2023 Symposium, Beyond the Bustle: Uncovering the Gilded Age

The Bradford Symposium commemorates the re-interpretation of the Bradford historic house museum. Today, the house is dedicated to telling new and invigorating history, and the Bradford Symposium is a legacy for the Bradford House, welcoming scholarship and discussion of difficult topics and hidden stories.

Our 2023 symposium will focus on lesser-known history of the Gilded Age to tell stories that go beyond the glamor, high finances, and politics of the top tier of society.

2023 Symposium Speakers:

• Tony Kelso – Duxbury Town Historian.

Talk entitled:  Gilded Families of Duxbury: The Wright, Allen, and Loring/Parks Families Try to Bring Newport to Duxbury

• Bill Shaffer – Author of The Scandalous Hamiltons. 

Talk entitled: Front Page News: A Salacious Scandal in The Gilded Age

• Charles Slack – Author of Hetty: The Genius and Madness of America’s First Female Tycoon.

Talk entitled: The Terrible, Wonderful Hetty Green: Two Sides of a Gilded Age Colossus 

• Eric Peterson – Executive Director of the Metropolitan Waterworks Museum in Chestnut Hill, MA.

Talk entitled: The Magnificent Machines of E.D. Leavitt and the Saving of Gilded Age Boston

• Carolyn Ravenscroft – Duxbury Rural and Historical Society Archivist and Historian.

Talk entitled: Images of the Congo: The Photographs and Journals of J. Manville Lewis, 1887-1893. 

We are pleased to be partnering with The Foodsmith to offer boxed lunch options for the day. Lunch orders can be added when purchasing tickets.

Full event schedule available here.

The DRHS is grateful to the Duxbury Free Library for the use of the Merry Room.

Check out that bustle! Pictured above: Sallie Taylor was born (Sallie Sampson) in Duxbury and raised in Boston. She married Isaac Taylor and, after she was widowed, she and her mother ran a well-respected and popular boarding house on Powder Point Avenue.