VAF-NEW ENGLAND CHAPTER
VIRTUAL ANNUAL MEETING
Current Research by Members of VAF-New England Chapter
Saturday, 7 November 2020
9:20-9:30
Welcoming Remarks
Laura B. Driemeyer, President, VAF-NE Chapter
9:30-10:40
“Framing the Old Colony: Early Plymouth Architecture in Context”
James Kelleher, Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in American Material Culture
“The New England Squash Barn”
Sally McMurry, Penn State University
10:40-11:50
“Marblehead Land Company, A Well-Documented Residential Subdivision of the 1880s John D Clemson, Independent Scholar
A Look Back at a WWI Housing Effort
Lorna Condon, Historic New England
Introducing the Royal Barry Wills Associates Archives
Lorna Condon, Historic New England
11:50-12:10
Break
12:10-12:45
Destination “Magic Town”: Capitalism, Corporate Branding, and the Trackside Architecture of the Portland & Rumford Falls Railway, 1890-1895
C. Ian Stevenson, Independent Scholar
12:45-1:45
FORUM: Recovering Urban Vernacular Spaces in Boston and New York City
“They Persisted: Women Confront the Corporate Improvement of Boston’s Waterfront, 1790-1820”
Kathryn Lasdow, Suffolk University
“Real Estate and Reimagining African American Free Space in New York City”
Alexander Manevitz, New York Historical Society
What spaces do we honor and whose stories do we tell? How can the physical destruction of our urban vernacular landscapes teach us about our historical and present-day values? Join Kathryn Lasdow and Alexander Manevitz as they discuss vernacular destruction and dispossession for women and African American communities in nineteenth-century Boston and New York City. Using a combination of vernacular architecture, historical geography, archaeology, and social history, they’ll share what they’ve uncovered about the female property-owners and renters who resisted the rise of corporate development on the Boston waterfront, including the Charles Bulfinch-designed India Wharf complex. They will examine Seneca Village, a free black experimental political community in upper Manhattan, ultimately displaced by Central Park. Then they will open the floor for a discussion on research methods, findings, and contemporary ramifications.
Hello VAF-NE Chapter Members and Friends:
As we previously announced, the VAF-NE Chapter Annual Meeting, scheduled for Saturday, 7 November 2020 will be held virtually as a Zoom meeting. The Annual Meeting Conference will run from 9:20 am to about 1:50 pm Eastern Standard Time.
The program of presentations, as originally planned for April 2020, remains the same, but the length of the day is shorter as there will be no extended lunch break but rather just one short break mid-day. This will allow for a shorter day while maintaining the same content. The papers will be pre-recorded, but each speaker will be introduced live before each presentation. A live question-and-answer session will follow each presentation.
You can find the list of presentations at www.vafweb.org/VAF-NE_2020ConferenceSchedule.
To sign up for the program, please go to the VAF website at: http://www.vafweb.org/event-3999320.
The registration fee is $10.00. Registration is open to all, but non-members will need to make a free account here first: http://vafweb.org/2020guest. For those who registered for the conference last spring we will contact you separately.
REGISTRATION CLOSES NOVEMBER 6
We look forward to an exciting day and hope that you can join us.
Best,
VAF-NE Chapter Annual Meeting Committee
