Homemaking: Race, Place, and Ethnicity in the New England Household
"Homemaking: Race, Place, and Ethnicity in the New England Household," a one-day symposium at Wellesley College, will explore the visual and material cultures of race and ethnicity in New England’s domestic sphere from the 17th to the 20th centuries. Cultural and racial diversity have long characterized New England’s domestic environments and symposium participants will present research on the varied ways in which the region’s households were shaped by perceptions of, ideas about, and attitudes toward race and ethnicity.
Wellesley , United States
Wellesley College, 106 Central Street
Homemaking: Race, Place, and Ethnicity in the New England Household
March 4, 2023
Collins Cinema, Wellesley College
This one-day symposium will explore the visual and material cultures of race and ethnicity in New England’s domestic sphere from the 17th to the 20th centuries. Cultural and racial diversity have long characterized New England’s domestic environments and symposium participants will present research on the varied ways in which the region’s households were shaped by perceptions of, ideas about, and attitudes toward race and ethnicity.
Free and open to the public; registration required. The symposium will be hosted in-person in the Collins Cinema at Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA and will be live streamed via Zoom Webinar platform.
To register and to receive a link to the livestream (if needed) please complete the form at:
The symposium is made possible by the generous support of the Barra Foundation.
Saturday, March 4, 2023
Collins Cinema, Wellesley College
9:00 Welcome – Martha McNamara, Dir. New England Arts & Architecture Program, Department of Art, Wellesley College and Barbara Mathews, Public Historian and Director of Academic Programs, Historic Deerfield, Inc.
9:15 Keynote – Marla Miller, Distinguished Professor of History, Department of History, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
“Race, Place, & Entangled Homemaking: Views from Hadley, Massachusetts”
Caylin Carbonell, Interim Book Review Editor, William and Mary Quarterly, Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, Williamsburg, VA
“Households of Unfreedom in Colonial New England”
Cornelia Dayton, Professor and Director of Graduate Studies, Department of History, University of Connecticut, Storrs
“John and Phillis Peters Move to a Middleton Farmstead”
11:30 Panel 2: Race, Ethnicity, and Gender in the Colonial Revival Movement
Lisa Botshon, Professor of English, Humanities Department, University of Maine at Augusta
“Mid-Century Maine Rustication Narratives and the Making of the White Middle Class”
Alexandra Peck, Audain Chair in Historical Indigenous Art & Assistant Professor, Department of Art History, Visual Art, & Theory, University of British Columbia, Vancouver
“Pueblo Pottery at Nonotuck? Smith College’s Female Collectors Bring the American Southwest to New England”
Megan Horn, Curatorial Assistant, The Newport Art Museum, Newport, RI
“Negotiating Identity and Visualizing Regional Imagination in Harriette Merrifield Forbes’ Photographs of Early New England Houses”
12:45 Lunch Break
Poster Session: Courtney Garrity, Research Historian, with Catherine Zipf, Eleanor Langham, and Lynn Smith, Bristol Historical & Preservation Society
“‘Negro Child, est £43’: Revising the History of Enslavement in Bristol, RI”
2:00 Panel 3: Extending the Household, Creating Community
Mary Freeman, Assistant Professor of History, University of Maine, Orono
“The Abyssinian Meeting House and the Politics of Domestic Space in Nineteenth-Century Portland, Maine”
Psyche Williams-Forson, Professor and Chair, Department of American Studies, University of Maryland, College Park
“‘When I visit Ma Smith’s Lodging House...’ Black Material Culture, Domestic Performance, and U.S. Citizenship”
Mia Michael, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of History, Boston College
“Defying the Status Quo: Domestic Workers’ Mobilization in Boston, Massachusetts, 1960s-1970s”
