I’m writing today to share some details about our Executive Tour, which is set to take place Wednesday, June 12 – Friday, June 14 in Boston, MA.

Our group will stay at the beautiful Liberty Hotel in the Beacon Hill neighborhood, just a few blocks from Boston Common. The Hotel itself has a rich history: it was refashioned into a beautiful luxury hotel in the early 2000s after 150 years as the Charles Street Jail. Among other famous “residents” of the jail were Sacco & Vanzetti, suffragist Josephine Collins, and Whitey Bulger.

On Wednesday evening at 6 pm, we’ll meet in the lovely adjoining courtyard of Scampo, an Italian restaurant located just next to the hotel (and accessible from it), followed by dinner in a private space in the restaurant.

On Thursday morning we’ll set off from the hotel on foot and walk just a short way into the portion of the Beacon Hill neighborhood known as the Black Heritage Trail, with stops at key sites where Bostonians were deeply engaged in the fight against slavery and for Black rights in the period before and after the Civil War, including as part of the Underground Railroad. We will make our way through the narrow streets of Beacon Hill toward the Boston Common, where we will stop for lunch at the Union Club. Organized in April 1863, the Union Club’s first president was Edward Everett, who is perhaps best known for speaking two hours to Lincoln’s two minutes at Gettysburg that November. After lunch, we will tour the Civil War monuments and memorials in the Common, beginning with the famous monument to the 54th Massachusetts Regiment just a few steps away from the Union Club. In the evening, we’ll dine in a private room at Mooo…, a short walk from the hotel.

Friday we will begin the day at the Massachusetts Historical Society, where we will have the opportunity to examine Civil War Era materials including (among many others) letters and a sword belonging to Robert Gould Shaw, and a pen that Lincoln used to sign the Emancipation Proclamation. We’ll then travel to Cambridge to see memorials to the Harvard men who fought in the Civil War at Memorial Hall. Following lunch near Harvard Yard at Russell House Tavern, we will visit Mount Auburn Cemetery, home to the graves of Joseph Story, Charles Sumner, and one of the more unusual Civil War memorials you’ll encounter. We’ll close the trip with a reception and dinner at the Liberty Hotel that evening.

As usual, we’ll be joined on tour by some of our terrific Penn State faculty. In addition to our new Associate Director Abena Boakyewa-Ansah, Cathleen Cahill and Jacob Lee, our Richards Center Faculty Fellows Tony Frazier and Lucien Holness, and History Department Head Amy Greenberg will be with us in Boston.

We’re also thrilled to be joined this tour by two local guides, Kevin Levin and Kanisorn Wongsrichanalai. Kevin is the author of three books on Civil War memory and is an expert on the historic sites in Boston. He is currently completing a biography of Robert Gould Shaw, the Union officer best known for leading the 54th Massachusetts Regiment. Kanisorn (who goes by “Kid”) is the Director of Research at the Massachusetts Historical Society and is a scholar of the Civil War Era whose work has focused on intellectual history, including college-educated New Englanders during the war.

The total cost of the tour this year will be $3,715/couple or $2,520/single. This package includes three nights’ accommodation at the Liberty Hotel, with the option to add additional nights. (The Phillies are in town on Tuesday night and the Yankees over the weekend, so we understand if those extra nights are of interest!). It also includes three dinners, lunches on Thursday and Friday, all the fees for the private tours and historic sites, and, as always, the expertise of the exceptional scholars at the Richards Center.