Fall 2000

Caring for Your Old Windows

Original and old windows are the most threatened element in preservation today, despite the fact that they are character-defining features of both the exterior and interior of a historic building. The replacement window industry aggressively markets to owners who don't know what to do with their rattling windows.

A New England Treasure

In Boston, two and a half centuries ago, some wealthy young women embroidered pictures that are among the finest examples of needlework in early colonial America. Many of them are similar in style, sharing motifs of elegant figures, frolicking animals, and a bucolic landscape with a lady fishing in a pond.

Give The Gift of Knowledge

Here are five best sellers from the SPNEA bookstore to give for the holidays or order for your own library.

Q and A

Answers to a few of the most frequently asked questions.

Sailors's Valentine

Elaborate keepsakes known as sailor's valentines, originally thought to be a shipboard craft, were actually made in Barbados and sold as souvenirs to homeward bound sailors. Today, anyone can make a sailor's valentine by collecting ordinary beach shells and gluing them in fancy patterns onto a backing.

Pilgrims, Patriots and Products

Stalwart pilgrims make their way across the canned food labels. Furniture manufacturers advertise Mayflower Rocking Chairs and Myles Standish Chests that had few if any historical precedents. John Alden and Paul Revere are popular silver patterns.

Preserving a Modern Landscape

Walter Gropius believed that good design considered not only the building but also the larger context, the community, and the environment. Guided by this principle when he built his family home in Lincoln, Massachusetts, he carefully sited his house to relate it to the surrounding landscape and used traditional materials so as to place his modern, practical home in the cultural and environmental context of New England.

News New England and Beyond

Short news items from Historic New England Magazine.

Bright Colors, Big Building

This handsome print belongs to a type of advertising and promotion commonly used by businesses and institutions in the second half of the nineteenth century. The poster format and bright colors of this chromolithograph were certain to command attention.