| Years | Image | Event | Description | Keywords |
| 1769 | | Forefather's Day celebrated by Plymouth's Old Colony Club | | |
| 1770 |  | Paul Revere engraves the events in King Street. | | Boston Massacre, Attucks |
| 1772 | | Paul Revere engraves a "portrait" of King Philip | | Indian, Philip |
| 1783 | | Boston establishes annual July 4 oration | After the revolution, Independence Day replaced Pope's Day and Boston Massacre orations in public memorials. | |
| 1791 | | Massachusetts Historical Society founded | | |
| 1799 | | East India Marine Society established in Salem, Massachusetts | | |
| 1815 | | Henry Sargent paints "The Landing of the Fathers" | | |
| 1817 | | Pres. James Monroe consecrates Bunker Hill battle site | | revolution, memory |
| 1818 | | Daniel Wadsworth commissions a portrait of the Charter Oak | | charter oak, Connecticut |
| 1818 | | John Trumbull's painting of the signing of the Declaration of Independence displayed at Faneuil Hall | | July 4, revolution |
| 1820 | | Daniel Webster speaks at Plymouth bicentennial | | |
| 1821 | | Essex Institute founded | | |
| 1822 | | Rhode Island Historical Society founded | | |
| 1823 | | New Hampshire Historical Society founded | | |
| 1824 | | Pilgrim Hall museum opened in Plymouth | | |
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| 1824 | | Lafayette feted in America | | revolution |
| 1824 | | Bunker Hill monument begun | | revolution |
| 1825 | | Connecticut Historical Society founded | | Connecticut, museums |
| 1829 | | First performance of "Metamora" | | Indian, Philip |
| 1830 | | Monument erected at Fort Griswold | | |
| 1835 | | George Robert Twelves Hewes feted in Providence and Boston | Joseph G. Cole painted his portrait, called "The Centenarian" | Independence Day, July 4, revolution |
| 1835 | | Rhode Island Historical Society collects materials from Indian graves. | This is only one example of New England museums accessioning grave goods, bones, and hair from burial sites deliberately or accidentally disturbed. | museums, bones, Indians |
| 1836 | | John Warner Barber , "Historical Collections of Connecticut" | | |
| 1836 | | William Apess. Eulogy on King Philip | | Indian, Philip |
| 1836 |  | Eliza Susan Quincy portrays procession at Harvard's 200th Anniversary | | Harvard centennial |
| 1837 | | John Sibley publishes story of Washington Elm | | revolution |
| 1837 | | Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Concord Hymn" sung at the dedication of the North Bridge Battle Monument. | "Here once the embattled farmers stood/And fired the shot heard round the world." | Revolution |
| 1842 |  | Eleanor Field gives the Rhode Island Historical Society a basket purportedly made during King Philip's War. | | |
| 1842 | | Wadsworth Atheneum opens in Hartford | Considered the nation's first public art museum. | Connecticut, museum |
| 1845 | | New England Historic Genealogical Society Founded | | |
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| 1847 | | Sarah Hale, ed. of Godey's begins Thanksgiving campaign | For samples of Hale's Thanksgiving editorials, go to "The Godey's Lady's Book" link at the University of Vermont. | |
| 1848 | | Thompkins Matteson's "Examination of a Witch" exhibited in New York | | witch, painting |
| 1851 | | Horace Bushnell speaks at Litchfield County Centennial | | Litchfield, Connecticut, homespun |
| 1856 | | Charter Oak toppled in a wind storm | The romance of the Charter Oak persists even today. | charter oak, Connecticut |
| 1858 | | Winslow Homer illustrates rural New England life. . | See "Husking Corn," Harper's Weekly, November 13, 1858, in "Selected Slides: Homer" | women's work, homespun |
| 1858 | | Crispus Attucks Day celebrated at African Meeting House | | revolution, Boston Massacre |
| 1860 | | Matthew Brady photographs Edwin Forrest as "Metamora" | | Indian, Philip |
| 1864 | | U.S. Sanitary Commission sponsors "Colonial Kitchens" | | |
| 1866 | | Peabody Museum founded at Harvard | | |
| 1868 | | Winslow Homer illustrates life in Lowell Mills | See "Morning Bell" and "Bell Time" in Selected Slides: Homer. Also see HarpWeek (Hollis e-resources) issues of July 25, 1868 (p. 472) and December 23, 1873 (p. 1116). | women's work |
| 1868 | | Deerfield first exhibits door from "Indian House" | | Deerfield massacre, museum |
| 1869 | | American Museum of Natural History founded in New York | | |
| 1869 | | Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association founded in Deerfield, Massachusetts | | museum |
| 1870 | | Boston Museum of Fine Arts founded | | |
| 1870 | | Metropolitan Museum of Art founded in New York | | |
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| 1870 | | Winslow Homer engraving, "The Dinner Horn" | | |
| 1873 | | Anne Whitney wins competition to create a sculpture of Samuel Adams for the United States Capitol. | Later the City of Boston installed a bronze version at Faneuil Hall even though in 1874 a Boston commission rejected her sculpture of Charles Sumner because she was a woman.
| statue |
| 1876 | | Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia | | |
| 1879 | | The Boston Antiquarian Club rescues the Old State House | See the Old State House time-line on the Bostonian Society Web site | revolution |
| 1879 | | Children give Longfellow a chair from the "spreading chestnut" | | trees |
| 1880 | | Memorial Hall dedicated in Deerfield | A battered door from the so-called "Indian house" was a prominent feature. | Deerfield, museum, Indian |
| 1881 | | Nantucket's Coffin House restored | | maritime, museum, summer |
| 1881 | | Winslow Homer seeks the "old ways" in an English fishing village. | | maritime |
| 1885 | | Boston proposes a statue of Paul Revere | Although Cyrus Dallin completed several models, the city failed to raise the money to complete the statue. | revolution |
| 1887 | | Ellen Rounds repairs the "Damm Garrison" | In 1915, she donated it to Dover, New Hampshire's new "Woodman Institute." | Indian wars, door, museum |
| 1887 | | Mass. Historical Society protests Boston Massacre monument | | revolution |
| 1888 | | Crispus Attucks Monument dedicated | | revolution |
| 1889 | | Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association presents a historical pageant | The historical vignettes included Anne Hutchinson's banishment, the Salem witch trials, and the courtship of Priscilla Alden, among other events. | witch, antinomian, Hutchinson, Alden, suffrage |
| 1890 | | Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) Founded | | |
| 1890 | | Alice Baker returns to Deerfield to restore her ancestral home, Frary House. | | summer |
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| 1891 | | Bennington Battle Monument erected | Harper's Weekly, August 22, 1891: "It is 308 feet high, being the highest battle monument in this country, and nearly 100 feet higher thant he famous one on Bunker Hill. | |
| 1893 | | World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago | | centennial |
| 1895 | | Eliza Philbrick creates a "Colonial Gown" for a DAR party in Boston | | reproduction |
| 1896 | | Blue and White Society formed in Deerfield | | reproduction |
| 1897 | | New England Historic Genealogical Society Admits Women | | |
| 1897 | | Boston Society of Arts and Crafts Founded | | |
| 1898 | | Emily Tyson purchases the 1785 Hamilton House, the setting for Sarah Orne Jewett's "The Tory Lover." | | summer |
| 1900 | | Old Gaol opened in York, Maine | | museum |
| 1900 | | Plymouth Blanket Society formed to make "rose blankets" | | |
| 1901 | | Maine Historical Society opens Wadsworth-Longfellow House | | museum |
| 1903 | | Elizabeth C. B. Buel , "The Tale of the Spinning Wheel" | | |
| 1904 | | Wallace Nutting launches a career as a historical entrepreneur | Wallace Nutting (1861-1941) attempted to record 'that old life in America, which is rapidly passing away.' | |
| 1904 | | Henry James visits the supposed House of the Seven Gables. | James wrote, "Hawthorne's ladder at Salem, in fine, has now quite gone, and we but tread the air if we attempt to set our critical feet on its steps and its rounds. | |
| 1905 |  | Paul Revere House saved from demolition | The house, which was in an immigrant neighborhood, was reinvented as an early colonial dwelling. It is still open to the public. | museum |
| 1907 | | Period rooms opened in Essex Institute | | museum |
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| 1908 | | House of Seven Gables Settlement Association founded | | witch, Salem, museum, immigration |
| 1910 | | Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities (SPNEA) founded | | |
| 1915 | | Statue of Anne Hutchinson erected on Beacon Hill | | |
| 1922 | | Antiques Magazine launched | | |
| 1926 | | John D. Rockefeller funds Colonial Williamburg in Virginia | | museum |
| 1928 | | A New York surgeon founds the Abbe Museum on Mount Desert Island, Maine | While summering in Bar Harbor, Dr. Abbe was fascinated by the ancient Native American tools found in nearby shell heaps. As he began collecting these artifacts, he realized the need for safe permanent storage. | |
| 1929 | | Henry Ford funds Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan | | museum |
| 1930 | | Mystic Seaport maritime museum begins operation | | |
| 1931 | | Grant Wood paints :The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere | | |
| 1931 | | Gladys Tantaquidgeon (1899-2005) founds the Tantaguidgeon Museum at Mohegan. | | Mohegan, Indians |
| 1931 | | Polish Legion of American Veterans chartered. | Invoking the memory of Polish officers who fought in the American revolution, they eventually estabished units in New England. | immigrant |
| 1935 | | Yankee magazine founded | | |
| 1935 | | Wells Historical Museum (precurser to Old Sturbridge Village) open | Read Jack Larkin and Mark Ashton, "Celebrating 50 Years of History" on the museum Web site. | |
| 1935 | | Harold Tantaquidge reconstructs a Mohegan village | | museum |
| 1942 | | Farmer's Museum in Cooperstown, New York established | | |
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| 1942 | | Touro Synagogue designated a National Historic Site | . . . the Georgian influenced building is situated on an angle within the property allowing worshippers standing in prayer before the Holy Ark to face east toward Jerusalem. | |
| 1947 | | Old Sturbridge Village created | | museum |
| 1947 | | Plimoth Plantation founded | | museum |
| 1947 | | Shelburne Museum established | | |
| 1952 | | Historic Deerfield founded | | museum |
| 1958 | | Strawbery Banke Museum opens in Portsmouth, NH | In 1957 Dorothy M. Vaughan, Portsmouth librarian, was invited to address the local Rotary Club. As she later recalled, 'I decided to lay it right on the line, and tell them what Portsmouth was throwing away each time a house was torn down or a piece of furniture was sold out of town.' Almost before she had finished, a committee was created to see what could be done to save Portsmouth's heritage. The result was a radical new combination of urban renewal and historic preservation. The Puddle Dock neighborhood was to be saved as a historic museum. | |
| 1959 | | Statue of Mary Dyer erected on Beacon Hill | | |
| 1972 | | Harvard dedicates the so-called "Bradstreet Gate" between the Science Center and the Yard. | The Bradstreet Gate was controversial because it appeared to by-pass the history of Radcliffe. The passage from Bradstreet's writing engraved on the gate was taken out of context. In the original it described her dismay at the raw condition of the settlement in Boston when she first arrived. Perhaps the first female freshmen in the Yard had similiar anxieties.
Additional Information | |
| 1987 | | Archaeologists begin excavating historic sites threatened by Boston's Big Dig. | Some of the artifacts recovered, including "North America's Oldest Bowling Ball" are on exhibit at the Commonwealth Museum. An interactive website shows the location of the Big Dig in relation to Boston geography as it changed over time.
Additional InformationAdditional Information | |
| 1990 | | Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act | | Indian, bones |
| 1997 | | "National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom program" established by the National Park Service. | | |
| 1997 | | Irish Hunger Monument erected in Cambridge | | immigration |
| 1998 | | Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center Opens | | Indian |
| 2001 | | Peabody Museum at Harvard continues to repatriate human remains | Check the Harvard website for additional stories on NAGPRA | bones Indians |
| 2001 | | Boston Massacre Memorial included on a new Irish Heritage Trail. | What was the justification for doing this?
Additional Information | immigration |
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| 2002 | | Church at Mohegan restored and museum installed. | | Indians |
| 2003 | | Boston Women's Memorial features Phillis Wheatley, Abigail Adams, and Lucy Stone | | statue |
| 2004 | | Memorial Hall Museum launches new website on "The Many Stories of 1704 | | |
