Odeon, Boston Explained

The Odeon (1835 – c. 1846) of Boston, Massachusetts, was a lecture and concert hall on Federal Street in the building also known as the Boston Theatre.^{[1] [2]} The 1,300-seat auditorium measured "50 feet square" with "red moreen"-upholstered "seats arranged in a circular order, and above them ... spacious galleries."^[3] The Boston Academy of Music occupied the Odeon in the 1830s and 1840s^[4] Notable events at the Odeon included "the first performance in Boston of a Beethoven symphony."^[5]

Events

1830s

• Samuel A. Elliot opening address
• Joseph Story "on the life and professional character of the late Chief Justice Marshall"
• William Apess lecture
• James Madison memorial
• William Ellery Channing lecture^[6]
• Charles Zeuner concert
• Edward Everett lecture^[7]
• A.E. Grimké lecture^[8]
• Samuel J. May lecture
• Ralph Waldo Emerson lecture^[9]
• Society for the Prevention of Pauperism meeting

1840s

• Musical Convention^[10]
• Boston Children's Friend Society fundraiser
• Massachusetts Temperance Union meeting
• Boston Brigade Band concert^[11]
• George Lunt presentation^[12]
• Edgar Allan Poe reading^[13]

Further reading

• • Michael Broyles. "Music and Class Structure in Antebellum Boston." Journal of the American Musicological Society, Vol. 44, No. 3 (Autumn, 1991), pp. 451–493

42.3555°N -71.0565°W

Notes and References

1. Web site: Boston Athenaeum . Theater History: Boston Theatre (1794-1852), Federal and Franklin Streets . 2012-03-27.
2. Boston Almanac. 1841
3. The Boston Academy of Music . The Family Minstrel . 1 . 15 . Sep 1, 1835.
4. Boston Academy of Music. Annual Report. 1836, 1844
5. Samuel A. Eliot . Being Mayor of Boston a Hundred Years Ago . Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society . Third Series . 66 . 1936–1941 .
6. Sponsored by the Massachusetts Temperance Society. Larry A. Carlson. "Bronson Alcott's 'Journal for 1837' (Part One)." Studies in the American Renaissance, (1981), pp. 27-132
7. Book: Edward Everett . An address, delivered before the Mercantile Library Association, at the Odeon in Boston, September 13, 1838 . Boston . W. D. Ticknor . 1838 .
8. Larry A. Carlson. "Bronson Alcott's 'Journal for 1838' (Part One)." Studies in the American Renaissance, (1993), pp. 161-244
9. Book: Ralph Waldo Emerson . War : an address before the American Peace Society at the Odeon, Boston, Massachusetts, in 1838 . Washington, D.C. . American Peace Society . 1924 .
10. The Musical Magazine (Boston) no.38, June 6, 1840
11. Boston Daily Atlas, Feb. 16, 1843
12. George Lunt. Culture: a poem delivered before the Mercantile Library Association, at the Odeon, in Boston, October 3, 1843. Boston, W. D. Ticknor & Company, 1843.
13. Meyers, Jeffrey. Edgar Allan Poe: His Life and Legacy. New York: Cooper Square Press, 1992.