After Walrussia: Diving into Russian-American Commemorations of Seward’s Folly

Historian Amanda Bosworth is a PhD student in history at Cornell University, who spent much of the sesquicentennial year of Seward’s Folly (2017) researching in Alaska and Russia. Travelling throughout Russia and the former Russian America, she experienced firsthand the disparate ways the legacy of Seward’s Alaska purchase is understood in each place. Bosworth will trace this fraught history and discuss the way it was remembered on both sides of the Pacific Ocean. 

Her dissertation considers Russian-American-Canadian relations in the North Pacific starting from Mr. Seward’s purchase of Alaska. Bosworth’s research has taken her to archives in St. Petersburg and Moscow, as well as across Alaska. She visited Emanuel Leutze’s Signing of the Alaska Treaty while it was on loan from the SHM for the Anchorage Museum’s sesquicentennial exhibit, "Polar Bear Garden."She will share many photographs from the exhibit and from the intriguing legacy of Imperial Russia in today's Alaska. Amanda will also discuss some of her Russian archival finds pertaining to Russian-American-Canadian maritime relations in the North Pacific region immediately after the Alaska purchase and into the early 20th century.

This event is free for members and $5 for the general public. Reservations recommended.