Lippitt House Museum

Lippitt House Museum One of America's best-preserved Victorian interiors, an 1865 mansion in the heart of Providence, RI. www.lippitthouse.org
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Preserve Rhode Island’s 1865 Lippitt House Museum offers guided tours by online reservation, special exhibitions, lectures, art installations, concerts, and family programs. A National Historic Landmark, Lippitt House has one of the best preserved Victorian interiors in America, allowing visitors to step into Providence’s Golden Age. Following the Lippitt family's example of public service, the Museum's cultural programming promotes civic engagement, the arts, and history of Providence.

At our most recent Community Conversation, presenters from Dorcas International, Fuerza Laboral, and Progreso Latino spo...
12/19/2024

At our most recent Community Conversation, presenters from Dorcas International, Fuerza Laboral, and Progreso Latino spoke about how they are responding to impending changes in deportation policies. Providence League of Women Voters moderated and community members asked many questions and engaged in productive conversations with each other.

Below are links to resources shared by the presenters for people interested in learning more:

Help with housing: https://www.diiri.org/ways-to-give/housing/
Donate goods: https://www.diiri.org/what-we-do/donate-goods/
Volunteer: https://progresolatino.org/volunteer

Dorcas International Institute of Rhode Island Fuerza Laboral/Power of Workers Int. Progreso Latino League of Women Voters of Rhode Island

In 2024, tours and programs reached 20% more people than last year!People from near and far participated in guided tours...
12/18/2024

In 2024, tours and programs reached 20% more people than last year!
People from near and far participated in guided tours, engaging programs, and community gatherings. The beautifully preserved Lippitt House sparked wonder from young and old alike. The Lippitt family’s legacy inspired engaging conversations about historical and contemporary topics.

Thank you for being part of Lippitt House Museum's extraordinary year. Historic sites are preserved to be shared, enjoyed, and enlivened. Your support for the Museum does just that.
To donate, visit https://www.preserveri.org/support-lippitt-house-museum.

In 2024, Lippitt House Museum’s Civics Program for English Language Learners served more people than ever and won a pres...
12/13/2024

In 2024, Lippitt House Museum’s Civics Program for English Language Learners served more people than ever and won a prestigious Leadership in History Award. This program is one way the Museum honors the Lippitt family’s legacy of public service while connecting the history of 19th century immigration in Rhode Island with our community today.

In a recent Q & A on the Silver & Spindles Blog staff share the origins of the program, who it serves, and what participants experience. Read the post: https://www.preserveri.org/museum-blog.

Give a gift today to support the museum’s Civics Program for English Language Learners: https://www.preserveri.org/support-lippitt-house-museum.

As 2024 comes to a close, it's a pleasure to look back on a lively year at this very special site. Visitors, attendees o...
12/06/2024

As 2024 comes to a close, it's a pleasure to look back on a lively year at this very special site. Visitors, attendees of programs and events, supporters, neighbors—you make Lippitt House come to life again and again! The Garden was filled with music, dancing, games, and conversation this past summer.

Thank you for being part of Lippitt House Museum's extraordinary year. Historic sites are preserved to be shared, enjoyed, and enlivened. Your support for the Museum does just that.

To donate, visit https://www.preserveri.org/support-lippitt-house-museum.

Learn more about Rhode Island’s Historic Tax Credit program, and what you can do—including signing the petition. This ta...
12/05/2024

Learn more about Rhode Island’s Historic Tax Credit program, and what you can do—including signing the petition. This tax credit program not only preserves old buildings, it generates new housing and economic development.

Get involved today!

We are saddened to learn that Estelle Barada passed away last week. Known to many as Lady Estelle, she was an actor, re-...
12/04/2024

We are saddened to learn that Estelle Barada passed away last week. Known to many as Lady Estelle, she was an actor, re-enactor, and researcher of historical costumes which she would recreate. Her favorite era was the Victorian period. In the 2010s, she hosted several teas for young girls at Lippitt House dressed as Christina Bannister (1819–1902). Here she is pictured more recently at the Lippitt House Museum Garden Party in 2022.
For those who are interested, her obituary is here: https://www.perrymcstay.com/obituaries/Estelle-T-Barada?obId=33918218.

Lippitt House Museum wishes everyone a very happy Thanksgiving!We are thankful for life-long learners eager to learn abo...
11/27/2024

Lippitt House Museum wishes everyone a very happy Thanksgiving!

We are thankful for life-long learners eager to learn about Rhode Island and United States history.

Pictured here are students from Genesis Center making new friends and exploring historical novelties like the stereoscope while on a visit to Lippitt House last week. This visit was the culmination of a series of civics lessons for the students from the Museum.

Hunting for the perfect new (old) recipe this Thanksgiving?Try a gingerbread cake with subtle notes of protest, rebellio...
11/27/2024

Hunting for the perfect new (old) recipe this Thanksgiving?
Try a gingerbread cake with subtle notes of protest, rebellion and civil disobedience
(and a dusting of sugar to finish).
Jenny Schweich, Lippitt House Volunteer Docent wrote about her experience mastering a recipe for gingerbread cake, created by Miss Lucy Goddard of Roxbury, Massachusetts, a "spinster" at the age of 33.
Read more about Schweich's baking adventures, and about the fight for Women's Suffrage on Lippitt House Museum's blog: https://www.preserveri.org/post/the-odyssey-of-making-miss-goddard-s-soft-molasses-gingerbread

Last week, we opened Lippitt House to curious and enthusiastic staff from humanities councils around the country. They w...
11/22/2024

Last week, we opened Lippitt House to curious and enthusiastic staff from humanities councils around the country. They were in town for and were eager to learn how the Museum develops programs inspired by the Lippitt family's legacy of public service. RI Humanities' Julia Renaud interviewed Carrie Taylor, who returned for the day, and interim director Cathy Saunders about community and artist partnerships and the Museum's Civics Program for adult English language learners.

Rhode Island Humanities Federation of State Humanities Councils

One of Jeannie Lippitt's voice teachers, Alexandar Graham Bell, is a significant figure in Deaf history. Bell’s advancem...
11/21/2024

One of Jeannie Lippitt's voice teachers, Alexandar Graham Bell, is a significant figure in Deaf history. Bell’s advancement of the oralism movement, in which the Lippitts were involved, left a complicated legacy of oppression against the Deaf community.

Learn more in "The Lasting Legacy of Oralism and the Never-Ending Fight for Progress," the final installment of Lippitt House Museum's blog series about the Lippitt family's contributions to the history of equal rights for deaf education: https://www.preserveri.org/post/lasting-legacy-of-oralism.

We are deeply grateful for the students from World Languages program who researched and wrote this series.

📸 Cover of “Marriage: An Address to the Deaf” by Alexander Graham Bell, 1891. Public Domain, https://archive.org/details/gu_marriageaddre00bell. (Bell warned against the intermarriage of Deaf people for fear of the “production of a defective race").

How much do you know about deafness? How are sign languages different from “flipping fingers”? How did the term “Deaf” ...
11/14/2024

How much do you know about deafness? How are sign languages different from “flipping fingers”? How did the term “Deaf” extend beyond a pathological label to a cultural identity?

In the third installment of Lippitt House Museum's blog series about the Lippitt family's contributions to the history of equal rights for deaf education, the shifting perceptions of Deafness from the mid-19th century to today are explored.
https://www.preserveri.org/post/shifting-perception-of-deafness

📸Sign Language: friend, by R.A. Olea, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Drawing_%28sign_language_friend%29,_2008.jpg

In honor of Armistice Day we wanted to share the story of First Lieutenant Alexander Farum Lippitt, son of Gov. Charles ...
11/11/2024

In honor of Armistice Day we wanted to share the story of First Lieutenant Alexander Farum Lippitt, son of Gov. Charles Lippitt and grandson of Gov. Henry Lippitt. He is the Lippitt for whom Lippitt Memorial Park in Providence is named.

Alexander left Harvard University in 1917 to volunteer for the American Expeditionary Forces during WW I. Lt. Lippitt was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross "for extraordinary heroism in action while serving with 166th Infantry Regiment, 42d Division, A.E.F., in the Champagne sector, north of Chalons, France, 15 July 1918. During a powerful enemy attack, Lieutenant Lippitt led his platoon through heavy artillery and machine-gun fire in a counterattack against the enemy, which had gained a foothold in our line. The enemy was repulsed and the line reestablished. He assisted in the reorganization and defense of the position against two enemy assaults. The gallantry of this officer was a great aid to his command at a time of unusual danger."

A few days after this attack, Alexander received a head wound while advancing another attack and died from complications in Cape May, NJ on October 6, 1918. He is buried in Providence's Swan Point Cemetery. Lippitt Memorial Park in Providence was dedicated to Lt. Lippitt in 1933. Alexander's two brothers, Charles Warren Lippitt, Jr. and Gorton Thayer Lippitt, also served in France during WWI.

Thank you to all those who served and continue to serve or country.

Jeanie Lippitt became deaf in 1856. Thanks to the hard work of her mother and her family’s connections, she excelled in...
11/06/2024

Jeanie Lippitt became deaf in 1856. Thanks to the hard work of her mother and her family’s connections, she excelled in lipreading and speech under oralist education. This inspired her mother, Mary Ann Balch Lippitt, to found what is today the Rhode Island School for the Deaf. The school also used oralist education instead of American Sign Language. What did oralist education mean for the broader deaf population in the 19th century? If Jeanie had been a deaf child growing up in Rhode Island today, what would her education look like?

"The Transformation of Rhode Island School for the Deaf from Oralism to Bilingual Education" is the second installment in Lippitt House Museum's latest blog series exploring the Lippitt family's contributions to the history of equal rights for deaf education. Find this post on "Silver and Spindles Blog" at https://www.preserveri.org/post/transformation-of-ri-school-for-the-deaf.
Subsequent posts will be uploaded on Wednesdays through November 20.

📸R.I. School for the Deaf, c. early 20th century, ProvLibDigital, https://provlibdigital.org/islandora/object/VM013_GC2230

As we near Election Day, Lippitt House Museum intern Madeline Tirschwell reflects on her time working with the Museum's ...
11/03/2024

As we near Election Day, Lippitt House Museum intern Madeline Tirschwell reflects on her time working with the Museum's Civics Program for English Language Learners and the responsibilities of citizenship.

Applicants for citizenship must pass a a civics test as part of the process. The 100 questions on the test are ones that many US born citizens would have difficulty answering despite having grown up here. Lippitt House Museum educators connect history with the civics test questions for students preparing for citizenship during the program--knowing a community’s history makes it easier to feel a part of it.

Read Madeline's post on the Silver and Spindles Blog to see some of the questions and her thoughts about carrying out her responsibility as a citizen to vote. https://www.preserveri.org/post/civics-history-and-the-responsibility-of-citizenship.

📸Women out in force. circa 1922, Library of Congress

It was a cozy, autumnal Halloween-eve last night at Lippitt House. Thank you to the citizenship-prep students from Dorca...
10/31/2024

It was a cozy, autumnal Halloween-eve last night at Lippitt House. Thank you to the citizenship-prep students from Dorcas International Institute of Rhode Island for making it such a special evening!

The students came as part of the the Museum's civics program for English language learners. They appreciated the timely lessons about voting rights history in Rhode Island and the United States.

In Lippitt House Museum's latest blog series, four students of American Sign Language at Brown University explore the Li...
10/30/2024

In Lippitt House Museum's latest blog series, four students of American Sign Language at Brown University explore the Lippitt family's contributions to the history of equal rights for deaf education. Jeanie Lippitt became deaf at age four. Her mother Mary Ann became her earliest teacher and later a passionate advocate for the oralist method of deaf education. The series covers Mary Ann's advocacy, the history of oralism, and the state of deaf education today. Posts also touch on Alexander Graham Bell’s relationship with the Lippitt family and the transformation of the Rhode Island School for the Deaf from oralism to bilingual education.

The first posts in this series are live on the Museum's "Silver and Spindles Blog". Subsequent posts will be uploaded on Wednesdays through November 20.

To start the series go to https://www.preserveri.org/post/lippitts-and-the-history-of-equal-rights-for-deaf-education

📸 Jeanie Lippitt from a family album is captioned: "Jeanie, totally deaf, the idol of the family, her mother's triumph, loved to ride about the East Side."

It was a glorious fall day for a historical tour of Swan Point Cemetery this past weekend. Architectural historian and P...
10/28/2024

It was a glorious fall day for a historical tour of Swan Point Cemetery this past weekend. Architectural historian and Preserve RI trustee, Ronald J. Onorato introduced the history, symbolism, and design elements of some exceptional monuments found in the older part of the cemetery, and Lippitt House Museum's Cathy Saunders shared history of Lippitt family members interred in one of the cemetery's most prominent plots of the 19th century.

Preserve Rhode Island

Address

199 Hope Street
Providence, RI
02906

Opening Hours

10am - 12pm
1pm - 3pm

Telephone

(401) 453-0688

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Videos

Lippitt House Museum's 1873 Fountain
Lippitt House Museum's 1873 Fountain

This beautiful fountain will be wrapped up for the coming winter on October 15th. Come take a tour and see it firsthand! Tours are offered on Fridays through the end of the month. Book today by visiting https://www.preserveri.org/visit-lippitt-house-museum

Happy Anniversary to the UAWRIA!
Happy Anniversary to the UAWRIA!

Lippitt House Museum staff were honored to be included in the United African Women of Rhode Island Association (UAWRIA)'s anniversary celebration. Thank you for all the work you do for our community. Here’s to another year of service through sisterhood!

INFUSION EVOLUTION is back!
INFUSION EVOLUTION is back!

The weather is looking great to come hear Infusion Evolution at 4:00 PM today! This local band brings the fun and the rhythm - enjoy their tunes in the lovely Lippitt House Museum garden. Tickets are available at www.lippitthouse.org

Free Admission
Free Admission

As a participant in the Museums for All program, Lippitt House Museum is free to access for any individual with a SNAP/EBT card. Check out LippittHouse.org to book tickets!

The sun came out for a fun afternoon North Burial Ground for the #1899Picnic. Lippitt House Museum brought the games but the picnickers brought the fun!

Rosé Garden Party 2024
Rosé Garden Party 2024

Tickets are now on sale for this year's Rosé Garden Party! Visit LippittHouse.org for more information. Thank you to this year's Diamond Sponsor: Compass Rhode Island Performance by RI's own The Tropigals

Happy follow-versary to our awesome followers. Thanks for all your support! Kate Bird

Book the stunning Lippitt House Museum for your upcoming event!

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