The lives of the women who came before us can be frustratingly difficult to
understand. Only a privileged few were able to write letters or keep diaries.
Fewer still were memorialized in biographies. Students of women's history have
always had to look for documentation in other kinds of places, and historic
house museums are one such resource.
We can walk through the rooms where women ate, slept, prayed, gave birth,
raised children, read, wrote, discussed issues of their day, and planned
action. We see the tools they handled, the gardens they maintained, the
proximity of their home to neighbors, the town center, or their outside work.
In describing the interpretive policies for the Society for the preservation of
New England Antiquities (SPNEA),* Jane C. Nylander wrote, "in our
buildings, landscapes, and furnishings, we see the particulars that define the
actual texture of people's existence. Places and objects can also tell us about
more intangible issues, like beliefs and aspirations or economic and societal
change."1
The material culture that still exists in the form of historic house museums
can make the lives of women compellingly real and accessible. But in today's
museums, how often are women's stories told? In what way? Who decides?
As a movement, the idea of historic house museums really began in the middle of
the nineteenth century with the establishment of Mount Vernon as a museum —
"an innovation" on the cultural landscape, according to Patricia
West. While there were such precedents as when women displayed
romanticized versions of colonial kitchens at Sanitary Fairs designed to raise
money for the Union Army, the patriotic fervor behind saving Mount Vernon
defined the movement. The Mount Vernon Ladies' Association considered it
essential to preserve the home of America's first president and they inspired
similar efforts to save the homes of other great (white, male) political and
literary figures. These houses were preserved as "shrines," writes
West. The directors purposefully included only selected information about the
historic house inhabitants.2
The lives of women in these houses were of peripheral importance at best, along
with those of servants and slaves. As Page Putnam Miller asserted, “If
Americans had to rely on existing historic sites for their understanding of
women’s history, a very limited and distorted picture would emerge.”3
What is especially ironic about omitting women from historic house
interpretation is that they often lived in the home longer than the men for
whom the houses are named — either because the men were traveling, perhaps to
serve in the legislature, or because the men died earlier.4
Often, the homes of prominent men were maintained by their descendants —
usually well-off, culturally engaged people whose desire to honor their
ancestors led to the preservation of many of the historic homes we enjoy today.
These family boards of directors also determined what was said about their
ancestors, how, and to whom. Needless to say, the information about these
houses disseminated by such could be subjective and incomplete.
A second motivation behind establishing historic house museums came to a head
in the late nineteenth century as the number of immigrants to America increased
dramatically. Founders of historic house museums often justified their work as
necessary for Americanizing immigrants. When the Daughters of the American
Revolution (DAR) was founded in 1890, for example, they actively set about
acquiring historic properties specifically "to carry the gospel of
Americanism to every American home" and to "safeguard the land
against the ravages of ignorance and sedition." The DAR, and other
like-minded groups and individuals, wanted to preserve upper class, white
American heritage by using house museums as living testimonials.5
When the Colonial Revival Movement came along in the early 1900s, historic
house museums were a perfect vehicle to enshrine an idealized remembrance of
the past — including women's domestic sphere, or the home- and family-centered
activities in which women were expected to engage exclusively. Not
surprisingly, what fueled this portrayal of women’s domesticity was a reaction
to the pivotal social and political changes affecting women at the time. The
woman suffrage movement had grown in size and power, for example, seeing its
ultimate victory in 1920 when women achieved the right to vote. Women’s
educational opportunities had been improving steadily, including at the college
level. Women were working outside the home in growing numbers, and the kind of
work open to them was expanding. They were politically and economically active.
The response to women’s new roles from the historic house museums that celebrated
the colonial or Victorian past often reflected the founders’ isolation from the
changing social landscape. Many of them were conservative women and men who saw
women’s work in historic preservation as an extension of their domestic duties.
As a group, they were elite women who were generally not suffragists, social
reformers, or even historians. The houses they maintained were seen in their
surrounding communities as private spaces focusing on the past. Their actions
were, however, highly political. Even though Orchard House, Louisa May Alcott's
home in Concord, Massachusetts, was preserved to honor her, Alcott's politics
were left out of the early interpretive tours. Instead, guides described
domestic life at Orchard House in romanticized fictional terms to echo the
stories Alcott had detailed in Little Women. Her ideas on suffrage,
antislavery, and women's work were ignored. Orchard House became part of what
James Loewen has called a "landscape of denial." 6
But over the past three decades, thanks at least in part to the civil rights
and women’s movements, new scholarship has transformed how public historians
present history. Researchers have uncovered and published voluminous records on
the lives of women, African Americans, Native Americans, and early immigrant
experiences not documented before. The information is available, and the
methods used for documentation can be learned and replicated. Today, public
historians are more open to telling a more complex American story because they
understand the interrelationships among different groups of people. The public
expects the stories about historic events and sites to be honest — and the
public expects them to include women.
Public historians are also much more attuned to the concept of the public trust.
The statues and memorials in the nation’s capital that honor America’s early
leaders, for example, belong to everyone. The monuments the nation has erected
to commemorate important battles, the historic markers that designate
significant sites — they belong to everyone. So, too, in the same sense, do the
homes of the women and men who helped shape America. Public tax dollars pay to
maintain historic sites either directly through the National Park Service and
state humanities councils, or indirectly through the tax exempt status
conferred on nonprofit historic house museums. Visitors have a right to expect
a fair treatment of American history in these places — and to expect women’s
history.7
How have historic house museums responded to this expectation? As an industry,
they are trying. Individually, each historic house has its own set of
challenges in terms of available and applicable research materials, funding,
and volunteer and staff time to develop new tours and programs. But the desire
is there, as well as the ingenuity and, increasingly, caretakers of historic
houses understand that telling women’s stories goes beyond the kitchen and the
crib.
At Longfellow National Historic Site in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the staff
wanted to “say more” about what is popularly known as “Longfellow House” — the
home of the popular nineteenth century poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The
National Park Service was fortunate in two key ways: first, that the site
manager and superintendent were committed to reinterpretation efforts including
allocating staff time and resources, and second, that the lives of the
residents were extremely well documented — and the materials were still in the
house.
One woman the staff wanted to include on the tour, Alice Longfellow, Henry and
Fanny Appleton Longfellow’s oldest daughter, was responsible for the thorough
documentation. Alice dedicated her life to historic preservation work, and
served as vice-regent of the Mount Vernon Ladies Association from 1880-1918.
Alice’s work served her well when she decided to turn her family home into a
museum that would pay tribute to her famous father and the house’s earlier
prominent resident, George Washington. According to Kelly Fellner, the site’s
education manager, Alice wanted the house to serve as “a source of education
and inspiration for the public, whether they were students from Radcliffe
(which she helped found) or a group of working women from Boston.”8
The house continued to be cared for by the Longfellow Family Trust after Alice’s
death in 1918, until the trust transferred the house to the supervision of the
National Park Service in 1972. It is largely because of Alice’s tireless
caretaking of the building, collection, and papers, that staff and volunteers
have been able to begin piecing together information about who else lived in
the house. As the site’s curator, Janice Hobson explained, when they began the
process of reinterpreting the house and changing the tour, they were only
interested in conveying information if it was grounded in fact. In 1991, they
began an intensive effort to catalog the archives and collection, knowing how
unusual it was to have such extensive primary source documentation tied
directly to the collection. Not only are there letters and diaries but the collection
includes sales receipts for items of furniture, old photographs of interiors,
mementos, building and garden plans. The catalog will take many years to
complete and will include a historic furnishings plan listing the provenance of
each piece, its locations in the house, and any supporting material that
exists. Already their work has revealed important details about the
lesser-known female residents of the Longfellow House.
Along with Alice, the role of her mother, Fanny Appleton Longfellow, is included
in the tour. Before her tragic in 1861, Fanny not only served as an inspiration
and sometimes as editor for her husband, she also made their home an inviting
salon for writers and artists from around the world, many of whom visited the
Longfellows in Cambridge and brought exotic gifts or wrote letters describing
their experiences. Other former women residents included in the tour are
Elizabeth Craigie, who created some of the first greenhouses in Cambridge in
the early nineteenth century, and Martha Washington, who lived in the house
with her husband from 1775 to 1776 when it was the headquarters of the
Continental Army during the siege of Boston. According to eye witness accounts
(documented in letters owned by Longfellow NHS), the crowds gathered around
when Martha’s carriage first pulled into sight were jubilant in their welcoming
cries, and she was very much a regal presence in Cambridge during her stay.”9
Adding the stories of lesser known women to the interpretation of homes of
prominent men was the same challenge faced by The House of the Seven Gables in
Salem, Massachusetts. Long associated with the nineteenth-century author
Nathaniel Hawthorne whose book of the same name put the house on the map
historically, “The Gables,” as it is popularly known, had always drawn visitors
through its doors. They came first, because of Hawthorne’s reputation, and,
second, to hear about the lives of such prosperous sea merchants as Captain
John Turner. Like Alice Longfellow, the founder of The Gables as a historic house
was a woman — Caroline Emmerton — and she is today as much a part of The Gables’
story as Alice Longfellow is part of the Longfellow House story.
Like Alice, Caroline Emmerton was the daughter of a prominent family. Their
philanthropic initiatives in Salem were numerous. Caroline was particularly
concerned with meeting the health care and education needs of the growing
number of families immigrating to Salem from Europe, and as a young woman at
the turn of the twentieth century she founded a settlement house named for The
Gables. She also devised a plan to pay for the settlement house by saving The
House of the Seven Gables from demolition, restoring it, and opening it as a
museum to the public. Two other historic properties were later added to the museum’s
property, including Hawthorne’s birthplace, as well as a shop. Today, The
Gables remains the successful venture it was when “Miss Emmerton” first created
it — and admission fees continue to help pay for programs at the settlement
house.10
Because Caroline’s life is well documented, including information about her
founding of the Salem Fraternity (which became the local Boys' and Girls' Club)
and her early activities as a member of SPNEA, it was relatively easy for The
Gables’ staff to weave the story of their founder into the tour. What has not
been as easy is finding documentation for the lives of two earlier women
residents — Susannah Ingersoll and Mary Turner Sargent. As did the Longfellow
NHS, The Gables’ management decided in the early 1900s that it was time to join
the reinterpretation movement. They hired a museum director, David Olson, to
over see the process.
The Gables’ staff started with what they knew and began digging. Although they
did not have the kind of onsite archives that Longfellow NHS has, they did have
ready access to the Phillips Library of the Peabody Essex Museum (formerly the
Essex Institute) just blocks away. They looked first for primary documents and
found useful letters, reminiscences, organizational records, and newspaper
clippings. Now visitors to The Gables learn that Susannah Ingersoll, Nathaniel
Hawthorne’s older cousin, entertained him for hours with stories about their
family and Salem history — serving, it is believed, as an inspiration for much
of his writing. Susannah was also active with the Salem Female Anti-Slavery
Society and might have been part of Underground Railroad activities. She kept a
family farm in nearby Danvers and was quite a successful businesswoman,
overseeing many of the details herself.
Mary Turner Sargent has proven more difficult to document. Family history
relates that she was born at The Gables in 1743 and presumably grew up there.
She was the wife of a prominent merchant, Daniel Sargent, who helped build Long
Wharf in Boston, and the mother of the renowned painter Henry Sargent and
author Lucius Manlius Sargent, but to date her beautiful portrait by John
Singleton Copley is the only artifact connected to her that The Gables has
found. She was, however, a regular correspondent with her niece, Judith Sargent
Murray, whose letter books did survive. Some of the letters to Mary Sargent
that Judith copied into her books provide insight into Mary’s character and
activities.
Similarly, the museum is piecing together the lives of the various servants who
lived at The Gables, one of whom was indentured and others who may have been
enslaved Africans. It is still unclear who they were, and even where in
the house they lived, but The Gables is making every effort to find the
answers. “We keep raising the standards,” David Olson explained. “As an
organization, we have to be as accurate as we can be.”11
This is the sentiment echoed by Carolyn Wahto, site manager of the Otis House
in Boston, one of the SPNEA properties open to the public. Verbal legend has no
place at SPNEA, and Wahto, working closely with the manager of research, Susan
Porter, is part of an organization-wide reinterpretation of their twenty-five
historic house museums.12
Something as simple as changing the name of a house raises awareness and
implies new thinking about interpretation. Instead of referring to the Harrison
Gray Otis House by its traditional name, SPNEA now calls it, simply, the Otis
House out of respect for Sally Otis, Harrison’s wife, and the couple’s numerous
children. In fact, it was Sally whose many activities filled their fashionable
home on Bowdoin Square while her husband, an attorney, was away serving in the
U.S. Congress during the early Federal period. At home, Sally took care of his
business dealings, ran a large household of children and servants, gave birth
to several children whom she also educated, and received guests as dictated by
Boston society. The hundreds of letters she wrote to her husband do not
survive, but thousands of his are carefully preserved at the Massachusetts
Historical Society. “An interesting problem we have here,” Carolyn Wahto
relates, “is that we have to interpret Sally’s voice through her husband’s
letters. That’s really tricky. We have to work harder on her story to make her
come alive.”13
As at other historic sites, SPNEA started with bills of sale documenting the
transfer of the Otis House in 1801 to its next occupants, Catharine and John
Osborne, to determine how rooms were used. That led to staff discussions about
differences between male and female and formal and informal uses of space
before they could agree on how to interpret the Otis House rooms. They
conducted paint and wallpaper analyses throughout the house and replicated what
existed in the late 1700s. They perused Federal period inventories of similar
homes in the Boston area, pulled from their collection what was appropriate,
and then went shopping for key pieces that were missing. They were also able to
rely on two paintings by Henry Sargent, both owned by the Museum of Fine Arts,
Boston, that depict the high style interior of Sargent’s townhouse at Franklin
Place. Designed by Charles Bulfinch, Sargent’s home was located just blocks
away from the Otises. These paintings, The Dinner Party and The Tea Party,
include rich detail about color, fabric, floor coverings, wall and window
treatments, decorative and displayed items, modes of dress, and choices and
presentation of food.
Today, two rooms on the first floor of the Otis House, clearly inspired by
Sargent’s painting, include reproductions of his work on easels so visitors can
appreciate the interpretive process. The drawing room is set up as if Sally
were entertaining — complete with piano forte for the children’s lessons and
her sewing table. Judith Sargent Murray’s letter books have been helpful to
SPNEA as well. They know from one of Judith’s letters, written after she moved
to Boston in 1794, that “morning visits [were] all the rage” during those
years. Still, it is a challenge to balance general information about upper
class Boston with information specific to the Otis House and make it
historically responsible. As Wahto points out, “I try not to assume too much. I
try to stay away from the average woman and really talk about Sally with
accuracy, but this isn’t always possible. But being honest about not knowing is
an education in and of itself. How little we know about the lives of women when
they inhabited these rooms makes a bold statement.”14
Because the Otises only occupied the house for four years, the staff at the
Otis House is also looking at the lives of other residents. In addition to
researching the lives of the Osbornes, they are looking for sources to tell
them about the Williams sisters, who ran a boarding house at the site from 1854
to 1868, and Mrs. Mott, who offered “Champoo Baths” to discerning customers in
some parts of the house for a year in the mid-1830s. In the 1970s, the Otis
House was on the “cutting edge” of historic houses in terms of paint analysis
and interior design, Carolyn Wahto explained, “and we want it to be again today
in the area of interpretation.”15
Like SPNEA, the Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) seeks to achieve this same high
standard of interpretation and also strike a balance between specific and
general information about its twenty-six historic properties. Their staff is
also rethinking the titles of the houses themselves — each one named for a
prominent white man. “Invariably,” explained Deputy Director of Special Projects
John R. Grimes, “there are socioeconomic factors involved in these decisions
that need to be looked at. We want to dismantle decades of assumptions, and do
it in terms of what is fair historically and what will make the visitor
experience meaningful.”16
The person heading this daunting task is Kimberly Alexander, PEM’s curator of
architecture, who is herself an architectural historian. Each property presents
its own set of issues: the seventeenth-century houses come with very little
documentation, while the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century houses, many lived
in by generations of the same family, often contain artifacts and documents
that are original to the house. But in general, compared to other
organizations, the museum has a wealth of documentation. As PEM acquired each
property, the staff made extensive studies; now, staff and volunteers are
revisiting these documents with fresh eyes. Alexander explained, “These details
[about social history] that people weren’t interested in years ago are exactly
what we want to know now.”17
Like other organizations, PEM believes that the use of space is a good starting
point for discussing people’s lives. In its houses, the museum has the unique
ability to show the progression from essentially one large universal room (John
Ward House), to multiple rooms and prescribed uses of space (Pierce-Nichols
House), to what appears to be vast areas of “wasted space” in the homes of the
early nineteenth-century wealthy merchant class (Gardner-Pingree House). These
architectural changes had a profound impact on women’s lives. The evolution of
spaces for women that were separate from the main functioning of the household —
particularly the kitchen and garden areas — isolated women from more public
activities and strengthened the idea that separate spheres for women and men
were natural. The museum can also illustrate the impact of the role of
technology as the houses moved from the simple wood-burning fireplace in the
common room, to kitchen fireplaces with such installed apparatus as reflector
ovens and roasting spits, to Franklin stoves in individual rooms, and to
central heating with coal.
Probate inventories are especially helpful when trying to reconstruct
seventeenth-century daily life. Inventories from the John Ward House listed
between twenty-three to thirty-five chairs in the front room. “Why all these
chairs?” Kimberly Alexander asked. “Obviously, this was a very social place and
meetings took place here. And since this was before women were banished into a
separate kitchen, they would have been listening to, and perhaps participating
in, whatever was being discussed.”18
Another central element of the 1684 John Ward House story is that many years
ago it was moved about a mile from its original location opposite the jail used
during the Salem witchcraft trials of 1692. Using this evidence, one can easily
imagine the subject matter of the gatherings that took place in the house.
House moving in New England was not uncommon, especially during the Colonial
Revival period of the early 1900s and during the urban renewal efforts of the
1970s. While it is critical to ground visitors in the context of the house and
its environment to fully understand what its residents’ lives were like, it is
not always easy to separate out nearby buildings, highways, and parking lots
that often appear to suffocate them. Finding out the original proximity of the
John ward House to the Salem Jail speaks volumes.19
The context of Salem itself plays a role, Alexander pointed out. She explained
that Salem was a fluid society, “part city, part rural area, and part
international port.” These characteristics made Salem very self-sufficient and
engendered a lot of bartering. “Who was doing the bartering?” Alexander asked. “It
was the women, because they tended to have control over the family’s resources.
The men were often away at sea, and it was the women who dealt with issues of
purchasing, land, and managing family wealth.”20
Specialized tours are one goal the Peabody Essex Museum has set as reinterpretation
begins, particularly ones that focus on women and servants and ones that relate
to museum exhibits. For a recent exhibition, Painted with Thread: The Art of
American Embroidery, Alexander developed tours focusing on textiles. She has
also designed a tour highlighting women residents through three museum
properties — the John Ward House (1684), the Crowninshield-Bentley House (ca.
1727), and the Gardner-Pingree House (1804). She is presently developing what
she calls a “backwards tour” of the Gardner-Pingree House, in which the tour
begins in the winter kitchen and the servants’ work area, and may involve
assigning such tasks to visitors as carrying wood to the third floor and
preparing meals and serving them on the second floor. The tour will have special
appeal to young people, Alexander believes: “They will appreciate how vastly
different the experiences in this house were, even though geographically close —
making the ‘downstairs’ experience as interesting as that of the ‘upstairs.’”
What has the response from the public been to the new interpretive strategies? “Huge,”
replied Alexander. “Every one of these thematic or ‘different’ tours we do is
packed. It’s what people want.”21
Each interview conducted for this chapter showed the determination of modern
caretakers of historic houses to bring change. Visitors want social history,
and they expect women’s history. For some historic house museums,
reinterpretation will involve a whole new way of thinking. While our
understanding of history has changed, its presentation has not always kept up
with new insights. The resources and methodology needed to effect change are
available. Change requires resources — research time, tour guide training, and
generally an updated publication. Although the solution for each site depends
in part on funding limitations, reinterpretation can be done — and it should be
an ongoing, enjoyable process of discovery.
Where does one begin? Each of the organizations discussed here started with
what they knew and continued from there. The important men who lived in
historic houses had wives, mothers, daughters, and, in many cases, servants.
There are generally letters, diaries, and other family papers, published
genealogies, obituaries, and old newspaper articles about residents that can
shed light on their lives. Researchers should tap the expertise of local
librarians, archivists, and historical societies as well as those in state
historic preservation commissions and archives. Volunteer organizations like
the Daughters of the American Revolution also can be helpful. You never know
what you will find once you start asking questions and look at existing
information with fresh eyes. The process of asking both specialists and
community boards of directors new questions will engage them all in rethinking
the interpretation of historic sites in their communities.
Legal documents reveal unexpected kinds of information: probate court records
list the content of a house at its sale; wills detail possessions, financial
arrangements, and beneficiaries. Organizational records that include catalogs
of collections and minutes of early meetings can be mined for information about
acquisitions and family history.
Many houses still contain such artifacts that belonged to its residents as
portraits, collections of books, a writing desk, and collectables from a
journey. At the Sargent-Murray-Gilman-Hough House in Gloucester, Massachusetts,
where Judith Sargent Murray lived from 1782 to 1794, the curator, who had to
catalog from scratch, combed through the minutes of early meetings to begin the
process. Along the way, she was able to determine what belonged to whom — and
the extent to which verbal legend had driven the guided tour. Tours that weave
the material culture into personal stories are much more compelling; using
cataloging as part of the interpretation process leads to new insights.
If the researcher finds that the details specific to the women she or he is
investigating are few or vague, there is a wealth of secondary sources which
will help achieve a balance of specific and general information. Local and
state histories, especially old ones, can establish historical context and
offer insight into daily life. Histories of African Americans in a particular
town or accounts of the arrival and treatment of different immigrant groups can
shed light on the experiences of less documented residents. Books describing
details of domestic life over time are valuable resources.22
Bringing the interpretation of historic houses up to today’s standards of inclusiveness
and historical accuracy must be done — and it can be done — but the central
question remains: who decides that change is needed? The best volunteer and
staff intentions will never see the light of day unless there is a commitment
to change at the leadership level. Too often boards of directors cling to the “great
white male” and “artifact” approach. They do this to the detriment of their
organizations and to the peril of the houses they so earnestly want to
preserve. They are violating the public’s trust. They will drive people away,
become irrelevant, and lose the support of their broader community — just when
the house should be loved and supported.
Historic houses are wonderful educational tools. They connect us with our past
in a way that effectively, and even emotionally, brings the past to life. Women
were part of the story each one should be telling — and the public must insist
upon it.
Notes
I am grateful to the following individuals for generously sharing with me their
experience in interpreting women's lives in historical settings: Irene Axelrod,
The House of the Seven Gables (Salem, MA); Kelly Fellner, Longfellow National
Historic Site (Cambridge, MA); Janice Hodson, Longfellow National Historic Site
(Cambridge, MA); Caroline Keineth, Adams National Historic Site (Quincy, MA);
David Olson, The House of the Seven Gables (Salem, MA); Cynthia Robinson,
Bay State Historical League (Waltham, MA); James Shea, Longfellow National
Historic Site (Cambridge, MA); and to William La Moy (Phillips Library, Peabody
Essex Museum, Salem, MA) for additional assistance.
1 Jane C. Nylnder, "A View from Our Windows," SPNEA (Society for the
Preservation of New England Antiquities) Newsletter
(Boston, 1999), 1.
2 Patricia West, Domesticating History:
The Political Origins of America's House Museums (Washington, D.C.:
Smithsonian Institution, 1999), 1.
3 Page Putnam Miller, Reclaiming the
Past: Landmarks of Women’s History (Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
1992), 3.
4 Perhaps the most famous example is that of Abigail Adams, who ran the Adams
homestead in Quincy, Massachusetts (now the Adams National Historical Park),
while her husband, John, served in Europe and the Continental Congress in
Philadelphia.
5 West, Domesticating History, 44
6 Cynthia Robinson and Gretchen S. Storin, Going
Public: Community Program and Project Ideas for Historical Organizations
(Waltham, MA: Bay State Historical League, 1999), p. 2; West, Domesticating History, 84, 91; James W.
Loewen, Lies Across America: What Our Historic
Sites Get Wrong (New York: New Press, 1999), 19.
7 Sherry Butcher-Younghans, Historic
House Museums (new York: Oxford University Press, 1993); Walter Muir
Whitehill, Independent Historical
Societies: An Enquiry into their Research and Publication Functions and their
Financial Future (Boston: Boston Athenaeum, 1962). For a discussion
of the necessity of including women’s historic sites that provides many
examples, see Miller, Reclaiming the Past
and “Placing Woman in the Past,” National Park Service, Cultural Resource Management Bulletin 20 (No. 3, 1997).
8 Kelly Fellner interview, 5 November 1999.
9 Janice Hodson interview, 5 November 1999. Fanny Longfellow died in the house’s
front parlor when her dress accidentally caught on fire from a burning match or
hot sealing wax.
10 David K. Goss, Richard B. Trask, Bryant F. Tolles Jr., Joseph Flibbert, and
Jim McAllister, Salem: Cornerstones of a
Historic City (Beverly, MA: Commonwealth Editions, 1999); Salem Maritime
National Historic Site, Peabody Museum, Essex Institute, Salem: Maritime Salem in the Age of Sail (Washington, D.C.:
National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, 1987).
11 David Olson interview, 19 August 1999.
12 SPNEA owns ten “study houses” that are for architectural study only.
13 Carolyn Wahto interview, 24 August 2001.
14 Ibid.
15 Ibid.
16 John R. Grimes interview, 10 October 2001.
17 Kimberly Alexander interview, 22 August 2001.
18 Ibid.
19 At the homestead of Abigail and John Adams in Quincy, Massachusetts (Adams NHP),
the National Park Service has been able to preserve the continuing relationship
between the house and grounds to illustrate how the surrounding farmland
impacted the lives of the Adamses — particularly Abigail’s.
20 17 Kimberly Alexander interview, 22 August 2001.
21 Ibid.
22 See especially Jane C. Nylander, Our
Own Snug Fireside (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994) and Jane C. Nylander, Windows on the Past: Four Centuries of New
England Homes (Boston: Bulfinch Press, 1999).
Suggestions for Further Reading
Elizabeth Donaghy Garrett, At Home: The
American Family 1750-1870. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1990. This thorough,
scholarly, and well-illustrated presentation of its subject makes this book a
key resource for researchers and interpreters.
James W. Loewen, Lies Across America:
What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong. New York: The New Press, 1999. A
delightful and well-documented dismantling of dozens of historic sites in the
United States that should make everyone in the history business sit up and take
notice. It validates the efforts of interpreters to rethink their own sites.
Page Putnam Miller, Reclaiming the Past:
Landmarks of Women’s History. Bloomington: Indiana University press, 1992.
Women active in public history present essays on how women used space in the
fields of architecture, the arts, education, politics, religion, and work.
Jane C. Nylander, Jane C. Our Own Snug
Fireside. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994. This essential, highly detailed
resource for researchers and interpreters was written by the president of the
Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities (SPNEA).
Jane C. Nylander, Windows on the Past:
Four Centuries of New England Homes. Boston: Bulfinch Press, 1999. The
SPNEA president takes readers on an illustrated tour through three centuries of
SPNEA properties and discusses their interpretations.
Cynthia Robinson and Gretchen S. Storin, Going
Public: Community Program and Project Ideas for Historical Organizations.
Waltham: Bay State Historical League, 1999. The authors present a useful guide
for connecting history activities to the community.
Bonnie Hurd Smith, Salem Women’s Heritage
Trail. Salem, MA: Salem Chamber of Commerce, 2000. Like its predecessor in
Boston, the book details the overlooked contributions of women to Salem history
over four centuries, adding depth to existing historic sites and revealing new
ones.
Harriet Welchel, ed. Caring for Your
Historic House. New York: Hannry N. Abrams, 1998. A practical, hands-on
guide that can become a bible for caretakers of historic houses.
Patricia West, Domesticating History: The
Political Origins of America's House Museums. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian
Institution, 1999. This key intellectual and political contribution to
reinterpretation efforts in the historic house museum field was written by a
National Park Service curator.
Susan Wilson, Boston Sites and Insights:
A Multicultural Guide to Fifty Historic Landmarks In and Around Boston.
Boston: Beacon Press, 1994. This second look at well-known sites in Boston adds
the history of women and people of color to the city’s story.
*Today, SPNEA is Historic New England.
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*This article was originally published in Her
Past Around Us, Interpreting Sites for Women’s History (Krieger Publishing
Company, 2003), Polly Welts Kaufman and Katherine T. Corbett, editors.
2003 © Bonnie Hurd Smith
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