Visitor Info
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Tours
Explore our various tour types to find what’s best for you and your group.
Explore the Gilded Age
The Gilded Age was a period of unprecedented change in America. Fortunes were spent on luxuries such as the lavish "summer cottages" of Newport.
Episode Deep Dive
Learn about the people, places and events depicted in Julian Fellowes' popular historical drama series.
About Us
Our mission is to protect, preserve, and present the best of Newport County's architectural heritage. Learn more about us and our work.
Museum Rentals & Weddings
Host your wedding, rehearsal dinner, corporate event, or other celebration at our historic museums.
The Information Age was introduced with the advent of the computer in the second half of the 20th century. But long before that, new technologies (the telegraph, phonograph, photography and even the sewing machine), were revolutionizing communication, connecting and shrinking the world, and creating the vast fortunes which define the Gilded Age. Matthew Bird will discuss the technologies involved, the fascinating accidents of progress and the people responsible, and will explore how the real Information Age was actually a 19th-century phenomenon.
Event thumbnail photo credit: Standard Home Phonograph. T.A. Edison, c. 1900.
Centennnial telephone. A.G. Bell, 1876.
Typewriter. Christopher Sholes, 1873.
US patent model #79265. Christopher Sholes, 1868.
Standard Home Phonograph. T.A. Edison, c. 1900.
Patent Model #8294. Isaac Merritt Singer, 1851.
Kodak Brownie Camera. George Eastman, 1902.
Filament Lightbulb. T. A. Edison, 1879.
Matthew Bird brings his professional experience as a product and exhibition designer into the classroom at the Rhode Island School of Design, where he teaches design and design history. His knowledge of manufacturing techniques and materials informs his teaching and writing about design history. He also curates exhibitions that introduce design to fine-art museums and their public.
Explore the underground systems that made this great house a marvel of technology for its time.
See and hear how the other half lived as you take the Servant Life Tour at The Elms. This tour will highlight the stories of some of the men and women who worked to service the social whirl of Newport during the Gilded Age.
Change can be exciting. It can also be unsettling. During the Gilded Age, change was happening at a pace unmatched in American history.
Are we living in a second Gilded Age? The transformative years of the late 19th and early 20th centuries left a lasting legacy for our world today. Speaker: Dr. Michael Patrick Cullinane
Visit the heyday of Northeastern vacation spots from the Adirondacks to Coney Island, from Martha’s Vineyard to the Catskills, and from Saratoga to Newport. Speaker: Will B. Mackintosh
The Gilded Age is notorious as a time of rampant political corruption. It was also a time when reformers ignited a reinvention of American democracy. Speaker: T.J. Stiles
The first tall commercial buildings and the grandest of mansions are icons of the Gilded Age, but they were not the only architectural changes taking place. Speaker: Richard Guy Wilson
Who were the everyday people in this period of industrialization and urbanization? What were their struggles and triumphs? Speaker: Nancy C. Unger
The Newport Flower Show will celebrate the early 19th-century custom of a trip as a means of gaining both exposure and association with the sophistication of Europe.
Join us at this annual event that kicks off the Newport summer season.
Plan to join us for a fun and elegant evening of dinner and dancing at our annual black-tie fundraising event.
Plan now to put together a foursome and join us at our annual Golf Outing at Newport National Golf Course in Middletown, R.I., a challenging, 7,244-yard links-style course offering a dramatic setting with views of the Atlantic Ocean and Sakonnet Passage.
The 2023 festival will continue with the successful format of daily seminars held at Rosecliff that provide our guests with an intimate, educational wine, spirits or food experience.
It is never too early to start planning for your next holiday to remember! Mark your calendar to join us for the annual Holiday Dinner Dance at The Breakers.
Download our tour app before your visit and bring your earbuds.
Parking is free onsite at all properties except for Hunter House and The Breakers Stable & Carriage House, where street parking is available.
Answers to some of our most frequently asked questions.
Explore the 11 properties under the stewardship of the Preservation Society and open as historic house museums.
Partners in Preservation
