Sunday, March 29, 2026

Vaughan Woods & Historic Homestead welcomes acclaimed historian and author Carrie Gibson for its annual Rural Socrates Series Book Talk.

Ms. Gibson is the author of The Great Resistance: The 400-Year Fight to End Slavery in the Americas, a sweeping and deeply human history of resistance to enslavement across the Western Hemisphere. For more than four centuries, enslaved people in the United States, the Caribbean, Brazil, and beyond fought in countless ways to secure their freedom. For the first time, their stories are brought together in a single, powerful narrative—one that offers both historical insight and inspiration for our own time.

“Among the emancipators are the millions whose stories will never be known. They lived the struggle. They were the great resistance,” Gibson writes. In tracing these collective acts of defiance, she reminds us that freedom itself is an idea made real through action—and that freedom, to be true, must belong to everyone.

The Vaughan Homestead will be open for informal touring before and after Ms. Gibson’s talk. Visitors are invited to enjoy refreshments in the dining room and explore a special self-guided exhibit, “What the Walls Don’t Say,” which examines the Hallowell–Vaughan family’s historical connections to Caribbean slavery and slave rebellions in Jamaica.

Where:
Vaughan Homestead
2 Litchfield Road, Hallowell

When:
Sunday, March 29, 2026

Schedule:
2:00 p.m. — House and exhibit open
3:00 p.m. — Author talk by Carrie Gibson
4:30–5:30 p.m. — House and exhibit open following the talk

Registration:
Pre-registration is required.
$10 per person; registration includes refreshments and a copy of The Great Resistance: The 400-Year Fight to End Slavery in the Americas.