Learn how a fancy silk and wool shoe connects to the important role women played in boycotting goods from England during the American Revolution. In the 18th century, American milliners often imported fancy English shoes for sale to their customers, but unpopular tax laws from the British government led colonists to protest by refusing to purchase items imported […]

Learn about the story behind the tea kettle that Louisa May Alcott used while serving as a nurse for the Union Army in Washington, D.C. during the Civil War. Alcott is most famous as the author of Little Women, but years prior she wrote “Hospital Sketches,” based on her now-lost letters home which she reported were […]

Jack Garrison lived as a free man in Concord during the first half of the 19th century. He’d been enslaved in New Jersey until he fled to Massachusetts in 1810. In Concord, he began working as a laborer for hire and married Susan Robbins Middleton, an ardent civil rights activist. Together they raised a family […]

Object Spotlight Talk: The North Bridge Beam This talk will take place at 11:00 am and 3:00 pm in the April 19th, 1775 gallery. The North Bridge was the site of the first battle of the American Revolution on April 19, 1775. Although the appearance of the bridge and landscape has changed over the years it continues to […]

Object Spotlight Talk: The Barrett House Door This talk will take place at 11:00 am and 3:00 pm in the April 19th, 1775 gallery. On April 19, 1775, many women in Concord evacuated to safety, but Rebecca Barrett was at home when 100 British Regular soldiers marched to her doorstep ready to search for military supplies. Rebecca’s husband, […]

Object Spotlight Talk: Thoreau’s Desk This talk will take place at 11:00 am and 3:00 pm in in the Thoreau gallery. This simple green desk made in Concord accompanied Henry David Thoreau from the school room where he taught with his brother to Walden Pond, where he drafted some of his most influential works and journaled observations of […]

Object Spotlight Talk: Emerson’s Writing Desk This talk will take place at 11:00 am and 3:00 pm in the At the Center of the Revolution Gallery. Concord’s famous writer, philosopher, and lecturer, Ralph Waldo Emerson, wrote the first draft of his most influential work, “Nature”, at this desk. “Nature” and his other works helped to create a uniquely […]

This talk will take place at 2:30pm in the To Set This World Right Gallery. This sewing table was likely used by Cynthia, Helen, and Sophia Thoreau in their home when making quilts for antislavery fundraising fairs hosted by the Concord Female Anti-Slavery Society. Female antislavery activists faced many challenges including not having the right to vote […]

This talk will take place at 2:30pm in the Thoreau Gallery. An English traveler and writer, Thomas Cholmondeley (pronounced “chumly”), gifted Henry David Thoreau 44 volumes of sacred texts of India’s Vedic literary tradition. On his death, Thoreau bequeathed half of the volumes to Ralph Waldo Emerson and half to Bronson Alcott. This spotlight talk takes a […]

This talk will take place at 12:00pm in the Portrait Mode Gallery. Take a deep dive into some of the stories featured in the Museum’s special exhibition Portrait Mode with Associate Curator and Director of Exhibitions Reed Gochberg. In this specialty tour, you will go beyond the labels to understand whose faces become a part of history.  […]