Best Seat in the House

Working in England, where he had gone to join Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius, Hungarian-born Marcel Breuer (1902-1981) reworked an earlier design for an aluminum lounge chair so that it could be manufactured in birch plywood, a warmer, less austere material. The result was the long chair, which, according to one critic, was the most important example of modernist furniture designed in England. Years later, covered with sheepskin, this was one of the Gropius family's favorite chairs.

Best known for his furniture design, particularly the tubular “Cesca” chair [named for his daughter Francesca], Marcel Breuer was a significant figure in modern architecture, with the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York and the UNESCO headquarters in Paris among his hundreds of designs.

Teaching at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design at Gropius’ invitation, Breuer counted among his students I.M.Pei, Phillip Johnson, and Paul Rudolph. In that role and as business partner to Gropius, Breuer championed Bauhaus concepts, casting a strong influence on the Modernist movement.

On view at Gropius House.

Soft Shoe

The word moccasin is derived from the Algonquian language Powhatan word makasin and has evolved as a general term for sewn Indigenous footwear made of deerskin or a soft leather. Most Indigenous groups have their own style of moccasin, each with variations on construction, adornment, and materials.

Maker Silvermoon LaRose of Narragansett Nation made these for her young daughter, who wore them to dance.This pair is made from hand-sewn tanned deerhide. The turned cuffs are embellished with red cotton ribbon stitched to the outer edges and adorned with a repeating traditional design in black pigment.

 As the Assistant Director of the Tomaquag Museum, Silvermoon LaRose is dedicated to the sharing of cultural education and the preservation of cultural belongings held in trust for future generations. As an artist and educator, she hopes to foster Indigenous empowerment through education, community building, and the sharing of cultural knowledge and traditional arts. Silvermoon has worked in tribal communities for over twenty years, serving in the areas of health and human services, education, and humanities.

The Narragansett People are descended from the aboriginal people of the State of Rhode Island and trace their existence in the region more than 30,000 years ago, according to archaeological evidence and oral history.

Circle of Friends

In eighteenth- and nineteenth-century New England, while men were building communities through fraternal organizations or at the tavern, women's communities centered on the church, on charitable works, and on sewing and reading circles. Joining neighbors for a day of quilting was a highlight of the season for many New England women.

So-called "friendship" quilts came into vogue in the 1840s. This was a time of extensive migration in America, with families moving west, or leaving their farms for opportunities in mill towns and cities. These quilts were often given as remembrances to departing neighbors. Friendship quilts contain squares with stitched or inked signatures. The point was to offer a token of affection to the recipient. This red and white quilt was made between 1851 and 1853 by members of the Howard Sunday School of the Bulfinch Street Church of Boston, apparently for Sunday School teacher Francis Cogswell Manning. The quilt may have been a gift marking Manning's anniversary as a teacher at the Sunday School. A note by Francis Manning that survives reads: "You have taken me entirely by surprise, fellow teachers [and friends], by this unexpected mark of your favor, and I feel entirely unable to give expression, in any fitting words, to the feelings your kindness has awakened in my heart."

Into the Daybreak

Born enslaved to George and Martha Washington at Mt. Vernon around 1773, Ona Judge spent her early life on a plantation in forced servitude as Martha Washington’s personal slave. Staines accompanied the Washington family when they traveled to New York and Philadelphia.  On these trips, the Washingtons carefully controlled the amount of time Judge spent in Pennsylvania to skirt a law that automatically emancipated any enslaved person who stayed in the state for six months or longer.

On May 21, 1796, at the age of twenty-two, Judge slipped out of the family’s Philadelphia residence. She had learned Martha Washington was going to give her as a gift to her eldest granddaughter, who was known to be abusive. Judge escaped with the help of members of Philadelphia’s free Black community, with whom she had built relationships during earlier visits, and hid on a boat destined for Portsmouth.

Infuriated by her escape and worried it would inspire others whom he had enslaved to do the same, George Washington went to great lengths to try to capture Judge and bring her back to Virginia. He failed every time. Ona Judge spent the rest of her life as a free woman in New Hampshire, where she married and had three children.

Commissioned by Historic New England, Maine-based artist Maya Michaud created the portrait of Judge, drawing inspiration from Historic New England’s eighteenth-century costume collection and historical descriptions of Judge.

The portrait will be on view through the 2025 season at Historic New England’s Langdon House [Portsmouth, NH], where visitors can learn more about Ona Judge Staines, and the Langdon family connection to her story.

Portrait study at Historic New England Center for Preservation and Collections [the Haverhill Center].

Luminary

Sarah Wyman Whitman (1842-1904) was a bright light of the late nineteenth-century and early twentieth century Boston arts set. Born in Lowell, Massachusetts, growing up in Baltimore, Sarah de Prix Wyman married woolen goods merchant Henry Whitman. At the age of twenty-six, she embarked on a career as a professional artist. As a member of the National Academy of Design (1877) and the Society of American Artists (1880), Sarah Wyman Whitman established a reputation as a serious artist and was considered one of the best painters in Boston.

A founder of the Society of Arts and Crafts, Boston, Whitman turned her artistic attention to designing book covers, including those of close friend author Sarah Orne Jewett, and to stained glass. While she is best known for her book cover designs, with which she enjoyed great commercial success, she was also a successful stained-glass artist. Her windows can be seen at Trinity Church in Boston, Harvard’s Memorial Hall, and the Boston Athenaeum, among others.

Whitman's glass designs were less pictorial and more architectural than previous stained-glass windows and made use of clear glass to connect with the world outside. Whitman made this fire screen as a gift for the wedding of Richard Norton, son of her friend and fellow founder of the Society of Arts and Crafts, Boston, Charles Eliot Norton.

World Traveler

This teddy bear belonged to Susan Norton (1902-1989), who at the age of four, brought it along on a trip to Rome. This particular bear is a very early specimen (teddy bears were first manufactured in 1902). It is remarkable that is survives in such good conditions, especially considering its world travels.

The iconic Teddy Bear was so named after President Roosevelt, who refused to shoot a bear cub during a hunting party in 1902. The event was memorialized in a Washington Star cartoon that inspired Brooklyn store owner Morris Michtom to make a stuffed toy bear cub for a store window display. The bear’s popularity prompted Michtom to found the Ideal Toy Company, later one of the nation’s leading toy producers.