Allan Wallach as part of "From Thoreau's Seasons to Men of Concord: N. C. Wyeth Inspired," at the Concord Free Public Library (June)

Enjoying a summer visit to the Women's Rights National Historical Park in Seneca Falls, NY

A new walking trail in Concord!

Gotta love these 19th-century "finds" in a used book store near Wells, Maine!

Thank you to MaineStage for Free Shakespeare in the Park in Kennebunk this summer!

Being interviewed in April at Walden Pond for a new documentary film, Henry David Thoreau: Surveyor of the Soul (see Films by Huey).