Art historian Douglass Shand-Tucci details the life of Boston architect Ralph Adams Cram (1863-1942), designer of major works such as West Point, Princeton University, and Rice University. Shand-Tucci emphasizes Dram's diverse interests and endeavors, reaching far beyond architecture.
Preservation consultant Pamela Wilkinson Fox discusses historic country houses and mansions outlying the Boston area. Fox follows the trend of the rich and famous building country homes and communities along Massachusett's North Shore (Essex County), beginning in the 19th century. Her presentation includes slides.
Audio and video options are available.
Curator Erica Hirshler looks at the contributions of Boston women artists to the world of painting and sculpture, focusing on little-known artists throughout the city's history. The presentation includes slides.
The lecture audio can be downloaded separately.
Writer Megan Marshall describes the lives of the Peabody sisters—Elizabeth, Mary, and Sophia—three women who contributed to the Transcendental movement of the 1800s. Elizabeth worked as an educator; Sophia, eventual wife of Nathaniel Hawthorne, wrote, painted, and illustrated; and Mary also worked for reform. All had connections with major intellectual figures of this period.
This lecture's audio is available in mp3 format.
Art historian and curator David Dearinger traces the birth and development of the Hudson River School of American landscape painting, beginning in 1820, using key examples of paintings; gives an overview of the movement's historiography; discusses contemporary critical responses to it; and comments on the waning and eventual demise of the style in the 1870s. His presentation includes slides.
Author John Hanson Mitchell outlines his discovery of 2,000 antique glass plate negatives by a previously unknown 19th-century African-American landscape photographer, Robert Alexander Gilbert. Mitchell presents slides of Gilbert's work, and discusses what is known of Gilbert's life.
Writer Charles C. Calhoun, author of Longfellow: A Rediscovered Life, shows how the American poet Longfellow Henry Wadsworth blended the Federalist politics and Unitarianism of his parents' generation with the German romanticism he discovered on his own travels. Calhoun discusses Longfellow's life and his influences.
Associate director of the Boston Athenaeum John Lannon outlines the history of the Athenaeum, a leading research library founded in 1807 which houses notable artifacts from American history.
Scholar Harlan Lane explores the life of John Brewster, Jr., a talented deaf portrait artist and American colonist born in 1766. The presentation includes slides of Brewster's work.
Audio and video options are available.
Ken Turino, exhibitions manager for the exhibit "Cherished Possessions," examines the history of New England furniture and decorative objects and the ways in which they were preserved and handed down over time. His presentation includes slides.
Video and audio options are available.