Author and Historic New England Historian Dr. Jennifer Pustz will join legislators and the Museum’s Education Committee in celebrating the award-winning students of the Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum/Ernest Hemingway Young Writers’ Competition in a private reception, which will be held at the Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museumon Oct. 4, 2015, 1 p.m., 295 West Avenue, Norwalk, CT. The awards ceremony will be followed at 2 p.m. by a lecture by Dr. Pustz, which isopen to the general public and entitled, Voices from the Back Stairs: Interpreting Servants’ Lives at Historic House Museums.
The Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum launched the second writing competitionin the spring of 2015 as part of its Education Program, which will engaged over 1,200 students during the 2015 calendar year in the exploration of history, 19th century technology, and the arts at this National Historic Landmark.
“I am sure that Dr. Pustz, a well-respected author and historian, will inspire our winners to continue writing and striving to excel,” said Haroldo Williams, chair of the LMMM Education Committee. “It is our hope that the Museum’s competition will strengthen our bond with the Norwalk Public Schools and the community, and will complement the efforts of the teachers – encouraging the students to explore history and use their writing skills to be creative and to express themselves."
The lecture by Dr. Pustz, with images of period domestic manuals, ephemera, and other general material, will bring the lives of servants and the relationships with their employers to the foreground. Although domestic servants made everyday life in grand homes possible, their identities and roles within the household have long been hidden. Dr. Pustz’s lecture will illustrate the diversity of domestic service in New England over the 19th and 20th centuries by focusing on three Historic New England properties.
Jennifer Pustz is the museum historian at Historic New England. She holds a Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of Iowa in addition to M.A. and B.A. degrees in art history. She is the author of Voices from the Back Stairs: Interpreting Servants’ Lives at Historic House Museums (Northern Illinois University Press, 2010) and a contributing author of Historic New England’s America’s Kitchens publication (2009).
The Museum’s 2015 cultural and educational programs are made possible in part by generous funding from LMMM’s Founding Patrons: The Estate of Cynthia Clark Brown; The Museum’s Distinguished Benefactors: Klaff’s, Xerox Foundation and The Maurice Goodman Foundation. The Museum’s Education Program is made possible in part by Fairfield County’s Community Foundation and HealthyCT. The Museum’s exhibition, The Stairs Below: The Mansion’s Domestic Servants 1868-1938, is made possible in part by generous funding from the CT Humanities and CTC&G.
The awards for the Young Writers’ Competition ceremony will include cash and other prizes, including gift certificates generously donated by Sono Ice House, My Three Sons, Toys R Us, Gio’s Beauty Salon & Barbershop, and Sono Academy, to name a few.
The Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum is a National Historic Landmark. For additional information on the education program or schedules and programs please visit: www.lockwoodmathewsmansion.com, e-mail info@lockwoodmathewsmansion.com, or call 203-838-9799.