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"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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