Lifelong learning through a variety of free public programs
Sparking ideas to encourage meaningful conversations
Connecting people with ideas, no matter what
Telling stories to share the human experience
We work in all corners of our state to provide wide-ranging, thought-provoking programs that connect people to culture, history, places, ideas and one another. Click on the video to the right for a look inside NH Humanities and join us!
We welcome you to our site and encourage you to learn how we can bring valuable programs to an area near you.
In the midst of New Hampshire's opioid crisis, we are far from the time when addiction was an unfamiliar and even taboo subject. Narratives of add...
Why are we so fascinated with stone walls? Kevin Gardner, author of The Granite Kiss, explains how and why New England came to acquire its thousands o...
In 1787 delegates gathered in Philadelphia to address a wide variety of crises facing the young United States of America and produced a charter for a ...
In this talk, Yamiche Alcindor looks at the current political issues facing America and shares her experiences in reporting on the 2016 and 2020 Presi...
Granite Staters' impact on fresh water - and, conversely, inland waters' impact on Granite Staters - has evolved over time. Our pollution has ...
On first impression, the witchcraft trials of the Colonial era may seem to have been nothing but a free-for-all, fraught with hysterics. Margo Burns e...
Barns can tell us a great deal about the history of agriculture in New Hampshire. In the colonial period, New Hampshire was a rural, agrarian state an...
This program has been canceled...
On August 19, 1997, in little Colebrook, New Hampshire, a 62-year-old carpenter named Carl Drega, a man with long-simmering property rights grievances...
Writing can become much more fulfilling if we think of it as happening right Now. Much is lost when we overlook the present moment because we forfeit ...
What family stories do you carry with you? What story do you tell over and over? What landscape do you cherish the most? One of the deepest human inst...
Our statewide speakers bureau offering high quality public humanities programs.
Innovative humanities programs delivered to your workplace.
Our series of “bite size conversations about big ideas”.
Reading group serving more than 500 adult learners each year.
The state’s only grant program devoted to public humanities.
New Hampshire Humanities
According to the CPD (@debates) it has helped set up debates in Bosnia, Burundi, Colombia, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Haiti, Jamaica, Lebanon, Niger, Nigeria, Peru, Romania, Trinidad, Tobago, Uganda & the Ukraine.#Politics #Debate #PresidentialDebate #History #Election2020 11/11— New Hampshire Humanities (@NHHumanities) September 30, 2020
According to the CPD (@debates) it has helped set up debates in Bosnia, Burundi, Colombia, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Haiti, Jamaica, Lebanon, Niger, Nigeria, Peru, Romania, Trinidad, Tobago, Uganda & the Ukraine.#Politics #Debate #PresidentialDebate #History #Election2020 11/11
View this post on Instagram Though the origin of the direct political debate is often traced back to an epic series of clashes between Abe Lincoln and Stephen Douglas, who in 1858 were running against one another for an Illinois senate seat, the first presidential debate actually occurred much later. In 1956 Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson challenged President Dwight Eisenhower to a televised debate, however the eventual confrontation wouldn’t be between the candidates themselves but two of their surrogates, former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt and Republican Senator Margaret Chase Smith. They met on CBS’s Face the Nation (the first female guests in the show’s history) just two days ahead of the election to discuss foreign policy, and the debate got heated. By the end of it, Roosevelt was visibly upset, refusing to shake hands with Smith. Four years later in 1960, Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy debated one another four times on live TV. Among other things, these debates helped to cement the two party system in America, with Nixon and Kennedy being presented as the only choices that really mattered, despite the fact that some states had as many as 20 presidential candidates on that year’s ballot to choose from. In order to hold the televised debate, a network rule demanding equal time be offered to all candidates had to be suspended, since only the Democratic and Republican candidates would be appearing. The 1964 elections were held without debates, with the concept not returning again until 1976, as both Lyndon B. Johnson and Nixon refused to debate their opponents. However by 1987 they had become seen as such an important part of the democratic process that the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) was created with both Democratic and Republican support to establish the rules of the format. Presidential debates are now widely understood to be a fundamental fixture of American democracy, with the CPD offering support to other countries interested in setting up their own local versions. #Politics #Debate #PresidentialDebate #History #Perspective #Election2020 A post shared by New Hampshire Humanities (@nhhumanities) on Sep 30, 2020 at 8:48am PDT
Though the origin of the direct political debate is often traced back to an epic series of clashes between Abe Lincoln and Stephen Douglas, who in 1858 were running against one another for an Illinois senate seat, the first presidential debate actually occurred much later. In 1956 Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson challenged President Dwight Eisenhower to a televised debate, however the eventual confrontation wouldn’t be between the candidates themselves but two of their surrogates, former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt and Republican Senator Margaret Chase Smith. They met on CBS’s Face the Nation (the first female guests in the show’s history) just two days ahead of the election to discuss foreign policy, and the debate got heated. By the end of it, Roosevelt was visibly upset, refusing to shake hands with Smith. Four years later in 1960, Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy debated one another four times on live TV. Among other things, these debates helped to cement the two party system in America, with Nixon and Kennedy being presented as the only choices that really mattered, despite the fact that some states had as many as 20 presidential candidates on that year’s ballot to choose from. In order to hold the televised debate, a network rule demanding equal time be offered to all candidates had to be suspended, since only the Democratic and Republican candidates would be appearing. The 1964 elections were held without debates, with the concept not returning again until 1976, as both Lyndon B. Johnson and Nixon refused to debate their opponents. However by 1987 they had become seen as such an important part of the democratic process that the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) was created with both Democratic and Republican support to establish the rules of the format. Presidential debates are now widely understood to be a fundamental fixture of American democracy, with the CPD offering support to other countries interested in setting up their own local versions. #Politics #Debate #PresidentialDebate #History #Perspective #Election2020
A post shared by New Hampshire Humanities (@nhhumanities) on Sep 30, 2020 at 8:48am PDT
Posted: October 13th, 2020
By Mary Nolin and William (Bo) Dean
With the COVID 19 pandemic forcing many adult education centers to pivot to virtual learning platforms, many teachers needed to find creative ways to engage and connect with their students. William ‘Bo’ Dean, an English as a Second Language (ESOL) instructor at Salem Adult Education, had the idea of mailing books from the Connections program to his students to teach English and issues around the environment through children’s literature.
Connect with us and join the conversation with our quarterly publication.
