The Museum of Newport Irish History will host author and historian Stephen Puleo on Tuesday, Nov. 17, for the final lecture of its 25th annual series.
Puleo will discuss “Voyage of Mercy: The USS Jamestown, the Irish Famine, and the Remarkable Story of America’s First Humanitarian Mission.” In March 1847, the USS Jamestown, a converted warship, sailed from Boston carrying food to Ireland during the Great Famine. The book traces that voyage and the national relief effort it helped set off, which eventually sent more than 9,900 tons of food to Ireland.
The talk is at 6 p.m. at the Wyndham Newport Hotel, 240 Aquidneck Ave. in Middletown, and will also be livestreamed on Zoom. Doors open at 5:30 p.m., with light hors d’oeuvres and a cash bar. Puleo will take questions and sign books afterward; copies will be available from Charter Books.
Admission is $10 in person, payable at the door by cash or check. Zoom participation is free. Reservations are required for both and can be made on the Lectures page at NewportIrishHistory.org.
Puleo has written eight books. His 2024 book, “The Great Abolitionist: Charles Sumner and the Fight for a More Perfect Union,” was nominated for the Mark Lynton History Prize. A ninth, “The Penicillin Miracle: A Deadly Fire, World War II, and the Dawn of the Antibiotics Age,” is due in late summer 2027.
The lecture series resumes in February.
