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Otis House Student Tour

What was life like in 1800?

At Otis House

Take your students on a trip back to the year 1800. This short program is designed to fit into a daylong class trip to Boston. Museum educators lead students on a dynamic, interactive tour of Otis House, the home of Harrison Gray Otis, Sally Foster Otis, and their young family living in Boston after the American Revolution.

Students explore life on Beacon Hill in the Federal Era, when the neighborhood around Massachusetts’ new State House was the fashionable place to live, and see how both wealthy and working class people lived in early 1800s Boston.

Program Details

Available weekdays, year-round, for grades 3 – 12.

Length: 45 – 60 minutes.

Maximum of 40 students per program.

Cost: $4 per student ($40 minimum charge/group). One chaperone free for every 10 students

Type of Program: Field Trips

Related Topics: Architecture, Colonial Life, Revolutionary Period

Sample Primary Source

Harrison Gray Otis Portrait Detail

Well-known artist Gilbert Stuart painted this portrait of Harrison Gray Otis in 1809. The painting now hangs on the wall of the Otis House dining room, and shows Mr. Otis holding a book while seated at a desk with papers and a quill pen. These objects indicated his high level of education and reflect work he would have done in his position at the time as President of the Massachusetts State Senate. See the full portrait.

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