Historian Serena Zabin to deliver 52nd annual UNI Becker Lecture on Boston Massacre

‌This year's lecture features Professor Serena Zabin of Carleton College, who will present "The Boston Massacre: A Family History." Zabin is the author of the award-winning book of the same name, which reexamines the 1770 clash between British soldiers and Boston townspeople through the lens of family and community relationships.

Zabin, the Stephen R. Lewis Jr. Professor of History and the Liberal Arts at Carleton, is a leading scholar of early America. Her work has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Council of Learned Societies. She currently serves as vice president of the Teaching Division of the American Historical Association.

Her most recent book, The Boston Massacre: A Family History (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2020), received multiple awards and was named an Amazon Editor's Choice for History. She is also the author of Dangerous Economies: Status and Commerce in Imperial New York (2009) and The New York Conspiracy Trials of 1741: Daniel Horsmanden's Journal of the Proceedings (2004).

The Boston Massacre-when British soldiers shot five local men in March 1770-has long been remembered as a turning point in the American Revolution. Yet, as Professor Zabin demonstrates, the conflict was not only political but deeply personal.

Drawing on original sources and vivid storytelling, Zabin traces how British troops and their families lived side by side with Boston residents. These regimental wives and children shared neighborhoods, friendships, and daily struggles with townspeople. When violence erupted, it was the collapse of these human connections that intensified the path toward revolution.

The Carl L. Becker Memorial Lecture is the signature annual lecture of the UNI Department of History. Established to honor Carl Becker, a distinguished historian of the American Revolution and Enlightenment born near Reinbeck, Iowa, the lecture brings prominent scholars to Cedar Falls to share cutting-edge research with the campus and community. Becker's distinguished career included serving as President of the American Historical Association and as a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.