Bonnie Hurd Smith

public historian, Author, speaker, communications professional

Speaking in Gloucester on Judith Sargent Murray's contributions

to women's rights

You can take the girl out of Concord, but...

I've been writing and speaking about history for many years — since growing up in Concord, Mass., really. Also organizing, managing, promoting, and otherwise sharing history as a source of information and inspiration.

I especially love to tell previously untold stories — and help others do the same! History matters, and telling it well matters.

Over the years, I've lived or worked in Concord, Boston, Cambridge, Salem, Ipswich, and Gloucester. Common denominators? They are all communities that embrace local history and understand that it's part of their branding and marketing success. But, again, doing it well matters, and so does being open to new stories and new ways of telling old stories.

Frankly, our collective lack of historical knowledge is, well, appalling — even the stories about our own communities!

But I've had the great good fortune to work with business and nonprofit clients who "get it" since leaving Boston's Museum of Science eons ago to strike out on my own. History clients have included the National Park Service (Longfellow, Adams, Salem Maritime, Olmsted), Peabody Essex Museum, Town of Ipswich, Historic Salem) as well as small-medium businesses who "got" the value of adding history to their marketing mix (Wolf & Co., Soucy Insurance, Cummings Architects).

It's a long list, and I won't bore you, nor will I go on and on about volunteering for historical organizations, investigating history as an independent scholar, creating things like women's history walking trails (Boston, Salem), or writing and publishing books.... You get the idea!

Oh yeah. One more thing. Maybe two.

History can be spiritually uplifting and FUN!!!

So let's play. We all need it.

Cheers,

— Bonnie