Displaying items by tag: Concord Museum

In honor of the statewide celebration – Four Centuries of Massachusetts Furniture – the state’s governor, Deval Patrick, has named September 17, 2013 Massachusetts Furniture Day. A special event will be held in Nurses Hall in the State House in Boston.

Four Centuries of Massachusetts Furniture is the first-ever collaboration between 10 museums and cultural institutions throughout the state that will highlight the area’s furniture making legacy. A series of exhibitions and public programs will explore furniture making from the 1600s to the present day. Participating institutions include the Colonial Society of Massachusetts; Concord Museum; Fuller Craft Museum; Historic Deerfield; Historic New England; Massachusetts Historical Society; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; North Bennet Street School; Old Sturbridge Village; and Peabody Essex Museum; and Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library.

Dennis Fiori, President of the Massachusetts Historical Society and one of the project’s founders, said, “We are honored that Governor Patrick has recognized the Four Centuries of Massachusetts Furniture project with such a wonderful designation. By declaring September 17 as Massachusetts Furniture Day, Governor Patrick is recognizing the truly remarkable legacy in American furniture history that Massachusetts holds, not only as a traditional industry but also as an art form.”

Four Centuries of Massachusetts Furniture will run through December 2014. For more information visit www.fourcenturies.org.

Concord, Massachusetts, has a lot of history for a small town. Founded in 1635 as the first inland settlement of Massachusetts Bay Colony, Concord had a population of about fifteen hundred through the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Nevertheless, Concord on several occasions—most notably at the beginning of the Revolutionary War—rose to play a role on the national stage. The events of April 19, 1775, which saw the first military engagement with British forces, permanently affected the community’s view of itself (Fig. 1). Revolutionary hero Lafayette’s visit in 1825 stirred up a rivalry with neighboring Lexington over just where the Revolution began, one that was still bitter enough in 1875 that President Grant was constrained to eat lunch in both towns during the celebration of the centennial of the battle. When the Civil War began, many in town conceived of it as another Revolution.