NORWALK, CT – In honor of Women’s History Month the Norwalk Historical Society is hosting the virtual lecture, ” ‘Giving Entertainment to Satan’: Witchcraft and Witch Persecution in Early New England” with guest presenter Dr. Leslie Lindenauer of Western CT State University on Thursday, March 25, 2021 at 5:30pm (Eastern Time) via Zoom. Mention Salem Massachusetts and most people will make an immediate connection to the witch trials of 1692, when the courts sentenced 19 people to hang for the crime of witchcraft, and tortured a 20th to death. Salem unofficially calls itself “The Witch City.” Less known is that dozens and perhaps hundreds of people were tried for witchcraft in New England beginning over four decades before the events in Salem. At least sixteen people were executed for the crime, most of them women. This lecture will explore witchcraft and witch-hunting in New England in the seventeenth century, with special attention to the role that gender played in accusations and trials, and in Puritan culture in general. Q & A will follow the lecture.
Tickets are $5.00 per household and can be purchased at: www.norwalkhistoricalsociety.org The Zoom link will be included at the bottom of your confirmation email. It will also be emailed to you 24 hours and 1 hour before the event.
Leslie Lindenauer is a Professor in the Department of History and Non-Western Cultures at Western Connecticut State University, where she teaches courses in early American history, gender studies, public history, and American Studies. Her book I Could Not Call Her Mother: The Stepmother in American Popular Culture, 1750-1960 was published by Lexington Books in
2014. Before her career in academe, Leslie worked for a couple of decades as an educator and administrator at a number of history museums in the Northeast.
For more information on this event and the Norwalk Historical Society visit www.norwalkhistoricalsociety.org, e-mail info@norwalkhistoricalsociety.org , or call 203-846-0525. The Norwalk Historical Society is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.
