Historic New England
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Historic New England, previously known as the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities (SPNEA), is a charitable, non-profit, historic preservation organization headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. It is focused on
New England New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...
and is the oldest and largest regional preservation organization in the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
. Historic New England owns and operates
historic site A historic site or heritage site is an official location where pieces of political, military, cultural, or social history have been preserved due to their cultural heritage value. Historic sites are usually protected by law, and many have been rec ...
museums and study properties throughout all of the New England states except
Vermont Vermont () is a state in the northeast New England region of the United States. Vermont is bordered by the states of Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, and New York to the west, and the Canadian province of Quebec to ...
, and serves more than 198,000 visitors and program participants each year. Approximately 48,000 visitors participate in school and youth programs focused on New England heritage. Historic New England is a museum of cultural history that collects and preserves buildings, landscapes, and objects dating from the seventeenth century to the present and uses them to keep history alive and to help people develop a deeper understanding and enjoyment of New England life and appreciation for its preservation.


History

William Sumner Appleton William Sumner Appleton Jr. (May 29, 1874 – November 24, 1947) was founder of the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities (SPNEA) in 1910. He was the chief force behind much of the preservation of historic homes in the New Englan ...
Jr. founded the Society for the Preservation of new England Antiquities in 1910 for "the purpose of preserving for posterity buildings, places and objects of historical and other interest." Fearing that "our New England antiquities are fast disappearing because no society has made their preservation its exclusive object," Sumner Appleton and a small group of like-minded individuals founded SPNEA in 1910. By 1920, Director of Museums Harry Vinton Long wrote in his report that the museum’s purpose is "to preserve and illustrate the life of New Englanders..." The history of New Englanders encompasses the stories of family life, immigration, school girls' routines, servants' duties, the enslaved Africans, and the products of masons, carpenters, and furniture makers. The first annual meeting was held at the 41 Brimmer Street Boston home of
Mary Lee Ware Mary Lee Ware, (Jan. 7, 1858 – Jan. 9, 1937) daughter of Elizabeth Cabot (Lee) Ware and Charles Eliot Ware, was born to a wealthy Bostonian family and, with her mother, was the principal sponsor of the Harvard Museum of Natural History's famou ...
, a noted philanthropist in the area as well at the patroness of Harvard University's famed
Glass Flowers The Ware Collection of Blaschka Glass Models of Plants (or simply the ''Glass Flowers'') is a collection of highly realistic glass botanical models at the Harvard Museum of Natural History in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Created by Leopold and Rudol ...
collection. Accession records for 1910 list 19 items. Appleton considered everything from the mundane to the singular worth preserving, and so Historic New England's collection today ranges from everyday cakes of
soap Soap is a salt of a fatty acid used in a variety of cleansing and lubricating products. In a domestic setting, soaps are surfactants usually used for washing, bathing, and other types of housekeeping. In industrial settings, soaps are use ...
to extraordinary specimens of fine
furniture Furniture refers to movable objects intended to support various human activities such as seating (e.g., stools, chairs, and sofas), eating (tables), storing items, eating and/or working with an item, and sleeping (e.g., beds and hammocks). Fu ...
. As a comprehensive heritage organization, Historic New England today cares for historic properties and landscapes; holds preservation easements and undertakes preservation advocacy work to protect historic properties; develops, maintains and interprets artifact collections; operates a library and archive; researches and publishes books and ''Historic New England'' magazine; and provides educational programs for children and adults. The organization's mission statement outlines its goals: "We serve the public by preserving and presenting New England heritage." The organization focuses on New England domestic architecture, collections, and stories. Founder William Sumner Appleton was succeeded as Director by Bertram K. Little,
Abbott Lowell Cummings Abbott Lowell Cummings (March 14, 1923 – May 29, 2017) was a noted architectural historian and genealogist, best known for his study of New England architecture. Life and career Cummings was born in St. Albans, Vermont, educated at the Hoosa ...
and Nancy R. Coolidge before the title of the chief executive officer was changed to President, with Jane C. Nylander being the first to serve under that title. Carl R. Nold was President following Nylander, and since 2020 Vin Cipolla has served as the President and CEO of Historic New England. The organization formerly included one of America's most prominent architectural conservation centers (the SPNEA Conservation Center), which pioneered a number of conservation techniques under research leader Morgan W. Phillips and his apprentices. Phillips is credited with coining the term
architectural conservation Conservation and restoration of immovable cultural property describes the process through which the material, historical, and design integrity of any Cultural property, immovable cultural property are prolonged through carefully planned interve ...
.


Properties

Historic New England currently owns and operates 37
house museum A historic house museum is a house of historic significance that has been transformed into a museum. Historic furnishings may be displayed in a way that reflects their original placement and usage in a home. Historic house museums are held to a v ...
s and 1,284 acres of farmland and landscapes across five New England states, representing nearly 400 years of architecture. It also owns a wide-ranging collection of more than 100,000 objects of historical and aesthetic significance, the largest such assemblage of New England art and artifacts in the country. It also archives more than one million items documenting New England architectural and
cultural history Cultural history combines the approaches of anthropology and history to examine popular cultural traditions and cultural interpretations of historical experience. It examines the records and narrative descriptions of past matter, encompassing the ...
, including photographs, prints and engravings, more than 20,000 architectural drawings and specifications, books, manuscripts, and other ephemera. The Collections Access Project, which provides Internet-based access to catalog data about many of the collections, went online during the organization's centennial in 2010. A Collections and Conservation Center is located in
Haverhill, Massachusetts Haverhill ( ) is a city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. Haverhill is located 35 miles north of Boston on the New Hampshire border and about 17 miles from the Atlantic Ocean. The population was 67,787 at the 2020 United States Cen ...
, in a former shoe factory building. While not open to the public, this facility provides for the proper care of collections and access to collections and collections information for curators, students and scholars. Other museums also rent space for collections storage in this facility. Historic New England also owns the
Plum Island Airport Plum Island Airport, in Newburyport, Massachusetts, Newburyport, Massachusetts, is a privately owned, public-use airport owned by Historic New England and operated by Plum Island Aerodrome, Inc., a non-profit corporation. It has two runways, ave ...
, a small public
general aviation General aviation (GA) is defined by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) as all civil aviation aircraft operations with the exception of commercial air transport or aerial work, which is defined as specialized aviation services ...
airport located in
Newburyport, Massachusetts Newburyport is a coastal city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States, northeast of Boston. The population was 18,289 at the 2020 census. A historic seaport with vibrant tourism industry, Newburyport includes part of Plum Island. The mo ...
on a site used for aviation since 1910. The airport is located on the property of the historic Spencer-Peirce-Little Farm, donated to the organization in 1971 and operated as a museum since 1986.


Exhibition programs

A traveling exhibition program presents collections and research to the general public, in cooperation with other museums throughout the region. Exhibitions have included ''America's Kitchens'', which appeared at the New Hampshire Historical Society in 2009; ''Drawing Toward Home'', an architectural drawing exhibition that opened at the
Boston University Boston University (BU) is a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has a historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1839 by Methodists with its original campu ...
Art Gallery in November 2009 and traveled to the
National Building Museum The National Building Museum is located at 401 F Street NW in Washington, D.C. It is a museum of "architecture, design, engineering, construction, and urban planning". It was created by an act of Congress in 1980, and is a private Non-profit org ...
in
Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
during 2010; and a centennial exhibition entitled ''The Preservation Movement Then and Now'', which appeared in all six New England states beginning in late 2009 and continued through 2013. On line exhibitions include ''Jewelry at Historic New England'', ''The Preservation Movement Then and Now'', ''From Dairy to Doorstep: Milk Delivery in New England, 1860-1960'' and ''New England Photographs of Verner Reed''.


Stewardship easement program

Through a conservation easement program established in the early 1980s, Historic New England holds easements on 97 () privately owned New England properties. It works with the owners of these properties to ensure preservation of their character-defining historic features. The program provides comprehensive protection of exterior, interior and landscape features and is considered a national model for the protection of buildings that remain in active use and in private ownership. Approximately one-third of the properties in the program were previously owned by Historic New England, and were returned to private ownership with preservation restrictions that continue in perpetuity. The balance of the properties were enrolled by current or former owners, who donated the deed restrictions to the organization along with endowment fund contributions. Endowment funds provide for the monitoring and enforcement of the easements, carried out by a full-time staff dedicated to that purpose.


Membership programs

A Historic Homeowner program, available to all for an annual membership fee, provides information to those who own historic houses of any age, up to and including mid-20th-century homes. The annual membership includes two consultations with staff experts, one on historic paint colors, and a second on a topic chosen by the member, ranging from window repair to roofing materials, hardware source or historic wallpaper selections, or other topics needed for the care of historic homes. Other specialized membership programs focus on Gardens and Landscapes, and on young adults through the Young Friends program, and an upper-level membership society called the Appleton Circle provides benefactor support for organizational programs.


Governance

Historic New England is a
501(c)(3) A 501(c)(3) organization is a United States corporation, trust, unincorporated association or other type of organization exempt from federal income tax under section 501(c)(3) of Title 26 of the United States Code. It is one of the 29 types of 50 ...
tax-exempt non-profit organization operating under the direction of a 15-member board of trustees.


Museum properties

The following properties are open to the public. Most are open only during the warmer months (typically June to mid-October), and many are open only for limited days on selected weekends. Particularly fragile properties are open only a few days each year. The grounds and facilities of some properties (notable ones being the Lyman Estate and the Langdon House) are available for private functions. * Connecticut:
Roseland Cottage Roseland Cottage, also known as Henry C. Bowen House or as Bowen Cottage, is a historic house located on Route 169 in Woodstock, Connecticut, United States. The house was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1977, and was declare ...
. * Maine:
Castle Tucker Castle Tucker is a historic mansion in Wiscasset, Maine, United States. It is owned by Historic New England and is open to visitors Wednesday – Sunday, June 1 – October 15. History Judge Silas Lee built this 1807 Regency-style mansion at the ...
, Hamilton House,
Sarah Orne Jewett House The Sarah Orne Jewett House is a historic house museum at 5 Portland Street in South Berwick, Maine, United States. The house was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1991 for its lifelong association with the American author Sarah Orne J ...
, Marrett House, Nickels-Sortwell House, and Sayward-Wheeler House. * Massachusetts: Beauport, Sleeper-McCann House, Boardman House,
Browne House The Abraham Browne House (built c. 1694–1701) is a colonial house located at 562 Main Street, Watertown, Massachusetts, US. It is now a nonprofit museum operated by Historic New England and open to the public two afternoons per year. The house ...
,
Codman House The Codman House (also known as The Grange) is a historic house set on a estate at 36 Codman Road, Lincoln, Massachusetts. Thanks to a gift by Dorothy Codman, it has been owned by Historic New England since 1969 and is open to the public June 1 ...
,
Coffin House The Coffin House is a historic Colonial American house, currently estimated to have been constructed circa 1678. It is located at 14 High Road, Newbury, Massachusetts and operated as a non-profit museum by Historic New England. The house is open o ...
, Cogswell's Grant, Cooper-Frost-Austin House, Winslow Crocker House, Dole-Little House,
Eustis Estate The Eustis Estate is a historic family estate on Canton Avenue in Milton, Massachusetts. Its centerpiece is the mansion house of William Ellery Channing Eustis, an eclectic Late Victorian stone building designed by preeminent architect William Ra ...
,
Gedney House The Gedney and Cox Houses are historic houses at 21 High Street in Salem, Massachusetts. The earliest part of the Gedney House was built c. 1665, and the houses were added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. They are owned by ...
,
Gropius House The Gropius House is a historic house museum owned by Historic New England located at 68 Baker Bridge Road in Lincoln, Massachusetts, United States.
,
Lyman Estate The Lyman Estate, also known as The Vale, is a historic country house located in Waltham, Massachusetts, United States. It is now owned by the nonprofit Historic New England organization. The grounds are open to the public daily for free; an ad ...
, Merwin House,
Harrison Gray Otis House There are three houses named the Harrison Gray Otis House in Boston, Massachusetts. All were built by noted American architect Charles Bulfinch for the same man, Federalist lawyer and politician Harrison Gray Otis. First Harrison Gray Otis House ...
, Pierce House,
Josiah Quincy House The Josiah Quincy House , located at 20 Muirhead Street in the Wollaston neighborhood of Quincy, Massachusetts, was the country home of Revolutionary War soldier Colonel Josiah Quincy I, the first in a line of six men named Josiah Quincy that ...
, Rocky Hill Meeting House, Spencer-Peirce-Little Farm,
Stephen Phillips House The Stephen Phillips House is a historic house and museum located in the McIntire Historic District in Salem, Massachusetts, United States and was designed by Samuel McIntyre. Phillips House began with Elias Hasket Derby, one of America's firs ...
and Swett-Ilsley House. * New Hampshire:
Barrett House Barrett House may refer to: in the United States (by state then city) * William G. Barrett House, Sausalito, California, listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) in Marin County * Barrett-Blakeman House, Greensburg, Kentucky, li ...
,
Gilman Garrison House The Gilman Garrison House is a historic house museum at 12 Water Street in Exeter, New Hampshire. Built in 1709, it is a rare surviving example of a garrison house or fortified structure. It is owned by Historic New England, which operates the ...
, Richard Jackson House,
Governor John Langdon House The Governor John Langdon House, also known as Governor John Langdon Mansion, is a historic mansion house at 143 Pleasant Street in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, United States. It was built in 1784 by Founding Father John Langdon (1741-1819), a me ...
, and
Rundlet-May House The Rundlet-May House is a historic house museum at 364 Middle Street in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, United States. Built in 1807, it is a well-preserved example of a high-end Federal style mansion, built for a wealthy ...
. * Rhode Island: Arnold House, Casey Farm, Clemence-Irons House,
Watson Farm Watson Farm in Jamestown, Rhode Island, United States, was established in 1789. Job Watson purchased a piece of the farmland, and for the next two centuries, five successive generations of the Watson family cultivated the land, changing their crop ...
.


See also

*
The Trustees of Reservations The Trustees of Reservations is a non-profit land conservation and historic preservation organization dedicated to preserving natural and historical places in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. It is the oldest land conservation nonprofit orga ...
*
National Trust for Historic Preservation The National Trust for Historic Preservation is a privately funded, nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C., that works in the field of historic preservation in the United States. The member-supported organization was founded in 1949 by ...
*
List of historic houses in Massachusetts This is a list of historic houses in Massachusetts. Western Massachusetts Berkshire County * Lenox ** The Mount ( Lenox) – author Edith Wharton's estate; 1902 ** Ventfort Hall ( Lenox) – Jacobean style mansion, built 1893 – George & ...


References


External links

* {{Authority control Organizations established in 1910 History of New England Non-profit organizations based in Boston Organizations based in Boston Historical societies in Massachusetts Museum organizations Libraries in Boston Historic preservation organizations in the United States 1910 establishments in Massachusetts