Berkshire County Historical Society

Melville Fellows Reading
2019-02-26 19:00 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | Lenox Library, 18 Main Street, Lenox, MA, 01240, United States
We are proud to announce that as part of a Massachusetts Cultural Council LCC grant, three Berkshire Community College creative writing students were awarded Melville Fellowships this past fall at Herman Melville’s Arrowhead. They worked with Arrowhead’s Writer-in-Residence, Jana Laiz, and wrote original stories, while also serving a Writer-in-Residence apprenticeship. The three Melville Fellows will present a public reading of their works on Tuesday, February 26th at 7pm at the Lenox Library. This event is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served. We hope you can stop by!

Moby Dick, The Mini-Series, Part 2
2019-02-27 18:30 - 20:30 | Berkshire Athenaeum, 1 Wendell Avenue, Pittsfield, MA, 01201, United States
Moby Dick, the Mini-Series, Part 2 (1998)
Starring Patrick Stewart, Henry Thomas, Ted Levine, Dominic Purcell, and Gregory Peck as Father Mapple
6:30 at the Berkshire Athenaeum
FREE

Moby-Dick was a colossal failure when first published in 1851 but in the early 20th century it began taking its place among the most highly regarded works written in the 19th century; today it is seen as one of the best books ever written. It has inspired plays, other novels, and many films in many genres. This short film festival explores only a few of the many versions. This is the first Moby-Dick Film Festival ever produced, compiled by the Berkshire Historical Society at Herman Melville’s Arrowhead and presented with the Friends of the Berkshire Athenaeum at the library located at 1 Wendell Avenue, Pittsfield, MA. All events are FREE and open to the public; all shows at 6:30pm include refreshments. For more information call 413-442-1793.

Jake Heggie's Opera, Moby-Dick: Moby-Dick Film Festival
2019-02-28 18:30 - 20:00 | Berkshire Athenaeum, 1 Wendell Avenue, Pittsfield, MA, 01201, United States
Moby-Dick (2012)
San Francisco Opera with Jay Hunter Morris
6:30 at the Berkshire Athenaeum
FREE

Moby-Dick was a colossal failure when first published in 1851 but in the early 20th century it began taking its place among the most highly regarded works written in the 19th century; today it is seen as one of the best books ever written. It has inspired plays, other novels, and many films in many genres. This short film festival explores only a few of the many versions. This is the first Moby-Dick Film Festival ever produced, compiled by the Berkshire Historical Society at Herman Melville’s Arrowhead and presented with the Friends of the Berkshire Athenaeum at the library located at 1 Wendell Avenue, Pittsfield, MA. All events are FREE and open to the public; all shows at 6:30pm include refreshments. For more information call 413-442-1793.

Volunteer Party
2019-04-25 16:00 - 17:30 | Arrowhead, 780 Holmes Road, Pittsfield, MA, 01201, United States
On Thursday, April 25 from 4:00 to 5:30 we will be welcoming our volunteers with a special party at Arrowhead. Our reliable volunteer tour guides, gift shop personnel, collections workers, archive staff and gardeners, publication associates, event hosts and emcees will hopefully be joined by potential new associates who look forward to meeting us and finding their places in the extraordinary group of participants without whom Arrowhead is only an address. Adults and students are welcome to join the much appreciated workforce. We open for the season on Monday, May 20 at 9:30am (coming up quickly) so it is essential that everyone who can attend will be there to meet, greet, and hear about the changes and the programs for 2019 and beyond. There will, naturally, be refreshments served, tours given, and hugs (with your permission) granted to our old favorites. Call us at 413-442-1793, extension 14.

Annual Meeting
2019-05-01 17:30 - 19:30 | Country Club of Pittsfield, 639 South Street, Pittsfield, MA, 01201, United States
The Berkshire County Historical Society at Herman Melville’s Arrowhead will hold its annual meeting at 5:30pm on Wednesday, May 1 at The Country Club of Pittsfield. The dinner meeting will cost attendees $40 and will include the formal introduction of our new Executive Director, the election of officers of the Board of Trustees, a discussion of the season’s programs, and a power point presentation on the history of our large red barn, a place of great importance to Herman Melville in his day and to us in ours. It encompasses our visitors’ center, gift shop, presentation place, and exhibit space. This summer it will host a brass ensemble and dance troupe, two plays, our third annual Moby-Dick Marathon and many other events. We need your rsvp in advance so that the meal can be properly prepared, so please let us know by April 24 if you can come and how many people will be in your party; also if you have any seating preferences. Call us at 413-442-1793, extension 11 or email to director@berkshirehistory.org.

The Civil War Ballroom with The Victorian Quadrille Orchestra and the Small Planet Dancers
2019-06-02 19:00 - 22:00 | Arrowhead, 780 Holmes Road, Pittsfield, MA, 01201, United States
The Civil War Ballroom with The Victorian Quadrille Orchestra and the Small Planet Dancers at 7:00pm in the historic barn at Arrowhead. Seating on the lawn. This is a FREE event, but donations are encouraged.

Play: Mr. Noble Meloncholy
2019-06-18 19:00 - 21:00, 2019-06-19 19:00 - 21:00, 2019-06-20 19:00 - 21:00 | Arrowhead, 780 Holmes Road, Pittsfield, MA, 01201, United States
Maryann Sherman’s play, Mr. Noble Melancholy, starring John Trainor as Nathaniel Hawthorne. $20; $15 for members

Poetry Release: Red Barn, volume 4
2019-07-16 19:00 - 21:00 | Arrowhead, 780 Holmes Road, Pittsfield, MA, 01201, United States
We are releasing the fourth volume of RED BARN, our homegrown poetry anthology by poets who have met here all winter and spring to create new work. FREE

Tea and Talk: Historic Lace
2019-07-23 16:00 - 18:00 | Arrowhead, 780 Holmes Road, Pittsfield, MA, 01201, United States
Irish lace expert Beverly Wolov will speak to the participants at a classic tea party about the lace collections at the Berkshire County Historical Society and answer questions about the customs and use, importance and provenance of lace in the mid-19th century. $20 includes tea and snacks.

Mastheads Annual Reading
2019-07-30 19:00 - 21:00 | Arrowhead, 780 Holmes Road, Pittsfield, MA, 01201, United States
The third annual reading of new work by the five Mastheads authors. This is a FREE event.

Film - The Act of Reading: Moby-Dick
2019-07-31 19:00 - 21:00 | Arrowhead, 780 Holmes Road, Pittsfield, MA, 01201, United States
On Wednesday, July 3rd, at 7pm, come celebrate the eve of Herman Melville’s 200th birthday with his great-great-grandson Peter Whittemore and the filmmakers behind The Act of Reading! We will ‘sneak peek’ the 87-minute long film in the Arrowhead barn in anticipation of its fall premiere and in honor of the author’s bicentennial.
The film takes the form of a 15 year-late book report/documentary on Moby-Dick, following the filmmaker as he attempts to make amends with the high school English teacher whose class he failed. We are then brought on an often surprising journey into the world of Herman Melville, literacy, high school English teachers, and magical reenactments. Herman Melville’s Arrowhead and the Berkshires are heavily featured in the film — come and experience a fresh take on the area and its literary history!
Filmmakers present will include director Mark Blumberg, editor Nathan Berkowitz, and executive producer Alissa Blumberg.

Tickets are $20. Call 413-442-1793 or email melville@berkshirehistory.org to reserve a spot. To purchase online, please use our secure PayPal page HERE.

Old Salts Day
2019-08-01 10:00 - 16:00 | Arrowhead, 780 Holmes Road, Pittsfield, MA, 01201, United States
Free admission at Arrowhead to any career sailor, marine, merchant marine, cruise ship worker, or pirate. Take a tour where Moby-Dick was written and lift a pint of rum (you bring the rum!).

Herman's 200th Birthday Celebration
2019-08-01 10:00 - 19:30 | Arrowhead, 780 Holmes Road, Pittsfield, MA, 01201, United States
Thursday, August 1, all day. Herman’s 200th birthday with a multi-event, day-long extravaganza co-presented with the Friends of the Berkshire Athenaeum. Starting with free tours of the Athenaeum’s Herman Melville Memorial Room at noon, a 1pm dedication of the Literary Landmark plaque at the Library, then tours at Arrowhead.
At 4:30, the party begins at the Country Club of Pittsfield: cash bar, heavy hors d’oeuvres, a special program with Tina Packer, Founding Artistic Director of Shakespeare & Company, Prosecco toast, and birthday cake. Benefits Berkshire County Historical Society at Herman Melville’s Arrowhead. The Benefit is a ticketed event: $85 for one ticket, and $160 for two. Please RSVP by Friday, July 26.
Call 413.442.1793 or email melville@berkshirehistory.org to reserve your tickets today!
To purchase tickets online, please visit our secure PayPal page via the yellow “Donate” button HERE, and specify the number of tickets to the Benefit in the “Additional Notes” field.

Benefit for the Berkshire County Historical Society at Herman Melville's Arrowhead
2019-08-01 16:30 - 19:00 | Country Club of Pittsfield, 639 South Street, Pittsfield, MA, 01201, United States
Join us as we celebrate Herman’s birthday at the Country Club of Pittsfield. This benefit will assist in funding the restoration work needed to preserve our historic red barn, built in 1840 and used by the Melville family. Restoring the exterior cladding and improving drainage will ensure that the barn can be enjoyed for years to come. Paint analysis will enable the barn to return to its original paint color and appearance under Melville ownership. The completion of this project will allow us to expand the barn’s community use, our programming of special events and workshops, and improve the visitor experience upon arriving at Arrowhead. More than half of the work is covered by funds from the Pittsfield Community Preservation Committee and the Massachusetts Preservation Project Fund, but we still need you help to meet our goal! At the Benefit, you will be given the opportunity to contribute to this important project.
After a full day of exciting literary events, head to the Country Club of Pittsfield, the former home of Herman’s uncle Thomas, where the party will kick off at 4:30pm.
4:30 – Cash bar and heavy hors d’oeuvres
5:30 – Special program with Tina Packer, Founding Artistic Director of Shakespeare & Company
6:30 – Prosecco toast and birthday cake
Benefits Berkshire County Historical Society at Herman Melville’s Arrowhead.
This is a ticketed event: $85 for one ticket, and $160 for two. Please RSVP by Friday, July 26.
Call 413.442.1793 or email melville@berkshirehistory.org to reserve your tickets today!
To purchase tickets online, please visit our secure PayPal page via the yellow “Donate” button HERE, and specify the number of tickets to the Benefit in the “Additional Notes” field.

Annual Moby-Dick Marathon
2019-08-02 10:00 - 2019-08-05 17:00 | Arrowhead, 780 Holmes Road, Pittsfield, MA, 01201, United States
The third annual Moby-Dick marathon reading will commence in the barn and continue for the next three days until we finish the book. The reading is interrupted, for the morning of Sunday the 4th, so that people can attend the Monument Mountain walk celebrating the day that Melville met Hawthorne. The marathon concludes on Monday, August 5.

Community Day Celebration!
2019-08-03 10:00 - 17:00 | Arrowhead, 780 Holmes Road, Pittsfield, MA, 01201, United States
Community Day Celebration Weekend: 10am-5pm
Due to the forecast, Delilah will be swimming into Pittsfield on Sunday from 10am-4pm
Celebrate Herman Melville’s 200th birthday with a FREE event at Arrowhead!
Come meet Tom Whalen and learn to tie some nautical knots. Herman Melville sailed on a whaling ship before he wrote Moby-Dick and would have known how to tie these same knots!
Also, for kids of all ages, we will have an inflatable bounce house!
Bring a picnic and play croquet on our lawns!
Thanks to Whale and Dolphin Conservation of Plymouth, MA and to generous support from Cultural Pittsfield. Special thanks to Carr Hardware for supplying one of their wonderful bounce houses for the weekend.

Annual Monument Mountain Hike
2019-08-04 09:00 - 11:00 | Monument Mountain, Rte 7, Great Barrington, MA, United States
On Sunday morning, take a walk up Monument Mountain in Great Barrington to celebrate the historic meeting of Melville and Hawthorne. It’s sponsored by the Trustees of the Reservations, the stewards of Monument Mountain, and includes a reading of William Cullen Bryant’s historic poem about the mountain as well as a champagne toast.

MEET DELILAH!
2019-08-04 10:00 - 16:00 | Arrowhead, 780 Holmes Road, Pittsfield, MA, 01201, United States
Community Day Celebration Weekend: 10am-5pm
Due to the forecast, Delilah will be swimming into Pittsfield on Sunday from 10am-4pm
Celebrate Herman Melville’s 200th birthday with a FREE event at Arrowhead!
Melanie Mowinski will demonstrate letterpress printing, 11am-1pm
Also, for kids of all ages, we will have an inflatable bounce house!
Bring a picnic and play croquet on our lawns!
Thanks to Whale and Dolphin Conservation of Plymouth, MA and to generous support from Cultural Pittsfield. Special thanks to Carr Hardware for supplying one of their wonderful bounce houses for the weekend.

Poetry Reading: Pequod Poems
2019-08-20 18:30 - 20:30 | Arrowhead, 780 Holmes Road, Pittsfield, MA, 01201, United States
Wilda Morris, poet, reads from her book “Pequod Poems” at Arrowhead, in the barn, at 6:30pm. Copies of her book will also be for sale that evening. Author of “Szechuan Shrimp and Fortune Cookies: Poems from a Chinese Restaurant” and other books, she is a former President of the Illinois State Poetry Society. She is a winner of the 2009 Prairie Poetry Award and has received two Pushcart nominations. Free event.

Book Release: Cement Dust
2019-08-27 18:30 - 20:30 | Arrowhead, 780 Holmes Road, Pittsfield, MA, 01201, United States
Tuesday, August 27, J. Peter Bergman will read from his new novel, “Cement Dust,” at Arrowhead, in the barn, at 6:30pm. Copies of the book are on sale in the gift shop at Arrowhead. Author of the Charles Dickens Award winning collection of short stories, “Counterpoints,” this is his second published novel. Kirkus Reviews said, “its portrayal of complex, unique relationships is impressive… a rewarding novel about unexpected family ties and the pain of mental illness.”

Architecture and Landscape at Herman Melville’s Arrowhead
2022-05-28 11:00 - 12:00 | Arrowhead, 780 Holmes Road, Pittsfield, MA, 01201, United States
Due to inclement weather, the walk has been POSTPONED until Saturday, June 11, at 11am. See you then!
Veteran tour guide John Dickson and Executive Director Lesley Herzberg lead an enlightening walk through Arrowhead and the surrounding grounds. John Dickson will provide an overview and evolution of the architectural features of the building from the 1780s to the present. This talk is followed by Lesley Herzberg’s walk through the north field to discuss the cultural landscape where the entire Melville family participated in the cultivation of the farm and gardens in the 19th century. (Rain date: May 29, 11 am), FREE
This event is sponsored by MountainOne Insurance.

Spring Bird Walk
2022-06-04 07:00 - 09:00 | Arrowhead, 780 Holmes Road, Pittsfield, MA, 01201, United States
Join Rene Wendell, president of the Hoffmann Bird Club for a spring migration bird walk. This will be a gentle, slow hike around Arrowhead’s fields and forests appropriate for beginners and experienced birders alike. We will be looking for newly arriving spring migrants such as warbler and flycatcher species like yellow warbler, blackburnian warbler and least flycatcher. Please bring binoculars if you have them, water, and appropriate footwear. Heavy rain will cancel this event. This FREE event is presented in partnership with the Hoffmann Bird Club.
This event is sponsored by MountainOne Insurance.

Moby-Dick Monologue
2022-06-08 17:30 - 18:30 | Arrowhead, 780 Holmes Road, Pittsfield, MA, 01201, United States
Herman Melville learned about the art of soliloquy from his reading of Shakespeare and after reading the Bard, he re-wrote his whaling epic. Actor and educator Stephen Collins expands on this tradition by performing monologues from Melville’s expansive novel. This performance features the musings of Ishmael, Father Mapple, Captain Peleg, Starbuck, and Ahab. FREE
This event is sponsored by Pittsfield Cooperative Bank and Lee Bank Foundation

Architecture and Landscape at Herman Melville’s Arrowhead
2022-06-11 11:00 - 12:00 | Arrowhead, 780 Holmes Road, Pittsfield, MA, 01201, United States
Veteran tour guide John Dickson and Executive Director Lesley Herzberg lead an enlightening walk through Arrowhead and the surrounding grounds. John Dickson will provide an overview and evolution of the architectural features of the building from the 1780s to the present. This talk is followed by Lesley Herzberg’s walk through the north field to discuss the cultural landscape where the entire Melville family participated in the cultivation of the farm and gardens in the 19th century. FREE
This event is sponsored by MountainOne Insurance.

Hester Blum on Moby-Dick
2022-06-22 17:30 - 18:30 | Arrowhead, 780 Holmes Road, Pittsfield, MA, 01201, United States
Moby-Dick has a monumental reputation. Less well known are the novel’s unexpectedly weird, funny, tantalizing, messy, and wondrous moments. Hester Blum, leading Melville scholar and editor of the new Oxford World’s Classic edition of Moby-Dick, discusses these moments and her additions and annotations of Melville’s best-known novel. Themes will include the novel’s elasticity and continued relevance for twenty-first-century readers, with attention to its queerness and its meditations on race, power, and disability. FREE
This event is sponsored by MountainOne Insurance.

Book Talk: Thirty-Five Days To Baltimore
2022-06-24 17:30 - 18:30 | Arrowhead, 780 Holmes Road, Pittsfield, MA, 01201, United States
Join Writer-In-Residence Emeritus, Jana Laiz and Author Alexis Portillo as they celebrate the release of their new book, Thirty-Five Days To Baltimore. This bilingual book explores topics of migration, immigration, poverty, and hope, through the story of an unaccompanied minor, as he makes his way from Honduras to Baltimore, ultimately arriving in the Berkshires. Part of the Berkshire County Historical Society’s Underrepresented Voices initiative. FREE
This event is sponsored by MountainOne Insurance.

ReWritten
2022-07-22 19:45 - 21:30, 2022-07-23 19:45 - 21:30 | Arrowhead, 780 Holmes Road, Pittsfield, MA, 01201, United States
ReWritten is an immersive performance that explores the often-silenced intimate relationship between authors Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville. Moving between their lives, work, and remaining letters, ReWritten reimagines an intergenerational queer love story that helped shape American literature. Through dance, live music, visual art, projection, and text this performance questions what happens when we say no to dreams when we want to say yes. Co-created and performed by Tom Truss and Matthew Cumbie.
$10 for BCHS members, $15 for non-members, Use your EBT card and get 50% off, 12 and under free. Order tickets here. This event will sell out in advance.
This event is sponsored in part by Lee Bank Foundation and is funded in part by the New England States Touring program of the New England Foundation for the Arts, made possible with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts Regional Touring Program and the six New England state arts agencies.
