Gilded Age Lecture Series
Your support for our lectures is appreciated
Beginning
with our Gilded Age Fall Lecture Series on October 6, in-person
attendance will be $15 per member and $20 per non-member. Attending via
Zoom will cost $10 per person. We began presenting free virtual lectures
in April, 2020, at the start of the pandemic lockdown. Since then, we
have hosted over 40 virtual and in-person presentations on a vast array
of topics at no cost to attendees. The response has been remarkable!
However, the costs involved in engaging speakers and offering new
programs require us to return to instituting a modest attendance fee. We
hope you will continue to join us for these programs – either in person
at Rosecliff or virtually on Zoom – and we thank you for your
understanding and support!
The Advent of the Automobile
Thursday, October 6, at 6 pm EDT
At Rosecliff Ballroom and via Zoom
Howard Kroplick, Historian and Author
Madelyn Rzadkowolski, Curator, Meadow Brook Hall
Robert Signom III, Curator, America’s Packard Museum
The Gilded Age saw the advent of the automobile along with the rise of industrial giants, international road racing and heightened standards of luxury. Three expert panelists will discuss the excitement of the burgeoning automobile industries from Detroit to Newport. Historian and Author Howard Kroplick will relay stories of William K. Vanderbilt Jr. racing in Newport and the prestigious Vanderbilt Cup Race held on Long Island, and will show rare racing films. Madelyn Rzadkowolski, Curator at Meadow Brook Hall in Rochester, Michigan, will share stories of the Dodge brothers and early car shows. Robert Signom III, Curator of America’s Packard Museum, will reveal the heated exchanges that resulted in the creation of the Ohio Automobile Company.
In-person ticket: $15 for members, $20 for non-members
Zoom ticket: $10
Preservation Society members: To receive your discount, click on the registration link below, then select the "Member Tickets" tab. You will be asked to log in to your account before purchasing the ticket.
Advance Registration Required
Panelists:
Howard Kroplick is a Historian, Author, creator of an award-winning automobile website and a leading expert on the Vanderbilt Cup Races and the Long Island Motor Parkway. While serving as a Town of North Hempstead historian from 2012-2019, he was awarded the 2016 Edmund J. Winslow Local Government Historian Award for Excellence, given to one New York historian each year. He has authored two books related to automobile racing history: The Vanderbilt Cup Races of Long Island and The Long Island Motor Parkway. Kroplick created the VanderbiltCupRaces.com website dedicated to the history of automobile racing and car culture on Long Island. The International Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences has selected it as one of the five best in the world for "cars sites & car culture." In 2019, the Society of Automotive Historians honored the website with the E.P. Ingersoll Award for excellence in presentation of automotive history. Kroplick is the founder and president of the Long Island Motor Parkway Preservation Society and current co-president of the Roslyn Landmark Society.
Madelyn Rzadkowolski is the Curator of Meadow Brook Hall in Rochester, Michigan. Meadow Brook Hall, constructed between 1926 and 1929, was commissioned by Matilda Dodge Wilson, widow of the titan of Detroit’s automobile industry, John F. Dodge. With a goal of expanding the story and historical interpretation of the estate, Rzadkowolski has directed new tour initiatives, funding programs and restoration projects on the estate, which includes more than 75,000 collection objects and 25 acres of gardens and historic buildings. Since leading an exhibit for the centennial of Dodge Brothers Motor Car Club in 2014, she has become an expert on the lives and legacies of the Dodge brothers and a committed partner to the Dodge Brothers Car Club and the Dodge family..
Robert Signom III has served as the Curator of The Citizens’ Motorcar Company, America’s Packard Museum, since July 2019. He is a life member of Packard Automobile Classics, as well as a member of the Antique Automobile Association of America, the Classic Car Club of America, Alfa Romeo Owners' Club, Society of Automotive Historians, and the American Alliance of Museums. He became the youngest voting member of the Packard Automobile Classics Board of Trustees when he founded Tomorrow's Packard Owners in 1992. He has worked in theatrical production for more than 20 years and is the Co-Founder of Intuitive Production Management. Signom has worked on more than 125 productions, concerts and industrials in New York and regionally.
Night Boats to Newport: Remembering the ‘Floating Palaces' of the Illustrious Fall River Line
Thursday, October 20, at 6 pm EDT
At Rosecliff Ballroom and via Zoom
John Henry, Journalist and Author
The Fall River Line, which operated a year-round overnight passenger steamboat service between New York, Newport and Fall River, Mass., from 1847 to 1937, called itself "the most famous inland water travel route in America." That was probably no exaggeration. Noted for their reliability, impressive size and sumptuous public rooms, the company's elegant white steamers offered a means of transportation befitting the Gilded Age that drew the patronage of many of the most powerful and prominent people in the country, as well as ordinary folks. So embedded was the Fall River Line in the national culture that when it ceased operating, The New York Times said it was "an American story which should not be forgotten."
In-person ticket: $15 for members, $20 for non-members
Zoom ticket: $10
Preservation Society members: To receive your discount, click on the registration link below, then select the "Member Tickets" tab. You will be asked to log in to your account before purchasing the ticket.
Advance Registration Required
John Henry, a former reporter for Newsday and the New York Daily News, has written for decades on travel and transportation for newspapers in the United States and Canada. His 2013 book about the largest fleet of passenger steamers ever to ply North America's inland waters — “Great White Fleet: Celebrating Canada Steamship Lines Passenger Ships” — won him the C. Bradford Mitchell Award from the Steamship Historical Society of America for his dedicated service to the field of maritime heritage. He lives in New York City.
The Legacy of the Transcontinental Railroad
Thursday, November 3, 6 pm EDT
At Rosecliff Ballroom and via Zoom
Dr. Betsy Fahlman, professor of art history, Arizona State University, and Adjunct Curator of American Art, Phoenix Art Museum
Dr. Manu Karuka, author of “Empire's Tracks” and Assistant Professor of American Studies at Barnard College
America’s first transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869. The ramifications would be seen and felt in American industry, art and migration. In this panel, Dr. Betsy Fahlman, Professor of Art History at Arizona State University and Adjunct Curator of American Art at the Phoenix Art Museum, will introduce the technological arc that spanned from coast to coast, and will discuss works of art and objects collected by American railroad museums and the Center for Railroad Photography & Art. Dr. Manu Karuka, Assistant Professor of American Studies at Barnard College, will present themes from his book, “Empire’s Tracks,” and examine the construction of the first transcontinental railroad in an international context, focusing on sovereignty and imperialism.
In-person ticket: $15 for members, $20 for non-members
Zoom ticket: $10
Preservation Society members: To receive your discount, click on the registration link below, then select the "Member Tickets" tab. You will be asked to log in to your account before purchasing the ticket.
Advance Registration Required
Panelists:
Dr. Betsy Fahlman is a professor of art history at Arizona State University and Adjunct Curator of American Art at the Phoenix Art Museum. She has had a career-long fascination with the relationship of American art and industrial and technological themes. Her essays include “Steam and Power: Joseph Pennell’s 1919 Railroad Series,” Railroad Heritage, No. 43 (Winter 2016); and “The Engines of Art: The Railroad as Cultural Icon,” Railroad Heritage, No. 14 (2005). She serves on the board of the Center for Railroad Photography & Art.
Dr. Manu Karuka is the author of “Empire's Tracks: Indigenous Nations, Chinese Workers, and the Transcontinental Railroad” (University of California Press). He is an Assistant Professor of American Studies at Barnard College.
Horticulture
Dahlias with Dan SOLD OUT
Friday, September 30, 10 am-11 am EDT
Green Animals Topiary Garden, Portsmouth, R.I.
Green Animals Topiary Garden is home to much more than fanciful topiaries. In fact, dahlias have been an important part of the garden scheme since its early days. Join Green Animals Chief Horticulturist Dan Christina for an insider’s tour of the property’s dahlia garden during its peak season. Learn all the tips and tricks that make growing dahlias an obsession for so many gardeners. Tour limited to 18 participants. Advance registration is required.
Member price: $10
Non-member price: $15
Preservation Society members: To receive your discount, click on the registration link below, then select the "Member Tickets" tab. You will be asked to log in to your account before purchasing the ticket.
Breakers Greenhouse Tour
Saturday, November 5, 10 am-11 am EDT
Breakers Greenhouse, 53 Coggeshall Ave., Newport, R.I.
The Breakers Greenhouse is one of the longest-running estate gardens in the United States. Jeff Curtis, Director of Gardens & Landscapes at The Preservation Society of Newport County, will provide a tour of the Greenhouse and discuss how the work done there provides thousands of bedding plants and cut flowers for our historic properties. Guests will see how all of the poinsettias are propagated from cuttings for the holiday season and will be able to take home small plant material. Admission to The Breakers house included. This tour is limited to 15 participants. Advance registration required.
Member price: $25
Non-member price: $30, includes tour and admission to The Breakers
Preservation Society members:To receive your discount, click on the registration link below, then select the "Member Tickets" tab. You will be asked to log in to your account before purchasing the ticket.
Advance Registration Required
Past lectures
The Whole Gilded Age: Newport and Beyond
The David W. Dangremond Lecture
Presented July 14 by Ulysses Grant Dietz
Learn more, view this lecture
Melodies of the Gilded Age
The Pamela & David B. Ford Lecture
Presented July 28 by Dr. Mark A. Stickney and Dr. Christopher Brellochs
Learn more, view this lecture
The Archival Oyster: Aqueous Black Ecologies Along the Eastern Seaboard
The Eaddo & Peter Kiernan Lecture
Presented August 2 by Preservation Society Fellow Adrian Cato
Learn more, view this lecture
Returning To Hunter House
When Talking about Lacquerware: A Closer Look at the Collection of The Preservation Society of Newport County
The Jacalyn & William P. Egan Lecture
Presented August 9 by Preservation Society Fellows MaryKate Smolenski and Luli Zou
Learn more, view this lecture
Behind the Scenes of The Gilded Age
The John G. Winslow Lecture
Presented August 11 by Bob Shaw, production designer for HBO's "The Gilded Age"
Learn more, view this lecture