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.
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