VENTFORT HALL MANSION AND GILDED AGE MUSEUM ANNOUNCES ITS SUMMER 2023 SERIES OF TUESDAY TEA & TALKS

LENOX, MA Child Labor in the Gilded Age, Ashintully, the McLennans and a Special Friendship and A Thin Veneer: The Berkshires’ Sordid Underbelly in the Gilded Age are just three of ten fascinating Tuesday Talks that Ventfort Hall Mansion and Gilded Age Museum will present during its Summer 2023 series on Tuesdays at 4:00 pm starting on June 20 and ending August 29 (except July 4).  The series is sponsored by the Dobbins Foundation. Tickets will go on sale in early May.

June 20, 4:00 pm, A Thin Veneer: The Berkshires’ Sordid Underbelly in the Gilded Age 

Freelance journalist, local author and former crime and courts reporter for The Berkshire Eagle, Andrew Amelinckx, will speak about the Berkshires’ sordid underbelly during the Gilded Age with three tales of crime, tragedy and bedlam from his 2015 book Gilded Age Murder & Mayhem in the Berkshires.

June 27, 4:00 pm, Going to Museums with an Artist

Join painter, sculptor and author Lincoln Perry for an enlightening talk about not only some of the world's greatest art, but how an artist views, experiences and borrows from that art in his recently published book, Seeing Like An Artist.

July 11, 4:00 pm, Mary Todd Lincoln as Hostess and Housewife

Learn about the life of Mary Todd Lincoln and how she went from western belle to frugal housewife to First Lady of the United States from local Chesterwood tour guide and lifelong student of Abraham Lincoln history, Louise Levy.

July 18, 4:00 pm, Architecture of the Gilded Age in New York City

Phillip Dodd will discuss his latest book An American Renaissance Beaux-Arts Architecture in New York City with a foreword by Julian Fellowes.

July 25, 4:00 pm, L. C. Peters: From Immigrant to Pillar of the Community

Carol Lindsay will discuss her third great grandfather, Leonard Constance Peters, who was instrumental in the development of Lenox.

August 1, 4:00 pm, Lost Gilded Age Mansions of Newport

Uncover the history and legacy of lost Gilded Age mansions and estates from Newport, Rhode Island with Gary Lawrance, architect, author and historian.                                                            

August 8, 4:00 pm, Ashintully, the McLennans and a Special Friendship

Holly McLennan Ketron will talk about the magnificent house built by her grandmother in Tyringham, the life of three generations in the house, and the deep friendship between Grace McLennan and Mildred Bliss, creator of the gardens and house at Dumbarton Oaks, Washington D.C.

August 15, 4 pm, Child Labor in the Gilded Age

Chaim Rosenberg, author of 15 books largely on the role of the individual in shaping American greatness, will tell us about two million American children under 16 - some as young as four or five - at the close of the 19^th century were employed on farms, in mills, canneries, factories, mines and offices, or selling newspapers and fruits and vegetables on the streets.

August 22, 4:00 pm, Ogden Codman, Jr., Transatlantic Tastemaker

Codman Estate researcher and lead guide, Camille Arbogast, will speak about the life and oeuvre of Ogden Codman, Jr.: architect, interior designer, and, with Edith Wharton, co-author of the design classic The Decoration of Houses.

August 29, 4:00 pm, The World of Mary Dickerson, Dressmaker and Activist

Theresa Guzman Stokes, Executive Director of the Rhode Island Black Heritage Society, will speak about Mary Dickerson (1830-1914) who owned a "Fashionable Dressmaking Establishment" located on Bellevue Avenue, Newport RI, and created dresses for the prominent people of Newport during the Gilded Age.

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places and designated by the Massachusetts Cultural Council as an important partner of the Lenox Cultural District, one of the five such Berkshire County districts, Ventfort Hall Mansion and Gilded Age Museum was built in 1893 for George and Sarah Morgan, the sister of legendary financier J. Pierpont Morgan.

Self-guided tours of the historic mansion are offered daily, as well as Tea & Talks, such exhibitions as the Bellefontaine Collection, concerts, theater and other programs. This elegant Jacobean-Revival Berkshire “cottage” is open to the public year-round and is available for private rental.  Ventfort Hall, also an Official Project of Save America’s Treasures program sponsored by The White House, has undergone substantial restoration, which continues.