Domestic Staff: Their Work, Their Houses, Their Lives, from the Federal Period through the Gilded Age
When:
Tuesday, May 18, 2021 6:00p -
7:30p
Tuesday, May 18, 2021 6:00p -
7:30p
Where:
Online event
Admission:
$10 suggested donation
Categories:
History, Lectures & Conferences, Virtual & Streaming
Event website:
https://www.thegibsonhouse.org/events.html
Domestic servants made possible the lifestyles of many families in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but their stories often go untold. Why did they choose domestic service? What was their relationship with each other and the families they worked for? How did they experience the house? In this virtual forum, representatives from five historic house museums--the Gibson House, Waltham's Gore Place, Newport's Elms Mansion, New York's Merchant's House Museum, and Akron, Ohio's Stan Hywet Hall and Gardens--will explore the experiences of the domestic staff that lived and worked at our sites. Join us to examine these homes through the lens of the workers who kept them running.
Serving as moderator will be Jennifer Pustz, author of Voices from the Back Stairs: Interpreting Servants’ Lives at Historic House Museums.
Visit our website to learn more and register for this exciting virtual event!
The Gibson House Museum is a private, nonprofit house museum in Boston's historic Back Bay neighborhood. The home served as residence to three generations of Gibson family members and their household staff between 1859 and 1954. The Museum’s four floors of period rooms, including the original kitchen, are a time capsule of domestic life in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Visitors experience the house through guided tours that interpret class and culture through the stories and objects of the people who lived and worked there.
Co-sponsored by The Preservation Society of Newport County.
