Every spring this lecture focuses on a topic relevant to those interested in decorative arts, collecting antiques, gardening, and the home and brings to the Museum an expert in their field. Past topics included decorating with blue, antique jewelry, the gardens of Winterthur, and Chinese export porcelain. The 2019 Lesneski Memorial Lecture will be held on March 28, 2019 at 6:00 p.m. in the Franklin Lyceum of the Rasmussen Education Center with Catherine Allgor, President of the Massachusetts Historical Society, on “‘The Great Centre of Attraction’: Dolley Madison Creates the White House”. A reception organized by the Guild of Volunteers will follow the lecture. Register here.
Save the date for the 2019 Patriots’ Ball: April 13, 2019! Join us for an evening of music, raffles, cocktails, Americana style food, and patriotic activities – including a late night march through town to see Samuel Prescott ride in on horseback to warn us that the “Regulars are coming out!” The Patriots’ Ball is organized by the Concord Museum Guild of Volunteers to support the Concord Museum’s education programs.
Make the Concord Museum part of your Patriots’ Day tradition! Each April, Concord is the focal point for visitors from near and far as area minutemen reenact the fateful events of April 19, 1775 and fife and drum corps from all over the nation march down Main Street. After the Patriots’ Day parade, or anytime throughout the Patriots’ Day weekend, visit the Concord Museum’s six history galleries and experience a hands-on orientation to Concord’s remarkable past.
Join us for the 30th Annual Garden Tour, a benefit organized by the Concord Museum Guild of Volunteers featuring outstanding private gardens in the Concord area. The 2019 Garden Tour will be held on May 31, 2019 & June 1, 2019.
This annual, premier golf tournament supports the Museum’s educational initiatives. The 24th Annual Tournament, organized by the Concord Museum Guild of Volunteers, will be held on Monday, June 10, 2019 at the Concord Country Club.
The Lanagan Lecture is a major annual lecture named for Sally Lanagan, a beloved volunteer who was deeply involved with the Museum and had a passion for American art, the decorative arts, and historic preservation. To honor Sally and her memory each year, The Sally Lanagan Fund was established in 2012 by her family, as a tribute to Sally’s years of dedicated service to the Concord Museum. Through this endowed lectureship, the Museum offers each year a presentation by a prominent scholar on a topic that is aligned with her interests.
Concord’s renowned literary tradition takes a creative twist during the holiday season when the Concord Museum opens the annual Family Trees: A Celebration of Children’s Literature. A benefit exhibition with related programs, Family Trees fills the Museum with trees and wreaths of all shapes and sizes fancifully dressed for the occasion with charming original ornaments inspired by a dazzling selection of children’s picture books. Family Trees is organized by the Concord Museum Guild of Volunteers, chaired in 2018 by Patty Flint and Pam Nelson.
Join friends of the Museum for cocktails and hors d’oeuvres at our annual event celebrating the opening of Family Trees: A Celebration of Children’s Literature. Each year the Concord Museum Guild of Volunteers Fête co-chairs host a beautiful night of holiday cheer! The 2018 Fête was held on November 30, 2018 in the Anna and Neil Rasmussen Education Center.
Guests are welcomed inside the front doors of gracious private Concord residences to visit the charming ground floor rooms. From Colonial to Victorian to Shingle Style and more, each house will be decorated in a different holiday theme. The Concord Museum welcomes you to spend the day in Concord, a small town with a big history, and enjoy the elegant streets, charming cafés and shops, as well as the many historic homes. Organized by the Concord Museum Guild of Volunteers, the 2018 Holiday House Tour was chaired by Leah Butler and Lisanne Wheeler, and was held on Saturday, December 1st, 2018.
May 18
Experience the history of Concord while you cruise your way through town on a guided tour of Concord’s African American and Antislavery history. Meet the free and enslaved people who called Concord their home. Traverse spots along the Underground Railroad, and learn about flashpoints in Concord’s history that played a crucial role in the abolitionist...
May 22
Hosted by the Concord Free Public Library as part of the 2019 Concord Community Conversation. Join Special Collections Curator Leslie Wilson and Head of Reference Barbara Gugluizza of the Concord Free Public Library for a discussion on Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. This 1845 memoir and treatise on abolition was written by famous...
May 24
Gear up for the Concord Museum's 30th Annual Garden Tour by joining other Members for a tour of the historic gardens at The Trustees' Long Hill in Beverly, MA. Led by Trustees Horticulturist Dan Bouchard, we will tour through the beautiful and distinct gardens that surround the Federal-style house that once belonged to the Sedgwick...
May 25
Happy 216th Birthday, Emerson! Celebrate Emerson’s birthday and follow the footsteps of writers Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau! Join a guided walk from Emerson's house to Fairyland Pond in the Walden Woods. Enjoy the spring weather and learn about the friendship of two notable observers of nature from Concord Museum interpreter, Barbara Forman....
May 25
Join the Concord Museum Curator, David Wood, for a spotlight on the inner sanctum of Ralph Waldo Emerson. After recently cataloging all of the objects in Emerson’s study, David will share highlights, surprises, and insights into the remarkable man and his many visitors who shaped the course of history. Included with Museum admission; Members free.
May 29
As the culminating event in our Frederick Douglass Community Conversation initiative, the Museum will present a screening of James Baldwin: The Price of the Ticket, a film described as "an emotional portrait, a social critique, and a passionate plea for human equality.” Following the screening of the newly restored documentary, the filmmaker, Karen Thorsen, along with Director...
May 31 - June 01
Join us for the Concord Museum's 30th Annual Garden Tour on Friday, May 31 & Saturday, June 1 from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. each day, organized by the Concord Museum's Guild of Volunteers to benefit the Museum's educational initiatives. There are seven beautiful private Concord gardens on the list for this year and we...
June 09
Wake up in 18th century Concord and immerse yourselves in the daily lives of children and families. Discover the many similarities and differences between the daily lives and routines of children today and children three hundred years ago. Participants will prepare, cook, and eat an authentic colonial breakfast. Knead dough and shape rolls. Turn fresh...
June 10
Each year the Concord Museum holds a premier golf tournament, organized by the Museum's Guild of Volunteers, to support the Museum's education initiatives. The Museum’s educational programs teach children about the ideas of freedom, self-government and individualism and help to bring our nation’s history alive. This year's 24th Annual Tournament and will be held on...
June 15
19th century Concord was teeming with activists and intellectuals who cultivated the beginning of the antislavery movement. Coinciding with the celebration of Juneteenth, a holiday commemorating the end of slavery in the United States, this tour will introduce you to the Concord women and men who played a crucial role in the abolitionist movement in...
June 16
Celebrate a very special Father’s Day at historic Wright Tavern! Join us for a conversation with Mike Smith author of The Comic Book Story of Beer and head brewer for Aeronaut Brewing Co. of Somerville. Hear fascinating and pithy insights into the history of the world’s favorite brew from the New York Times Bestseller. Following the...
June 19
Join other Concord Museum Members to celebrate 100 years of the Bauhaus movement with a tour of Historic New England's Gropius House, designed and lived in by Walter Gropius, one of the most influential architects of the twentieth century. This unique home was built in 1938 in the rural landscape of Lincoln, MA and whether...
July 06
Bring your family to learn about the man who inspired the diligent documentation of the greater Walden Woods ecosystem. Create your own hand-made journal, just as Henry David Thoreau made journals to document his observations. Equip yourselves with the tools and skills you need to venture out on an observant and fruitful walk in nature....
July 07
The Boston Tea Party and the Boston Massacre have thrown the Massachusetts Bay Colony into chaos. By 1774 all representative government has been banned and General Thomas Gage is suppressing the rights of the colonists. A group of brave and civic-minded colonists decides to meet anyway. They gather at the Wright Tavern in Concord to...
July 11
The region that defined Yankee ingenuity has a beer heritage in keeping with its character. Brewing in New England goes back four centuries, beginning with the Pilgrims who dropped anchor in Plymouth because their supply of beer was running low. Author of Crafty Bastards: Brewing in New England from the Mayflower to Modern Day, Lauren Clark discusses the...
July 14
Thoreau wrote that he “was born in the nick of time” in Concord, Massachusetts and went on to famously write about building a cabin and living at Walden Pond. This film tells the story of his life and his time at Walden Pond as well as the impact his writings have had on environmental issues,...
July 27
In the 1800s, Concord was the center for American authors and thinkers, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Louisa May Alcott. They gathered together with other Concordians to discuss issues of the day such as slavery, war, the natural world, and many other topics. Led by a Museum educator, explore 1800s Concord and...
August 07
For far too long, the history of how American women won the right to vote has been told as the tale of a few iconic leaders, all white and native-born. Join us for a conversation with Susan Ware, as she uncovers a much broader and more diverse story of the many women who worked tirelessly...
September 19
Jay Robert Stiefel, historian of Colonial Philadelphia society and its material culture, will introduce the life and work of English emigrant joiner John Head (1688-1754). Head’s Philadelphia account book is the earliest and most complete to have survived from any cabinetmaker working in either Great Britain or British North America. The culmination of nearly...