By: Rosanna Wright, Public History
While women have participated in the preservation of historic homes since Anne Pamela Cunningham purchased and restored George Washington’s Mount Vernon estate in 1858, rarely have women had the opportunity to preserve women’s narratives. Most historic house tours in the United States narrate the histories of men, especially the “great men” who are usually white leaders of political, economic, or military stature. In the past decade, there has been a movement – not necessarily to replace these narratives – but to explore and embrace other avenues. Historic homes, such as the Molly Brown House Museum in Denver, Colorado, and the Bradford House in Duxbury, Massachusetts, are two out of a few examples of historic homes that have reconstructed their tours to focus on the women of the house. In the past few months, I have been working as an intern at the Nichols House Museum to plan and implement a tour that focuses solely on the three sisters who once resided there.
Currently, the historic house interprets the life of Rose Standish Nichols, a pacifist, suffragist, and landscape gardener, and her family, who lived on Beacon Hill from the mid-19th to the mid-20th century. The museum offers visitors a unique glimpse into upper-class domestic life during this time. It aims to inspire the public through innovative programs that embrace the social concerns of the Nichols family that are still relevant today.
Fortunately, my internship term coincided with the museum’s initiative to improve and update its interpretive plan. The museum currently provides one tour that focuses on the typical day-to-day running of the house – providing details on Rose’s and her family’s interests. The three girls spent the majority of their young lives in the home, and Rose, as the oldest daughter, took over the running of the house when her mother died in 1935. Rose specifically left the house with intentions for it as a museum, and as a result, her life and achievements take precedent on the tour.
My research on the three sisters’ activities, however, has revealed exciting details about their political activism and achievements. The first half of the new tour will explore how the three sisters used their home to make social and political advancements. The young women used this domestic space very differently than their mother. Their mother, Elizabeth Homer Nichols, as a Victorian upper-class woman, attempted to create her home as a perfect private sphere for raising her children, looking after her husband, and on occasion, hosting charity events and social evenings. In contrast, the sisters hosted tea parties, lectures, and balls, to not only create a space where women and men could exchange political views but in their capacities as members of the Boston Equal Suffrage Society, Cornish Equal Suffrage League, and The Women’s International League of Peace and Freedom. The second half of the tour will focus on the years after suffrage and how the vote allowed the Nichols sisters to move more fully out of the vicinities of their own homes to contribute to society and local politics in new ways; these themes were previously unacceptable.
This thematic focus will help me identify valuable primary sources to build the narrative and share it with visitors. For example, I have found considerable archival details about the youngest sister, Margaret Shurtleff-Nichols, who currently receives the least attention during the general house tour. Margaret was involved in publicly protesting the hearings of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, anarchist immigrants from Italy on trial for murder. The trial occurred during the Red Scare of 1919-1920, a period of widespread fear of radicalism and anarchism. Margaret attended every public hearing, along with Woodrow Wilson’s daughter Jessie Wilson Sayre, and she visited Sacco in jail several times. It has been exciting to give Margaret a voice on the tour by uncovering such archival information.
Perhaps the most challenging aspect of creating this tour has been linking such research to the house and its furnishings. To ensure an audience is fully engaged, it is essential to connect the dialogue given by the tour guide to the visual elements of the house that reinforce or narrate this history. Although I am trying to shift the role of the house to the setting for the exciting lives of the sisters, it is still vital to link such information to the house and other interpretive objects. Visiting other sites similar to the Nichols House has vastly expanded my understanding of the different ways to relate particular objects and architectural features of the house to specific dialogue that might not be directly relatable to particular objects. One method requires a three step process. This begins by introducing an object, relating it in one way or another to the subject, and then linking it to a broader theme. For example, the chairs in the library of the Nichols House were designed and carved by Rose. She, along with her sisters, learned such skills from attending Mrs. Shaw’s school, one of the first American schools to teach girls subjects traditionally only offered to boys, like woodworking. Such relates to the fact that from a young age, the girls were exposed to progressive ideas, especially as the school’s founder, Pauline Agassiz Shaw, was the president of the Boston Equal Suffrage Association for Good Government.
My experience at the museum has also introduced me to the challenges that face historic house staff in their work. Although the three full-time staff members at the museum are incredibly skilled and experienced in the public history world, their work exceeds their job descriptions and requirements. This has been extraordinarily valuable to my understanding of the day to day work environment attributed to small museums and has given me a new respect for both the full-time staff and the volunteers who give up so much of their time and effort to narrate history both objectively and accurately.
