Science educator and Proprietor Fred Schubert will give a talk on "Advances in Understanding and Treating Disease in the 19th Century with Lessons that Still Resonate." In 1880, the world biology had yet to be defined. By 1900, vaccines for many serious illnesses were being developed. The work of John Snow, Louis Pasteur, Joseph Lister, Robert Koch, Max von Pettenkofer and other remarkable figures will be considered. 

The talk begins at 5:30 p.m. in the Shaw Research Library on the third floor of the Athenaeum. Reservations are required for this free event. Please call (603) 431-2538 to RSVP.

Sandra Rux will present Before “Live Free or Die”: The Wentworth Oligarchy 1715-1775, during which period the family dominated Portsmouth and the New Hampshire colony. The talk is part of the Athenaeum lecture series, Portsmouth, NH: Evolution 1623-2023 Part 2, and accompanies the Wentworth Takeover exhibit in the Randall Gallery.
 
Lecture is held in the third-floor Shaw Research Library and via Zoom.
 
Each program begins at 5:30 p.m. in the Shaw Research Library of the Portsmouth Athenaeum at 9 Market Square in Portsmouth, NH (unless otherwise noted). Reservations for each program are required as seating is limited. Please call (603) 431-2538 to reserve. If unable to keep a reservation, please call again to release the seat for someone else.

Attendance at programs is free for Athenaeum Proprietors, Subscribers and Friends. Guests and members of the public are welcome to attend the entire series by becoming a Friend of the Athenaeum for as little as $25 per year, payable at the door. Admission to an individual program is $10.

Every presenter in this year's lecture series is a Proprietor of the Portsmouth Athenaeum, suggesting the breadth of knowledge and interest in its dissemination that characterizes Athenaeum members. Each lecturer looks forward to engaging our audience with their knowledge. 

John Rule speaks on "Benning Wentworth's Towns in Vermont and New Hampshire" as part of the exhibit "The Wentworth Takeover: How One Family Dominated Portsmouth and New Hampshire 1715-1775."
 
New Hampshire's first royal governor made scores of land grants between 1741 and 1767, enriching himself as well as encouraging settlement in the Granite State and west of the Connecticut River. 
 
John Rule is an archivist at the New Hampshire Historical Society in Concord and has served as a docent at the Wentworth-Coolidge Mansion in Portsmouth.
 
The free talk is at 11 a.m. in the third-floor Shaw Research Library.  Reservations required. Please call (603) 431-2538.

Athenaeum Proprietor and host of the "Short Fuse Podcast," Elizabeth Howard, will bring her literary program to the Athenaeum Reading Room with "Short Fuse Live," with Charles J. Doane, author of "The Boy Who Fell to Shore." The Extraordinary Life and Mysterious Disappearance of Thomas Thor Tangvald.

The program starts at 3 p.m. on the first-floor Sawtelle Reading Room. Reservations are required. Please call (603) 431-2538 to RSVP.