Historic New England is excited to mark the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution, connecting our sites and collections to the events of the era. As part of our New England 250 initiative, we are pleased to announce the launch of NE250.org, which will serve as your go-to location for everything Historic New England is […]
In June 1925, Otis House in downtown Boston was moved nearly forty-three feet back from its original location. The shift made way for the widening of Cambridge Street, a project sparked by rising traffic needs of a new era. This reshaped both the house’s setting and the surrounding neighborhood. Built in 1796, Otis House was […]
When Hamilton House opens for the season on June 5, visitors to the National Historic Landmark site in South Berwick, Maine, will be treated to a sight not seen for nearly seventy-five years: The house is proudly sporting its character-defining dark green shutters. Shutters have been missing from Hamilton House since the early 1950s. When […]
As part of Historic New England’s commitment to inclusive storytelling and community engagement, we are proud to partner with NH Outright, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting, protecting, and advocating for LGBTQ+ youth across the Granite State. Founded over thirty years ago as Seacoast Outright, the organization expanded in 2024 to serve communities statewide. Its work underscores the […]
The Historic New England Summit brings together people doing meaningful, creative work—and the conversations don’t end when the event is over. Summit coordinator Megan Reel recently checked in with 2024 Summit speaker Lee McColgan–who made a lasting impression with his unforgettable talk on restoring his 1702 home–to hear what he’s been working on lately and […]
This post is the first in a new series, Sustaining Our Past, by Joie Grandbois, Director of Sustainability at Historic New England. The series explores our organization’s climate action efforts and highlights how we’re adapting historic sites to meet the challenges of a changing environment. Through project updates, partnerships, community engagement—and the occasional reflection on sustainability […]
I am a sucker for house museums. I have visited several hundred of them over the past sixty-five-plus years. The first that I can remember was the Custis-Lee Mansion, now called Arlington House, just outside Washington, DC. I was seven or eight years old and had started learning about the Civil War so my mother […]
Providence Preservation Society (PPS) has advocated for community heritage, inclusive planning, and historic preservation in Rhode Island’s capital city for nearly seventy years. Driven by a 2021 strategic plan that commits PPS to addressing systemic inequities, Executive Director Marisa Angell Brown and staff have launched the Providence Post, a weekly news bulletin that features in-depth, […]
To help mark the occasion of Historic New England’s 115th anniversary in 2025, we are sharing some of our favorite collection stories from Historic New England magazine—which turns twenty-five this year. This month, revisit an article about a quintessential symbol of summer leisure: a ca. 1960 aluminum love seat with green webbing, donated to Historic New England […]
Improving physical access at historic sites involves navigating a complex balance between preservation priorities and modern needs. At Historic New England, this challenge is part of our ongoing work to make the places we care for more inclusive. With over 1,300 acres of landscapes and dozens of historic buildings open to the public, we’ve taken […]
“Free License-For-Dog Woman Dies” read the Pawtucket Times obituary headline for Miss Ellen Eliza Irons, seventy-five, of Johnston, Rhode Island. That less-than-illustrious death notification highlighted one of the public’s defining memories of a particularly low point in Irons’s life. Yet, four years earlier, she had been among the honored luminaries at Johnston’s 175th-anniversary celebration. Irons, […]
In preparation for the upcoming exhibition Myth and Memory: Stories of the American Revolution, which commemorates the 250th anniversary of American independence, Historic New England has been gathering objects and archival material from its collections to highlight New England’s Revolutionary stories. Many of these items arrived at Historic New England with mythologies attached to them, […]
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