{"id":385,"date":"2019-04-15T15:29:56","date_gmt":"2019-04-15T19:29:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/slis.simmons.edu\/blogs\/lis476\/?p=385"},"modified":"2019-04-18T14:07:54","modified_gmt":"2019-04-18T18:07:54","slug":"385","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/slis.simmons.edu\/blogs\/lis476\/?p=385","title":{"rendered":"Death, Corsets, and Opera, Oh My!: Nichols After Dark Events at the Nichols House Museum"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Jasmine Bonanca<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"
Louise Homer, portrait in the Nichols House Parlor<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In March of 1902, the Nichols family hosted a performance by Metropolitan Opera singer Louise Homer in their home on Beacon Hill. \u00a0More than 100 years later, the Nichols family\u2019s home, now the Nichols House Museum, brought opera to Beacon Hill once more through the performance of Boston-based soprano Jacqueline Novikov, accompanied by pianist Yelena Beriyeva.<\/p>\n

The event was part of the Nichols House Museum\u2019s Nichols After Dark<\/i> event series, which began running in October of 2017. \u00a0The Nichols House Museum (NHM) tells the story of the socially and politically active Nichols family, particularly Rose Standish Nichols, a life-long pacifist, traveller, suffragist, and one of America\u2019s first female landscape architects. \u00a0Through stories of their lives and home, told during a 1-hour guided tour, visitors can get a glimpse of what life was like on Beacon Hill at the turn of the century.<\/p>\n

That tantalizing glimpse can give visitors a desire to hear more, and the NHS staff certainly has more to share. The Nichols After Dark<\/i> events allow the NHM\u2019s staff to further their educational mission by giving staff members a chance to dig deeper into stories and historical themes that usually only get mentioned in passing during tours. \u00a0The cliffnotes version of Louise Homer\u2019s 1902 performance, for example, is typically told in the second floor parlor room during the tour, but during the Night at the Opera<\/i> event the museum staff introduced the performance with a fuller retelling of the story that included quotes from the family\u2019s letters and information about the prominent Bostonians who attended.<\/p>\n

Not only does the NHM get to dive deeper into the family\u2019s stories through these events, but according to the NHM\u2019s Program and Collections Coordinator Laura Cunningham, the Nichols After Dark<\/i> events also gives the museum the opportunity to reach out to a younger, broader audience while re-engaging their traditional audience and long-time constituents. \u00a0According to Cunningham, Nichols After Dark<\/i> targets younger audiences by \u201cembracing pop-history themes.\u201d \u00a0One previous Nichols After Dark<\/i> event \u201cDearly Departed: Death and Dying in 19th Century Boston\u201d looked at Victorian mourning practices, while another, \u201cCorsets and Courtships,\u201d showcased 19th-century undergarments loaned from a sister institutions to explore the love lives of the Nichols family \u00a0members. The NHM has also used the Nichols After Dark<\/i> events as a chance to develop multisensory programs that allow visitors to experience the museum\u2019s historically furnished rooms in ways they can\u2019t typically achieve on a guided tour.<\/p>\n

The Nichols After Dark <\/i>events invite visitors to experience the museum as a place to relax and be social. \u00a0Each event in the series ends with a mixer featuring wine, beer (served by a TIPS-trained bartender), and small eats, transforming the museum from a purely education space into one where people can connect over their shared experience.<\/p>\n

The NHM hopes that the Nichols After Dark<\/i> events will inspire audiences and institutions beyond Beacon Hill, and start a dialogue in Boston cultural heritage institutions about the roles of historic house museums and cultural institutions in today\u2019s society. \u00a0According to Cunningham, the NHS is deeply invested in keeping house museums relevant through the 21st century and \u201caims to do so not only by adopting an inclusive and self-critical approach to history telling, but also by reinvigorating our programmatic calendar and allowing ourselves to go \u2018off script.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

This exciting events series has been a success in more ways than the museum hoped for. \u00a0While Cunningham said that the museum\u2019s goal was to bring in first-time visitors and give everyone a unique experience, she also said that the Night at the Opera<\/i> event created a chance to connect with some potential donors after the performance.<\/p>\n

Developing such exciting events are a team effort. \u00a0The NHM only has three full-time staff members, and though as the Programs and Collection Coordinator, Cunningham spearheads efforts to actualize these events, \u00a0everyone contributes ideas for events and works together to make them happen.<\/p>\n

Overall, the Nichols After Dark<\/i> events are an exciting way to get out and experience a beautiful house museum in an innovative, thought-provoking way.<\/p>\n

Curious about what\u2019s next on the Nichols House Museum\u2019s events calendar? \u00a0Check out their website and Facebook page:<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.nicholshousemuseum.org\/index.php<\/a><\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/NicholsHouseMuseum<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Jasmine Bonanca In March of 1902, the Nichols family hosted a performance by Metropolitan Opera singer Louise Homer in their home on Beacon Hill. \u00a0More than 100 years later, the Nichols family\u2019s home, now the Nichols House Museum, brought opera to Beacon Hill once more through the performance of Boston-based soprano Jacqueline Novikov, accompanied … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Death, Corsets, and Opera, Oh My!: Nichols After Dark Events at the Nichols House Museum”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":433,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[16,30336,613,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-events","category-historic-places","category-museums","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/slis.simmons.edu\/blogs\/lis476\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/slis.simmons.edu\/blogs\/lis476\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/slis.simmons.edu\/blogs\/lis476\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slis.simmons.edu\/blogs\/lis476\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/433"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slis.simmons.edu\/blogs\/lis476\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=385"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/slis.simmons.edu\/blogs\/lis476\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":391,"href":"https:\/\/slis.simmons.edu\/blogs\/lis476\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385\/revisions\/391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/slis.simmons.edu\/blogs\/lis476\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slis.simmons.edu\/blogs\/lis476\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slis.simmons.edu\/blogs\/lis476\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}