Join Historic Deerfield for 18th century herbal remedies and women’s medicine with Amy Lanham. The walkin program is free with general admission to the Museum. The date is May 30, from 10 – 4 at the Hall Tavern. For more information visit https://www.historic-deerfield.org/events/historic-trade-demonstration-18th-century-herbal-remedies-and-womens-medicine-with-amy-lanham/
Join Emily Stringham, owner of At the Sign of the Golden Scissors, to learn about 18th-century women’s fashions and sewing techniques and watch as a mid-18th century gown is constructed by hand. The en fourreau back, or English back gown, was one of the most popular styles of gown during the 18th century, worn by women of all social classes. The focus of this Historic Deerfieldprogram will be on making a gown suitable for a middle-class New England woman in the early 1770s.
Emily is a skilled seamstress and accomplished historical researcher with years of experience in the living history community. She has a background in independent museum and textile studies, including many years working as an interpreter and research assistant for a small living history museum. Seeking out those nerdy little details that really make a living history impression come alive has become a life-long passion. As the owner of At the Sign of the Golden Scissors and the line of Larkin and Smith 18th Century sewing patterns, Emily provides high quality products for museums and individuals wishing to create an accurate 18th century wardrobe. Historical accuracy is emphasized and hand sewing is always encouraged. In addition to 18th century sewing patterns, kits, fabrics, ready-made and custom-made items, the Golden Scissors also provides a selection of workshops and special programs/demonstrations for museums and living history sites.
Included in general admission. For more information visit https://www.historic-deerfield.org/
Join pastel artist Lisa Regopoulos on September 27 (rain date September 28) from 10 – 3 at the Hall Tavern at Historic Deerfield, 84B Old Main Street in Deerfield for a day of making art with pastels outside on the beautiful grounds of Historic Deerfield.
En plein air, a French expression meaning “in the open air,” gives experienced artists and novices alike an opportunity to paint outdoors and immerse themselves in the landscape.
Recommended for ages 16 and up. Advance registration required; $55 per person, $50 for members (materials are incuded). The workshop is limited to 10 participants. The fee includes instruction and all materials.
Register here.
The Dublin Seminar for New England Folklife (founded in 1976) is pleased to announce the subject of its 2025 gathering, Recalling the Revolution in New England, to be held June 27–28 at Historic Deerfield. The conference keynote will be provided by Dr. Zara Anishanslin of the University of Delaware, author of the forthcoming book The Painter’s Fire: A Forgotten History of the Artists who Championed the American Revolution.
On September 11, 1765, political leaders in Boston attached a plaque to a majestic elm and named it “Liberty Tree” to honor its role in an anti-Stamp Act protest the previous month. New Englanders thus started to commemorate the events of the American Revolution even before they had any idea there would be such a revolution. Over the following centuries, people from New England shaped the national memory of that era through schoolbooks, popular poetry, civic celebrations, monuments, and more.
On the 250th anniversary of the outbreak of the Revolutionary War in 1775, the Dublin Seminar for New England Folklife will address the broad range of ways the people of New England have looked back on the nation’s founding—and what they forgot, or chose to forget, in the process.
The annual Dublin Seminar is a meeting place where scholars of all kinds—academics, students, museum and library professionals, artisans and craftspeople, educators, preservationists, and committed avocational researchers—join in deep conversation around a focused theme in New England history, pooling their knowledge and exchanging ideas, sources, and methods in a thought-provoking forum.
For registration and details, visit https://dublin-seminar.org/our-2025-conference-recalling-the-revolution-in-new-england/ Image: “Tercentenary, Paul Revere’s ride.” September 15, 1930. Boston Public Library.
This November 7 & 8 colloquium will reinterpret Historic Deerfield’s collection by exploring the relationships between empire and materials of artworks in the collection, specifically asking how these art historical topics can be generative for recontextualizing Historic Deerfield’s place in the study of New England history, art, and culture. The program will engage with interpretations of settler colonialism through Historic Deerfield’s collection and ask how objects with their material histories broaden understandings of American empire, especially ones tied to the New England landscape and Indigenous histories.
The program will also workshop methods for telling these narratives and interpretive strategies through historic interiors, including objects tied to violence, trauma, and absence, and opportunities to bring in stories of joy and survivance. Our program reconsiders how empire and materials in Deerfield’s collection can be understood within a more complicated and entangled historical narrative, generating knowledge and new frameworks that can speak to the complexity of American art. The program includes invited scholars working in the fields of historical American art, African American and Diasporic Studies, Native American Studies, Conservation, and other allied fields. Speakers will investigate materials that reveal new ideas of empire, including: pastels, lacquer, birch, engravings on paper, and linen. Rather than limiting the discussion to traditional fine arts materials, scholars discuss material often neglected or forgotten in narratives of American art to uncover new ways we can reveal ideas of empire.
Complete details and registration information information is found at https://www.historic-deerfield.org/events/reawakening-materials-american-art-empire-and-material-histories-in-historic-deerfields-collection/. Online registration is $35 for Historic Deerfield members, $40 for nonmembers.
Come learn about historic textiles (and bring your own!) to be identified by renowned weaver/textile historian Rabbit Goody of Thistle Hill Weavers in New York. This Historic Deerfield special event will begin with an introductory talk on historic textiles from 9 am – 10:30 am Eastern, available via Zoom, after which Rabbit Goody will conduct 20-minute individual examinations of textiles brought in by attendees ($10 surcharge, slots booked in advance.) All attendees are welcome to observe the textile identifications.
In person: $15 for members, $20 for non-members. Virtual Zoom lecture only: $10 for members, $15 for non-members. Register at www.historic-deerfield.org Box lunches ($18) available to order in advance.
Historic Deerfield’s 2024 Fall Forum, A Rich and Varied Palette: Coloring New England’s Past, convenes a group of leading researchers and scholars to explore the vast subject of color and its history. Research and publication in the history of color has been growing in recent decades, but few studies have examined color’s impact on specific cultural regions, such as New England. The program’s lectures will focus on the diverse topics of global colorants and textiles, lithoprints in 1840s New England, painted furniture at the Bath Academy, japanned furniture, Shakers’ color use and meanings, New England’s textile bleaching industries, chrome yellow and pink as pigments, and the paints and finishes of the Rockingham (Vermont) meeting house.
Historic Deerfield is home to one of the finest collections of New England architecture, interiors, and decorative arts of the 18th and 19th centuries. Rich in locally made and imported objects, the collection ranges widely from painted and japanned furniture, dyed, painted, and printed textiles, embroidered needlework and samplers, and paintings, drawings, watercolors and colored prints and maps. The museum’s Library also features the superb collection of Stephen L. Wolf (1917 – 2008), composed of pamphlets, trade catalogs, periodicals, and ephemera on applied color dating from the late 1500s to the present.
Despite the pervasive misconception of drabness, New England embraced color as a reflection of refinement and status, a visual display of commerce and the global economy, and a defining element of cultural difference, regional identity, and social and racial hierarchies. Through lectures, workshops, and tours, participants will experience the latest scholarship on color and gain a better understanding of the role of color in New England material life. Register at https://www.historic-deerfield.org/events/fall-forum-coloring-new-englands-past/
In-Person Base Price (does not include meals or pre-forum sessions)
$150 / $135 (members) / $55 (college students)
Virtual Price (lectures only)
$90 / $75 (members) / $55 (college students)
Image: Pair of Women’s Shoes, England, ca. 1765. Red-pink glazed, satin-weave wool (calamanco); unbleached plain weave linen; leather. Historic Deerfield, Museum Collections Fund Purchase with Funds Donated by James Ciaschini in Memory of his Mother Eva Ferioli, 2004.26
The Dublin Seminar for New England Folklife (founded in 1976) is pleased to announce Into the Woods: New England Forests in Fact and Imagination, to be held June 28-29, 2024 at Historic Deerfield, 80 Old Main Street in Deerfield. The annual Dublin Seminar is a meeting place where scholars of all kinds—academics, students, museum and library professionals, artisans and craftspeople, educators, preservationists, and committed avocational researchers—join in deep conversation around a focused theme in New England history, pooling their knowledge and exchanging ideas, sources, and methods in a thought-provoking forum. This year’s program will address the rich and varied histories of the relationship between the peoples of New England and adjacent areas and their forests. The seminar will explore the economic, cultural, and social significance of trees and forests in New England history; anyone interested in parks and conservation, visual and literary representations of wooded landscapes, indigenous relationships with forests, wood-dependent industries, and folklore involving New England’s woods and forests will find plenty of interest in this two-day program.
View the program and the village map. For complete information visit https://www.historic-deerfield.org/events/dublin-seminar-2024/ You may register for Live or Online attendance. Below: Edward Hill, “Lumbering Camp in Winter,” 1882, NH Historical Society
Outside of the well-known witchcraft outbreak at Salem and Essex County in 1692, there were other cases that resulted in trials of people suspected of covenanting with the Devil in order to harm their neighbors. These crises reveal fascinating details about community life in seventeenth-century New England towns and the fears and recriminations that sometimes resulted in the executions of those deemed to be servants of Satan. The Historic Deerfield three part Winter Lecture Series will take place online on Sundays, January 28, February 25, and March 24 at 2 pm Eastern, and are free. Registration required at https://www.historic-deerfield.org/events/lesser-known-witches-of-new-england/
The January 28 talk is with Malcolm Gaskill, Professor Emeritus of History, University of East Anglia, on The Springfield Witchcraft Outbreak of 1651. On February 25, Paul B. Moyer, Professor of History at SUNY Brockport, will speak on The Hartford Witchcraft Outbreak of 1662. The final installment of March 24 features Emily C.K. Romeo, Assistant Professor of History at Northern Michigan University, examining Witchcraft and Women’s Violence in Colonial New England.
Enjoy the company of family and friends at Historic Deerfield’s Winter Frolic on December 16 from noon to four. The venue is the Hall Tavern at 80 Old Main Street in Deerfield. A fun afternoon of games, singing, dancing, and sweets is planned for you. Play old fashioned parlor games, learn English country dancing, make and take a spice sachet, sample historic hot chocolate (not what you’ll expect), and make molasses popcorn balls. Tickets Free for members, $7 for nonmembers. Register at https://www.historic-deerfield.org/events/winter-frolic-at-hall-tavern/
