What’s New At the Webb-Deane-Stevens Museum

From the Webb-Deane-Stevens Museum:

July 13, 2020

Everyday Living at WDS

Women have always needed to gather to discuss and process the world around them. Just as today’s book clubs, girl’s nights, paint nights, and wine parties often serve this purpose, early American women also created their own social outlets.

In “The Environment and the People in American Cities, 1600s -1900s: Disorder, Inequality, and Social Change,” author Dorceta E. Taylor notes that public events during the period were largely male affairs. Middle-class women, such as those living in the Stevens House, spent a good deal of time at tea parties and sewing circles in the privacy of their homes. During the 1820s -30s, women began discussing social issues, such as moral reform (temperance), religious freedom, abolition, and, later, women’s right to vote.

Throughout the 18th and early 19th centuries, rooms were often multi-use. Though the Stevens House parlor you see here is sometimes exhibited as a dining room, the current interpretation shows it prepared for a ladies’ sewing circle.

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This press release was produced by the Webb-Deane-Stevens Museum. The views expressed are the author's own.