By Laurie Atwater

Each holiday season the downtown retailers knock themselves out trying to find ways to entice customers away from shopping on the internet and back to the shops and restaurants of Lexington.  While each year sees an up-tick in foot traffic, nothing so far has recaptured the excitement of Lexington holiday shopping events of the past, when the sidewalks were jammed with shoppers, diners, friends and neighbors enjoying the lights and magic along Massachusetts Avenue.

Well, that’s about to change!

This year, if all goes as planned, things may change. The Lexington Mavens in partnership with Lexington’s Chamber of Commerce and the Lexington Retailers Association are introducing The Taste of Lexington, a downtown celebration of local shopping, dining and old-fashioned fun!

The brainchild of Patrice Cleaves and Delilah Atkinson, founders of the Lexington Mavens, the Taste of Lexington is set for December 6th in Lexington Center from 5-9:30 PM!

You haven’t heard of the Mavens? That’s okay. It’s a Facebook group of about 2,200 Lexington women. Patrice says, “We’ve created this vibrant community of women. Delilah and I each handpicked 60 individual influencers across town—they were connectors, and they care about the community beyond their own footprint which was a big thing for me. We asked them to come on board and help us develop the Mavens.” In a short period of time, The Mavens has become quite a force in the community

Patrice and Delilah envisioned the Facebook site as a junction box where all kinds of people can make connections in a protected space. According to Delilah, “What our members love about the Mavens is the ability to go online, get conversations go

ing, receive feedback or advice, and feel involved. The aim is not to be commercial — we don’t make money from the platform — and keep it authentic.  The heart of the group is all about community. Friendships have formed, events have happened that have helped people feel a part of our town.”

The Taste of Lexington event is a logical extension of the Mavens brand. Getting outside the digital space expands and reinforces membership by providing in-person events where members can socialize and share their stories and ideas and get to know each other. “The Taste of Lexington is also based on our founding principles of getting out into the community, getting involved and taking part.  We wanted to create an event that would bring people down to the Center so they can get to know what’s right on their doorstep,” Delilah says.

The women reached out to the Lexington Retailers and the Chamber of Commerce to maximize the success of the event. “We want to create a big event that supports and involves the community and businesses,” Patrice says. “We want to show businesses that we can turn out in large numbers.”

Delilah acknowledges that the retail community has been affected by the shift to online shopping. “The world of click and shop has taken over,” she says, “and as much as we all love the ease and instant gratification, there is something to say for the in-store, restaurant and service experience.”

Eric Michelson, co-owner of Michelson’s Shoe and President of the Lexington Retailers Association, has high hopes for the Taste of Lexington. “The holiday season is so important to the success of our local businesses that we are excited to partner with the Lexington Mavens to promote what Lexington has to offer.”

In the past, the responsibility of coordinating community holiday events has fallen squarely on the shoulders of the Retailers Association and the Chamber. The Retailers organize Trick or Treat and Discovery Day. During the busy holiday shopping season, they are happy to have the help of the Mavens! Eric says, “The Taste of Lexington is a true community event, with local businesses offering discounts and promotions; we hope people will join us and see just how many great shops and businesses are located right here in town.”

The Lexington Chamber of Commerce is also throwing its resources behind Taste of Lexington and enthusiastically embracing The Mavens and LRA as partners. Jim Shaw, Colonial Times publisher and Chairman of the Lexington Chamber of Commerce says, “We are delighted and appreciative that the Lexington Mavens have stepped up to help local businesses this holiday season, and the businesses have responded with significant offers and savings!  This event will bring hundreds of Lexington residents to the Center for an evening of shopping and dining. Many shops are participating and creating their own festive in-store activities.  The restaurant selections are incredible—Lexington has become quite a destination for dining out. People will not be  disappointed.” Shaw stresses that they have also included businesses from outside of the Center. “There will be ‘pop-up’ locations (that will host other Lexington Businesses) like the Historical Society’s Depot Building and TD Bank lobby.

The entire community is invited to the first annual Taste of Lexington. Shops and restaurants are offering refreshments and significant discounts and promotional offers. There will be singing groups on the sidewalks and an incredible sense of holiday spirit up and down the avenue.

If Taste of Lexington is a success, it will be because of the enthusiasm and hard work of these three groups and their desire to make it an exciting evening to share the seasonal beauty of Lexington Center, support local businesses and have fun! Delilah says, “We don’t want Lexington to lose its charm, we want to help it come to life and get residents excited!”

Jill Lepore

By Judy Buswick

This March, Lexingtonians will be delving into the story of America – a chosen theme investigating how American writers have impacted our history.

Whether it’s “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow or “Poor Richard’s Almanack” by Benjamin Franklin, a story and a backstory are there for the reading. Seeking to probe American history as part of the 2013 Lexington Reads program, the book suggested for a community-wide reading is The Story of America: Essays on Origins (Princeton University Press, 2012) by Harvard historian Jill Lepore. Filled with essays meticulously researched and thoroughly documented, yet first appearing in “The New Yorker” sans footnotes, this latest book by Lepore ties original works with today’s understanding of them, showing us many literary works that have affected Americans and American history. Fiction and political speeches are both analyzed. Stories range from 1607 and the lies or truths told by John Smith about the founding of Jamestown, up to the 2008 inaugural address of Barack Obama, who said, ”This union may not be perfect, but generation after generation has shown it can always be perfected.”

Opening the Cary Library series of programs on “The Story of America” theme, Professor Lepore will speak on Saturday, March 2, 2013, at 8 p.m. at Cary Hall (1605 Massachusetts Ave., next to the police station), about how American democracy is entwined with the history of its publications. Sponsored by the Cary Lecture Series and supported by the Cary Memorial Library, this special event will offer a preview look at Lepore’s upcoming book (Book of Ages), due to be released in September. The title of her program will be “Dear Brother: The Life and Letters of Benjamin Franklin’s Sister.” Free tickets have been mailed to all Lexington households; additional tickets are available at the Town Office Building or Cary Memorial Library.

Speaking by phone, Lepore explained that her Cary Hall lecture had been drawn from her research on Jane Mecom, Benjamin Franklin’s younger sister. As the youngest son and the youngest daughter in a family of 13 children, these two were close and wrote extensively to one another over their long lives. “They were both great letter writers,” noted Lepore. Actually, the prodigious Franklin wrote more letters to Jane than to anyone else, Lepore added. In the 1930s and 1940s, it was historian Carl Van Doren who collected the letters of both Jane and Benjamin; thus, “He saved her story,” praised Lepore. Van Doren won the 1939 Pulitzer Prize for his biography Benjamin Franklin (Viking Press, 1938). As Lepore will explain in her lecture, Jane had a difficult life, out-living 11 of her 12 children and struggling with poverty. When Franklin provided her with a house in Boston’s North End on Unity Street, she was proud of her own home and took great care of it, acknowledged Lepore. Knowing her beloved house would be looted, Jane was forced to flee Boston after the Battle of Bunker Hill. Sadly, this house, the only property Franklin ever owned, was demolished years later to improve the sightlines along the Paul Revere Mall. The house and another identical home next door were built by the brick maker who provided bricks for the Old North Church. The brick maker’s house still remains and might someday become a destination for tourists seeking Franklin’s presence in Boston, surmised LePore.

In The Story of America: Essays on Origins, Lepore examines Franklin’s earliest writing, including Poor Richard’s Almanack, and mentions that in 1767, before Franklin had signed the Declaration of Independence, “his sister Jane asked him for a copy of everything he had ever published. ‘I could as easily make a Collection for you of all the Pairings of my Nails,’ he answered.” Lepore pointed out that few have written more or done more than Franklin to shape the history – the story – of America.

Lepore writes, “Democracy in America was not established with the stroke of a pen, in 1776, when members of the Continental Congress signed the Declaration of Independence.” Our form of government “was neither inevitable nor swift,” she states. As the stories in Lepore’s book show, with each President or “contest of opinion” came new interpretations and new written insights. Her book includes chapters on Charles Dickens and his visits to America, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and his friendship with Charles and George Sumner, Edgar Allan Poe, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and many other fascinating writers from our past. Many writers interweave through chapters helping link the stories about our literary influences. Speaking about her separately written essays, Lepore noted that she wrote them “because I wanted to try to explain how history works, and how it’s different from politics.” When compiled, they add up to a new look at American history, a view that is more than the sum of the parts.

The last chapter focuses on inaugural speech writing – from that of George Washington to Barack Obama’s first speech. President-to-be Garfield, like most Presidents, read the inaugural speeches of those before him, confiding in his diary how difficult was the writing task. Lepore confides, ”Reading Lincoln left James Garfield nearly speechless.” He considered not even trying to write such an address for fear he wouldn’t succeed. The problem with a political speech’s content, length, poetry, hyperbole, and rhetoric come under discussion pertaining to particular presidents. Readers will find not only some insights on the content and political intent of written inaugural addresses, but also such personal tidbits as who was “the first inaugurée to wear pants instead of knee-breeches” (John Quincy Adams); who was first to give his speech on television (Harry S. Truman); who first broadcast the speech on the Internet (Bill Clinton); and who was first to be “YouTubed” live (Barack Obama). This final chapter of the book is representative of the engaging content that will lead to discussions on many levels. Invoking LePore’s last line, “Enough said.”

Jill Lepore has had a fair share of literary success. Since 1998, she has authored seven non-fiction books and co-authored a novel. Her book New York Burning: Liberty, Slavery and Conspiracy in Eighteenth-Century Manhattan (Knopf, 2005) was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in History. Since 2005, she has been a staff writer for The New Yorker. Her essays and reviews have appeared in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and many scholarly reviews.

Besides being a professor of American History at Harvard, she is the chair of Harvard’s History and Literature program, which offers an innovative and rigorous approach to interdisciplinary scholarship by teaching writing and critical thinking skills that are invaluable in any profession. The Cambridge resident serves on the boards of the National Council for History Education, the Society of American Historians, and the National Portrait Gallery.

Copies of Professor Lepore’s book, The Story of America, will be on sale at the Cary Hall lecture. The author will attend the library’s annual Lexington Reads Book Discussion Brunch on Saturday, April 6th at 10 a.m. where advanced registration is required.  For more information, stop by or call Cary Library: (781-862-6288 x250).

Judy Buswick is the author of a quilter’s biography (Sally Palmer Field, New England Quilter). See Judy’s Website at judybuswick.com.