Historic New England envisions the Haverhill Center for Preservation and Collections as a catalyst for a global-national-regional-local arts and culture district in downtown Haverhill, Massachusetts.
A BOLD NEW VISION
Explore living archives, state-of-the-art storytelling, and pioneering exhibitions. Experience dynamic installations and performances by world-class artists breaking new creative ground. Expand your knowledge with hands-on learning opportunities from top innovators and makers. Get excited.
Historic New England will evolve its downtown Haverhill location to unprecedented visitor and exhibition spaces and partner to develop residential, innovation, hospitality, and dining facilities. The Haverhill Center will support an improved streetscape, including expanded public art, lighting, signage, and green space.
This cultural district will serve as community catalyst, strengthening local and regional businesses, arts, environmental, and social institutions and significantly drawing new visitors and revenue to the area.
“We envision collaborating with the community to develop sustainable, more livable, resilient, and dramatically improved amenities, anticipating that the impact of the downtown cultural district will reverberate internationally.”
—Vin Cipolla, president and CEO, Historic New England
WHAV: State Budget Targets Funds for Historic New England Haverhill Center
The Haverhill Center on Chronicle
Conversation: Factory Reborn: Reviving Industrial Roots in Haverhill and America
WHAV: Historic New England Awarded Office of Travel and Tourism Grant
WHAV: Historic New England Recognizes Romano with 2024 Prize
CEO and President Vin Cipolla on The Culture Show with Jared Bowen (at 30.30 point)
CEO and President Vin Cipolla Named One of Top 25 North Shore Influencers of 2024
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upcoming events
You can help shape the vision for the Haverhill Center. Join us at community events around the city that showcase exciting stories, creative activities, and compelling traditions. Please come see us to learn more about our vision for the Haverhill Center and become part of the story.
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FIND YOUR STORY
EXPLORE THE COLLECTIONS
Historic New England’s collection includes more than 125,000 objects and over 1.5 million archival documents. From teddy bears to tattoo flash, there’s something for everyone! To understand the breadth of the collection and the many stories it contains, you can explore a small sample below.
“She was everywhere received as a blithe, handsome, agreeable young gentleman.” –Herman Mann, The Female Review: or, Deborah Sampson is famous for enlisting in the continental army during the American Revolutionary War. This is her wedding gown. Sampson avoided discovery for eighteen months, until she contracted yellow fever and received an honorable discharge in 1783.Enlisted as a Man
Memoirs of an American Young Lady. 1792
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.Best Seat in the House
Stephen Borkowski (b. 1954)and his partner Wilfrid J. Michaud (1951-2002) fell in love with these romantic gold bands when they saw them in the front window of Tiffany & Co. in Palm Beach, Florida. Once they returned to Boston they made a trip to Tiffany's, at Copley Place, where they had the jeweler customize each band with their initials and the dates of their decade of life together. Upon Wilfrid's death in 2002 Stephen added another engraving: UBLUD, which stands for united by love until death, inspired by the classic 1968 film Mayerling. The couple could not officially wed as Massachusetts did not pass a marriage equality law until May 2004.Bands of Marriage
Program advertising The Boston Musical Art Orchestra with African American musician, James Hinton, conducting circa 1930. Described as "The first orchestra of its kind to present eight Guest Concerts at the Hotel Vendome will present a series of Concerts at all churches available during next season, with outstanding soloist." At Historic New England, we would like to learn more about James Hinton and the Boston Musical Arts Orchestra. If you have knowledge on this topic you would like to share, please contact us at [email protected] In the 1920s and 1930s, the Black music scene in Boston blossomed, with Frederick Douglass Square, a center of commerce and of the Black community, offering social clubs, dance halls, fraternal organizations, and theaters for piano, band, and orchestral performances. With the popularity of ragtime and the blues came the New Orleans-born jazz sound, ushering in the modern era. The Hotel Vendome was a luxury establishment near Copley Square in Boston, built in 1881 and unfortunately destroyed in a 1972 fire.
Musical Direction
Massachusetts banned tattoos in 1962 when a hepatitis break-out in New York was linked to tattoo needles. The ban didn’t stop people from getting tattoos; the whole business went underground, giving tattoos the aura of cool. Tattooing has been used by Indigenous Americans for thousands of years and for different cultural meanings—tribal identity, life milestones, and healing.Banned in Boston
This gnarly old teapot probably would not have been saved at all had it not belonged to Crispus Attucks, an enslaved man of African and Indigenous ancestry who was the first victim of the so-called Boston Massacre of 1770. That it survived is testimony to the early recognition of its value as an emblem of martyrdom in the cause of freedom. In Boston, Massachusetts, in the mid-nineteenth century, relics like this were placed on display to rally support for the Abolitionist Movement.Catalyst of Rebellion
Vermont-born sculptor Hiram Powers moved to Florence in 1837 to solidify his training. His studio there attracted a loyal clientele of travelers from New England, among them Nathaniel Hawthorne, who rhapsodized when he saw this bust: “A light seems to shine from the interior of the marble and beam forth from the features.” The figure is Psyche, a Greek goddess personifying the human soul. The sculpture is on view at Historic New England’s Codman Estate in Lincoln, Massachusetts.Soul Inspired
Charles Barrett III lost his hearing as a child and was one of the first students at the American School for the Deaf in Hartford, Connecticut. In the early years of the school, American Sign Language was developed and codified, so it is likely that Charles Barrett was part of the student cohort who participated in developing the language. This children’s mug is part of the Barrett family collection and is currently on view at Barrett House in New Ipswich, New Hampshire.Learning a New Language
The Mary H. Northend Photographic Collection at Historic New England is comprised of over 6,000 glass plate negatives and several thousand photographic prints. The items in the collection date from circa 1910 to the early 1930s. Mary Harrod Northend [1850-1926] began writing in 1904, at the age of 54, specializing in colonial architecture and house furnishings and with an interest in historic preservation, particularly her birthplace, Salem and Essex County, Massachusetts. Northend was the author of numerous articles and several books, and in her work, she amassed a collection of approximately 30,000 images, including exterior and interior views of homes. Northend's work covered the Progressive Era from 1904 to 1926 from the perspective of a woman born before the Civil War who witnessed enormous transformations in society and took a lively interest in the ways Americans coped with these changes. The subject matter depicted in the collection is eclectic, ranging from garages to tearooms, and covering architecture of many styles and periods, such as the bungalows of the early 1920s.Dive
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.Soft Shoe
Collection of wood planes on view at the Stable on Lyman Estate, Waltham, Massachusetts. Used for shaping and smoothing wood, hand planes come in a variety of sizes for the different types of planing needed. While power tools have for some replaced the plane, others still regard the hand plane as an essential woodworker’s tool, from furniture making to cedar shingle siding. Bottom: Haverhill Center Mellon Conservation Fellow Karen Bishop planning a board as preparation for making a carved box bottom to match a collection box top; the finished box.Hands to Work
Historic New England Haverhill Center
Historic New England is the largest cultural real estate presence in Haverhill, Massachusetts. Our campus is conveniently located approximately 35 miles north of Boston in Haverhill’s historic downtown and easily accessible by Amtrak, MBTA Commuter Rail, and three major highways.
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To learn more about the Haverhill vision and how your philanthropy can have a transformational impact, please contact Elliot Isen, Haverhill campaign officer, at [email protected]
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ABOUT HISTORIC NEW ENGLAND
Historic New England—founded as the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities on April 2, 1910—serves as a leader in historic preservation in the New England region and beyond and is one of the most comprehensive independent preservation organizations in the United States. Historic New England welcomes the public to thirty-eight exceptional museums and landscapes, including several coastal farms.
The organization operates a major collections and archives center in Haverhill, MA, and has the world’s largest collection of New England artifacts, comprising more than 125,000 decorative arts and objects and 1.5 million archival documents including photographs, architectural drawings, manuscripts, and ephemera. Engaging education programs for youth, adults, and preservation professionals and award-winning exhibitions and publications are offered in person and virtually. The Historic New England Preservation Easement program is a national leader and protects 127 privately owned historic properties throughout the region.