In a few weeks, volume 7 of the MHR will arrive in mailboxes around the country. This year’s contributions are both fascinating and timely. In the journal’s first photo essay, contemporary artist and photographer Gerald Parker captures the bitter demise of a Commonwealth city during the 1970s. Reminiscent of the work of Walker Evans, Parker’s “Preserving Memory: Streets of My Youth in Brockton, Massachusetts,” makes us feel remorse for a past lost and a future mislaid.

Roy E. Finkenbine’s “Wendell Phillips and ‘The Negro’s Claim’: A Neglected Reparations Document,” refocuses our attention on the long history of African American and abolitionist efforts to secure the future for the newly emancipated slaves and to achieve racial justice. Professor Finkenbine’s contribution will be critical to understanding the current debate over reparations.

Michael D. Pierson’s “`He helped the poor and snubbed the rich’: Benjamin F. Butler and Class Politics in Lowell and New Orleans,” achieves something that has eluded generations of historians. Not only has Professor Pierson found something to admire in the controversial politician and Civil War general, but he also connects disparate elements of Butler’s stormy career in ways that illuminate nineteenth century American politics and society.

Howard M. Wach’s “A Boston Vindication: Margaret Fuller and Caroline Dall Read Mary Wollstonecraft” and a major review essay by Robert N. Hudspeth, “`Born with knives in their brain’: Recent Writings on American Transcendentalism,” remind us why this small group of nineteenth-century New England reformers is so important.

Founded in 1999, the MHR is a peer-reviewed journal published each fall by the Massachusetts Historical Society. Its articles are intended for both scholars and general readers and now, through the History Cooperative and the MHS website (www.masshist.org/mhr.html) you can read all past issues. Please consider submitting your work on the history of the Commonwealth and its people to us. Send your essays, photo essays, or edited documents to MHR editor Donald Yacovone at dyacovone@masshist.org as a file attachment in MSWord or in Rich Text Format, completely double spaced, including endnotes. To begin an MHR subscription, purchase selected back issues, or for additional subscription information, please contact Cherylinne Pina at cpina@masshist.org.