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Join us for the opening of the exhibit Standing Together: Seacoast LGBTQ+ Social and Support Groups in the Randall Gallery on the third floor of the Portsmouth Athenaeum.

Thomas “Buddy” Bardenwerper brings a fresh perspective in Mona Passage: A Novel for readers interested in underrepresented voices in American fiction. By giving a voice to both the migrants who cross our maritime borders as well as those young Americans whose unenviable duty it is to stop them, Mona Passage challenges the contemporary narratives regarding immigration.

Tobias Wolff—the final round judge for Syracuse University Press’s inaugural Veterans Writing Award—selected Mona Passage for publication.

Bardenwerper served for five years as a Coast Guard officer, including two years aboard cutter Reliance when it was homeported at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. Thanks to the GI Bill and Yellow Ribbon Program, Buddy will be earning a joint degree from Harvard Law School and the Harvard Kennedy School this month.

The program will be in the first-floor Reading Room. Masks are required. To reserve your seat, please call (603) 431-2538.

Memorial concert honoring Athenaeum Proprietors who passed in 2021 featuring acclaimed cellist Sebastian Baverstam.

The 2022 lecture series continues with A Quest to Thrive: Looking at the Lives of Black Women and Men Over 400 Years in Portsmouth by Angela Matthews. Ms. Matthews moved to Portsmouth for a job with the Portsmouth school department in 1973 and stayed because she found a unique community here that in her experience seemed rare. While working for the Greater Piscataqua Community Foundation in 1993, she had the opportunity to meet and work with Valerie Cunningham through a grant from Frank and Irja Cilluffo that established the GPCF Diversity Committee. This dialog group initiated a number of projects, including a curriculum guide on Black history that was published in 2004 as Black Portsmouth: Three Centuries of African American Heritage. Ms. Matthews has volunteered for the Black Heritage Trail of New Hampshire ever since and has offered tours for many years. She also helped to raise the funds to purchase that organization’s home at 222 Court Street. Ms. Matthews says, “When I think of Portsmouth’s 400-year Black history, I am most impressed by the Middle Passage Africans who carried culture, values, and traditions that have been handed down generationally for centuries and are visible in today’s Portsmouth Black communities.”  


The program begins at 5:30 p.m. in the Shaw Research Library. Space is limited, and reservations are required by calling (603) 431-2538. If unable to keep a reservation, please call again to release the seat for someone else. Reserved seats are honored until five minutes before a program begins.

The public is welcome to attend the series by becoming a Friend of the Athenaeum for $25 or may attend a single program for $10.

Join exhibit curator Tom Kaufhold as he provides an overview of his exhibit Standing Together: Seacoast LGBTQ+ Social and Support Groups now open June 3 to July 15 in the Randall Gallery.