GIBSON HOUSE MUSEUM PROGRAMS, OCTOBER 2009 to AUGUST 2010
“ The Gibsons and Their World, Celebrating 150 Years”
Receptions at 5:30 p.m.; programs begin at 6 unless otherwise noted.
Reservations recommended. Please call the Gibson House Museum at 617-267-6338 or e-mail info@thegibsonhouse.org to reserve a space.

Tuesday, 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.
Free for Gibson House Museum members, $10 non-members.

March – Date and Time to be announced
Art Exhibit of Original works by Hannah Barrett Inspired by the Gibson Family Collection

Thursday, March 25, 2010
Gibson House Museum Gala Benefit at the Algonquin Club

Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Charles Gibson and his Museum Talk by Charles Swift, Executive Director, on Charles Hammond Gibson Jr.’s vision for preserving the history of his family and the legacy of Victorian Boston.
Free for Gibson House Museum members, $10 non-members.

Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Those Other Victorians Talk by John Neale, Historian, South End Historical Society.
Free for Gibson House Museum members, $10 non-members.

Thursday, June 10, 2010
Victorian Furniture Talk by Nancy Carlisle, Curator, Historic New England.
Free for Gibson House Museum members, $10 non-members.

July and August
Tours of Back Bay led by Charles Swift
Free for Gibson House Museum members, $10 non-members.

July and August
The Charlie Gibson Literary & Cocktail Society

Some past events:

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.

December 7, 2008: Neighborhood Holiday Tours. Tours of the Gibson House decorated for the holidays.

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.