The World of Domestic Workers in 19th Century Boston
Tuesday, November 30, 2021
6:30pm
Virtual via Zoom
Admission:
$5 for members$7-$15 general ticket
Like the Nichols family, the Gibsons employed live-in domestic staff. Join Gibson House Museum curator, Meghan Gelardi Holmes, to explore the lives of domestic staff in Boston during the late 19th to early-20th centuries. These mostly young, immigrant Irish women built a rich, interconnected community in their neighborhoods and specifically for this talk, in the back alleys of Back Bay. We will discuss their work and their leisure time, and how the experience of immigration shaped their lives.
Attendees receive a discount to our Hidden Spaces of the Nichols House Museum tour where you can hear a bit about domestic staff employed by the Nichols family. Tours are Sunday, November 28 or December 19 at 2:00pm.
Meghan Gelardi Holmes is a public historian based in Boston. She is Curator at the Gibson House Museum and at the Colonial Society of Massachusetts. She also serves as an Affiliate Editor for the National Council on Public History’s blog, History@Work. Holmes received a master’s in Public History from UMASS-Amherst.