The winter season brings programs for visitors to learn and explore at Historic Deerfield, including classes on open hearth cooking and the art of printing, as well as a free Winter Lecture Series commemorating the 250th anniversary of the Townshend Acts. There will also be a free symposium on the art of remembrance.
Revolutionary Acts: Tea, Taxes and Tempests
The lectures will be held at the Deerfield Community Center in Old Deerfield. The first, “Colonial Opposition and the Road to Revolution, 1763-1775,” will be held on Sunday, Jan. 22, at 2 p.m. It will be presented by William M. Fowler, distinguished professor of history at Northeastern University.
On Sunday, Feb. 26, at 2 p.m., Nancy Siegel, professor of art history at Towson University, will present the second lecture, “Renounce the Baneful Herb: Colonial Boycotts and the Invention of Liberty Tea.”
And, on Sunday, March 26, at 2 p.m., Angelika Kuettner, associate curator of ceramics at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, will present the third lecture, ”Earthen Ware, made in Boston: Benjamin Leigh and John Allman’s Revolutionary Partnership.”
A variety of educational programs this winter will appeal to many different audiences.
The popular “Girl Scout Badge Days” will continue, with opportunities for scouts to earn badges in hearth cooking and woodworking.
Those interested in historic foodways, open hearth cooking or simply cooking on the fire will enjoy Historic Deerfield’s Open Hearth Cooking classes in February and March.
From basics to cooking from recipes from the 18th and 19th centuries, the museum’s open hearth cooking classes are a great way to learn about the history of cooking and the tricks that go into cooking on an open hearth.
“Pressing Matters: The Art of Printing at Historic Deerfield,” is the topic for Historic Deerfield’s museum course, which will be held on Thursday evenings in March (16, 23 and 30). Through a combination of lecture and object study, this three-part course will examine the practice of printing on different media.
Woodblocks and copperplates transmitted the designs that would adorn maps, prints and other decorative objects on paper. European printed textiles first sought to imitate elaborate painted cottons, known as chintz, from India; and with improved technology in the 18th century, yards of cheaper printed cottons eventually became available.
Transfer-printed ceramics allowed for quick and inexpensive decoration. For the first time, handsomely decorated pottery with intricate designs and lively colors was affordable for the middle classes. These developments led to mass-production and greater access to decoration and color on commodities.
For more information or to register online for any of the classes, visit: www.historic-deerfield.org
The Deerfield-Wellesley Symposium returns to Deerfield on Saturday, March 18, with “The Art of Remembrance: Family, Art and Memory in New England.”
This day-long symposium will explore artistic productions of familial memory and commemoration in New England from the 1600s to the turn of the 20th century.
The art of family was wide-ranging and included family registers, mourning art, gravestones, textiles, furniture, jewelry and other clothing accessories, scrapbooks and albums, as well as portraits, silhouettes, and, by the mid-19th century, photographs.
A select group of scholars will present papers during the symposium that will explore the tangible storehouses of memories and relationships, offering unique and compelling entry points to explore ways New Englanders chose to remember, commemorate, memorialize, mourn and/or celebrate family members, rites of passage and other domestic events.