New York Times Article Draws Visitors to Robbins House
September 23 • By Kaitlyn Greenidge • New York Times Sunday Review
A recent New York Times article, “‘Sisterhood’ Felt Meaningless. So My Sisters and I Got in the Car.” details the road trip taken by three sisters to women’s history sites in search of feminism in our current political climate – ending with the story of Ellen Garrison at the Robbins House.
Robbins House Outdoor Exhibit Feedback
Installed July 2017
The Robbins House recently installed a timeline of the long Civil Rights movement listing local, state and national events. We invite visitors to let us know what current events they’d add, since our timeline ends in 2017 but will stand in front of the Robbins House for years to come. Much has happened just in the few months since the outdoor exhibit was installed. Here is a response we just received:
Robbins House Summer Intern Returns to Tufts
September 2017
Emma Hodgdon, who has interned for The Robbins House for two summers now, returns to her junior year as an English major at Tufts University next week.
New Research Discovery!
Ellen Garrison, 19th Century Robbins House Civil Rights Activist, Buried in John Brown’s Family Pasadena Cemetery
While visiting California last week, Robbins House president Maria Madison took time out to visit the Mountainview Cemetery in Pasadena / Altadena, where we knew Ellen Garrison was buried. Here’s what she found out…
Spotlight on… Jayne Gordon, Concord Historian
Many people know Jayne Gordon as the Concord historian, leading tours around town, answering questions and conducting classes that focus on the town’s rich history. But as those who know her would be quick to point out, Concord historian is much too narrow a description for who she is and what she does…
A hidden treasure at the Robbins House
Robbins House board member Jayne Gordon is talking to a crowd of about 20 people attending one of Freedom’s Way’s Hidden Treasures event at the house on May 13 when a sharp rap on the front door causes her to pause. Moments later Peter Robbins, aka Joe Zellner, strides into the room wearing a top hat and coat and carrying a long walking stick.
Robbins House Advisory Board Member Joe Zellner – Better than a time machine
Until they perfect a time machine that can take you back across the centuries, Joe Zellner might be the next…
The transformative power of place…
In this age of “fake news,” museums and historic places can help us find truths. What we do with that knowledge is truly an open and important question.
![Did you know that April is National Poetry Month? We have you covered with a little Robbins house trivia. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote a poem entitled Peter’s Field. Peter’s Field most likely referenced Peter Hutchinson, who was the last African American owner of The Robbins House. Peter purchased the home in 1852 and lived with his wife, Nancy, and several of their children in the home until 1868. Emerson described Peter’s farm, and by extension the original area of farmland attached to The Robbins House out in the Great Field like this:
KNOWS he who tills this lonely field
To reap its scanty corn,
What mystic fruit his acres yield
At midnight and at morn?]
That field by spirits bad and good,
By Hell and Heaven is haunted,
And every rood in the hemlock wood
I know is ground enchanted.
[In the long sunny afternoon
The plain was full of ghosts:
I wandered up,
I wandered down,
Beset by pensive hosts.
For in those lonely grounds the sun
Shines not as on the town,
In nearer arcs his journeys run,
And nearer stoops the moon.
There in a moment I have seen
The buried Past arise;
The fields of Thessaly grew green,
Old gods forsook the skies.
Happy Reading!](https://robbinshouse.org/wp-content/plugins/instagram-feed/img/placeholder.png)