Colloquium:
Rethinking the Historic House Museum:
New Directions in Museum Interpretation Celebrating the
250th Anniversary of Forty Acres

Saturday, September 21, 2002 at 2 p.m.

Hadley, Mass.—The Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum has invited noted scholars and leading museum professionals to a colloquium, Rethinking the Historic House Museum: New Directions in Museum Interpretation, to explore current trends and future directions for interpretation of historic sites and house museums.  The forum will be held on Saturday, Sept. 21, 2002, at 2:00 p.m. at the Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum, Hadley, Mass.   This program, which is free and open to the general public, is one in a series of events that celebrate the 250 th anniversary of the construction of the Porter-Phelps-Huntington house, built in 1752 by Moses and Elizabeth Pitkin Porter.

The symposium will include presentations and a roundtable discussion by: Patricia West, author of Domesticating History: The Political Origins of America’s House Museums (Smithsonian Institution Press, 1999), professor of public history at the University of Albany, and curator at the Martin Van Buren National Historic Site in Kinderhook, N.Y.; Sandra Krein, Director of Lynn Museum.   Krein was also the director of the Wistariahurst Museum in Holyoke MA from 1993 until 2000; and, Donald R. Friary , Executive Director of Historic Deerfield, Inc.  Friary has served as Executive Director of Historic Deerfield since 1975 and has a strong interest in the interpretation of objects and of the built environment.   The symposium will be moderated by David Glassberg , author of Sense of History: The Place of the Past in American Life, and Professor and Chair of the History Department of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

PATRICIA WEST , Director of the Martin Van Buren National Historic Site, Kinderhook, N.Y., Independent Consultant Author of Domesticating History : The Political Origins of America's House Museums

SANDRA KREIN , Director of Lynn Museum, Formerly Director of Wistariahurst Museum in Holyoke, MA, 1993-2000

DONALD R. FRIARY , Executive Director of Historic Deerfield, Inc.

DAVID GLASSBERG , Moderator, Professor and Chair of the History Department of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst Author of Sense of History: The Place of the Past in American Life

Discussion by members of the panel will follow and questions will be invited.

 

Colloquium:
New Research at the Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum
Celebrating the 250 th Anniversary of Forty Acres

Saturday, September 28, 2002 at 2 p.m.

LAUREL THATCHER ULRICH , Keynote Speaker and Moderator
James Duncan Phillips Professor of History, Director of the Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History, Harvard University, Pulitzer Prize author

BRUCE LAURIE , University of Massachusetts, Amherst
“Racism, Paternalism, and Reform”

CATHERINE E. KELLY , University of Oklahoma
“Gender, Culture, and Class in the Porter-Phelps-Huntington Family”

CATHERINE BARATTA , Central Connecticut State University
"Under a Colonial Roof - Tree: Arria S. Huntington and Reflections on Forty Acres "

NED LAZARO , Collections Manager, Historic Deerfield, Inc.
“Constructing an Imported Appearance in the Connecticut River Valley, 1735-1775: the 1742 wedding gown of Elizabeth Pitkin Porter ”

Discussion by members of the panel will follow and questions will be invited.

This program is sponsored in part by the Public History Program at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.