American Inspiration Hero


American Inspiration

As part of our mission to educate, inspire and connect people to their family history, the American Inspiration Author Series explores themes of personal identity, families, immigration, and social and cultural history. Discover inspiring and thought-provoking stories of American families and the complex history which has shaped this country.
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American Inspiration Author Series partners with a variety of influential Boston institutions for many of our events, including Boston Public Library, GBH Forum Network, Museum of African American History, Porter Square Books, and the State Library of Massachusetts.
Neil King Jr.’s desire to walk from Washington, D.C., to New York City began as a whim and soon became an obsession. Over an extraordinary 26 days, he journeyed through historic battlefields and cemeteries, over the Mason-Dixon line, past Quaker and Amish farms, along Valley Forge stream beds, atop a New Jersey trash mound, across New York Harbor, and finally, to his ultimate destination: the Ramble, where a tangle of pathways converges in New York’s Central Park.
American Inspiration
Celebrating one of America’s greatest female novelists, this tender biography brings to life Willa Cather -- her artistry and endurance, her immigrant family and the prairies on they lived, and her trailblazing success as a journalist and writer.
American Inspiration
In this groundbreaking account, journalist, author, and professor Rachel L. Swarns follows one family through nearly two centuries of indentured servitude and enslavement to uncover the harrowing origin story of the Catholic Church in the United States. Through the saga of the Mahoney family, she demonstrates how slavery fueled the growth of the American Catholic Church and shines a light on the enslaved people whose forced labor helped to build the largest denomination in the nation.
American Inspiration