Birds of the White Mountains

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nuthatchIn the book The One-in-a-Million Boy, the boy fills the bird feeders for 104-year-old Ona Vitkus as part of his Boy Scouts community service. Birds are discussed several times throughout the book, as part of the boy’s listmaking practice and also as a topic for new acquaintances that bridges generations (much like the weather).

Bartlett Public Library will host a presentation on this accessible and fascinating topic, Birds of the White Mountains, by expert David Govatnik on Tuesday, October 17 at 7:00 pm. For more information, call the library at 603-374-2755.

Immigration, Ethnicity and the Reinvention of New England Identity

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To explore the theme in The One-in-a-Million Boy of immigrants in northern New England, Conway Public Library will host a talk by Linda Upham-Bornstein, Ph.D. on Wednesday, October 11 at 6:30 pm.
The New England identity is grounded in iconic white mountain villages rising in the rural morning mist and small town Protestant Yankee values. Yet this notion is a cultural construct. It is not based in the reality of the ever-changing ethnic landscape of the late 19th and early 20th centuries but was a response to deeply rooted fears of immigrants and the need to define what it means to be an American. In this period immigrants from around the globe streamed into New England’s industrial regions and over time spread into its rural environs. Who were they? Where did they live? How do they inform and influence New England’s image and identity today?
Linda Upham-Bornstein is a Professor of History at Plymouth State University.