In the late 1800s, the United States was rapidly becoming more urban, industrial, technologically complex and ethnically diverse. As Americans experienced swift and marked change, an interesting dynamic arose between city and country, between the old and the modern, and between working Americans and their new, super-rich contemporaries.
In an illustrated lecture, Kathleen Johnson will use incidents and images from Greenwich history to explore points of contact, conflict and accommodation. In an exploration of the lively interactions among the town’s residents–descendants of old families, recent immigrants, millionaires, artists, and others—Ms. Johnson will explore the ways Americans responded to shifting circumstances circa 1900.
The lecture takes place Tuesday, October 9, from 5:30 to 6:30 at the Greenwich Historical Society Vanderbilt Education Center, 39 Strickland Road, Cos Cob, CT 06807. $10 Members/ $15 nonmembers. To reserve, call 203-869-6899, Ext. 10 or visit www.greenwichhistory.org.
Kathleen Johnson is former Curator and Director of Collections at Historic Hudson Valley, the Westchester County-based museum, which administers six National Historic Landmarks spanning four centuries. She is currently an independent museum consultant shepherding a variety of museum projects from concept through implementation, as well as an art history writer and lecturer.
This lecture is the first in a series of three to complement the Historical Society’s new exhibition, A Good Light, which explores the changing concept of the artist’s studios at turn of the 19th century when Cos Cob was an art colony and the epicenter for the development of American Impressionism.
