Past
Events
Walking Tour - Puddingstone, Pinnacles and Pointed Arches: Church Construction
in the Back Bay, 1860-1880
Monday, September 24, 2012 at 6:00 PM
Please join the members and friends of the Gibson House
Museum for a tour of churches of the Back Bay led by architectural
historian Ed Gordon. We will view houses of worship built in
the neighborhood from Arlington to Dartmouth streets during the
first
twenty years of the Back Bay’s massive land making project.
During the course of the tour we’ll touch on architects
Arthur Gilman, Richard Upjohn, H. H. Richardson and Phillips
Brooks.
Meeting Place: Gibson House Museum, 137 Beacon Street, Boston
(between Arlington and Berkeley streets); Admission: $10 Members;
GHM & VSA/NE $12 Non Members;
RSVP: 617.267.6338 or email: info@thegibsonhouse.org Afternoon Tea
at the College Club
When:
Monday, October 15, 2012
Where:
College Club, 44 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston
Time:
3 - 5 p.m.
Join
us for afternoon tea at the College Club. Enjoy traditional English
fare of mini sandwiches, scones, cookies, breads, assorted teas,
and coffee. Sit back and relax with friends while Etiquetteer Robert
Dimmick entertains us with a talk about "Failures in Brahmin
Entertaining". Even Rosamond Gibson didn't get it right every
time.Robert's witty interpretation will leave you with a less stuffy
opinion of Boston Brahmins! Be prepared for an informative and
unforgettable afternoon.
Cost per person is $45. Seating is limited and reservations are required.
RSVP: 617.267.6338 or email: lauragresh@thegibsonhouse.org
Trick
or Treat
When:
Halloween, Wednesday, October 31, 2012 from 5 - 7 p.m.
Where: Gibson House Museum alley entrance
Visit the Gibson House Museum for a spooky time and treats.
(enter through the alley between Beacon and Marlborough streets at Berkeley
Street)
Holiday
Open House and Tours
When:
Sunday, December 16
Where: Gibson House Museum, 137 Beacon Street
Time: 1 - 4 p.m.
Gibson House Museum will be decorated for the holidays in all its splendor. Experience
a Victorian Christmas. Light seasonal refreshments will be served.
Good
Manners at GHM with Etiquetteer Robert Dimmick
Tuesday, January 22, 2013, reception at 6:00 p.m., program follows at GHM
Robert Dimmick will talk on Victorian and early-twentieth-century
etiquette using the Gibson family home as a backdrop. Admission members
free GHM/VSA/NE; $10 non members
"Letters
from Home" Tour
Locations The Paul Revere House, 19 North Square The Otis House Museum, 141 Cambridge Street
Nichols House Museum, 55 Mount Vernon Street
Prescott House Museum, 55 Beacon Street
Gibson House Museum, 137 Beacon Street
Some past events:
September 15, 2010: Amelia Peabody, Her Life and Works - the
story of the last of the Grand
Dames. Slide show/talk by Glenda Mattes. Amelia Peabody was born
a Boston blueblood, maintained the family home in the Back Bay,
but chose to live most of her life in Dover where she nurtured
horses, hogs, sheep, cattle, dogs, art and the land. Her legacy
endures in the good works of her lifetime and in those which continue
through the work of her foundations.
Glenda Mattes
was the curator of the Sawin Museum in Dover, MA, from 1999
until
2009. An exhibit, "Amelia Peabody, Her
Life and Works," at the Sawin Museum (October 2008-June
2010) became the basis of this slide show about the life of Amelia
Peabody (1890-1984). Her love of history grew from her work on
her own family history over the last 30 years. Now retired, she
was a Medical Technologist and real estate broker. She now lives
in the Back Bay with her husband, Don
July and August, 2010: Walking Tours of the Back Bay led
by Executive Director Charles Swift.
May
11, 2010: Victorian Architecture in Boston’s South
End.
Both the Back Bay and the South End of Boston were built on made
land.
What
other similarities do these two neighborhoods share? South End
Historical Society Historian John Neale talked about the architectural
history of South End, which immediately predated the Back Bay
as Boston's most fashionable neighborhood.
January 19, 2010: The Gibson Family.
Talk by Charles Swift, Executive Director, highlighting new
research on Gibson family
history and the museum’s photography collection. November 15, 2009: Victorian Flower Arranging with Donna
Morrissey.
Donna Morrissey is a Master Flower Show Judge and former Chairman
for Judges Council of National Garden Clubs. She is a Senior
Associate of the Museum of Fine Arts and a Floral Designer and
Design Instructor at the MFA. Donna is a member of the Garden
Club of the Back Bay and Wareham Garden Club. She is a popular
presenter of Floral Design Programs and Workshops and has her
own floral design business, Chestnut Hill Celebrations.
Refreshments
will include assorted fine teas, iced tea, mint lemonade,
petite tea sandwiches, fresh fruit, mini scones,
tea breads and tea cookies.
June 16, 2009: Back Bay Alleys Walking Tour. William Young, Senior
Preservation Planner with the City of Boston Environment Department,
leads a walking tour of Back Bay alleys.
April 16, 2009: America's Kitchens. Talk and
book-signing by Historic New England Curator Nancy Carlisle. Nancy
Carlisle, a curator for more than twenty years at Historic New
England, works with some of the most important historic kitchens
in the country and has written and lectured widely on the material
culture of domestic life.
America’s
Kitchens, a new book by Nancy Carlisle, highlights
New England hearths, detached kitchens on southern plantations,
Spanish colonial kitchens of the Southwest, elaborate nineteenth-century
kitchens in the Midwest, and middle-class open-plan homes of
1950s suburbia to tell the story of this important room.
The book traces
technological developments such as the introduction of the cast-iron
cook stove, the efficiency of the Hoosier cabinet, and the impact
of the frozen food industry to suggest how these innovations
have transformed kitchen work and changed women’s lives.
February 11, 2009: The Gibson House and 19th Century Building
Technology. Gibson House Museum Executive Director Charles Swift
is the featured speaker at this program hosted by the Gibson House Museum. Mr. Swift
will talk about the evolution of building technology in the Back
Bay from 1859 to the present, using the Gibson House Museum as a
case study.
The Gibson
House has essentially been preserved as it appeared during
three generations
of Gibson family occupancy
(1859-1954). It can be considered a sophisticated
mid-nineteenth-century “machine
for living.” Through the years, as building
technology advanced, the Gibson family either replaced
or retrofitted systems, often abandoning older systems in place.
This “system layering” reveals the sequence
of advancing building technology in everyday domestic
life at the Gibson House.
December 10, 2008: The Art of the Personal Letter: A Guide
to Connecting Through the Written Word. Lecture by
Back Bay resident Margaret Shepherd, author of more than a
dozen books on calligraphy,
letter writing and conversation. Ms. Shepherd will talk about
her latest book, The Art of the Personal Letter, followed by
a book
signing and “question and answer” period. In an age
where much of our communication is by way of e-mail, where does
letter writing fit in? On display will be some of the personal
letters of Charles Gibson, an inveterate letter writer.
April
23, 2008: “Growing Up in Boston”: reminiscences
by John W. Sears. To many John Sears is the consummate Bostonian.
He has lived on Beacon Hill in the shadow of the State House for
almost his entire life. He has spent many years in public service,
serving as Boston city councilor, state representative, chairman
of the Metropolitan District Commission, sheriff of Suffolk County,
and chairman of the Massachusetts Republican Committee. In 1982
he ran as the Republican candidate for governor against Michael
Dukakis.
Mr. Sears’ youth overlapped with Charles Gibson’s
later years. The Beacon Hill and Back Bay of his childhood in the
1930s and ’40s were beginning to show signs of the social
change which inspired Mr. Gibson to preserve his family home as
a museum. This evening offers a very special opportunity to share
in Mr. Sears’ unique memories of those bygone times.
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