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  • Home
    • About
    • Board Directory
    • Blog
    • Contact
    • COVID-19 Information
    • Digital Content
    • Staff
  • Visit
    • Accessibility and Logisitics
    • Current Exhibits >
      • Past Exhibits
    • Historic Sites
    • Landscapes
    • Virtual Tours
  • Education
    • Digital Learning
    • Family and Youth Programs >
      • First Shot Summer Camp
      • April Vacation Activities
      • Children's Battle Reenactment
      • Colonial Kids
    • Home School Programs
    • School Programs
    • School Group Visits
    • Colonial Performers
  • Events
  • Join
    • Membership
    • Volunteer >
      • Archives
      • Buildings and Grounds
      • Collections
      • Hancock-Clarke Greeters
      • Munroe Tavern Greeters
      • Programs and Events
  • Give
    • Bluebirds of Hope
    • Corporate Community Partners
    • Donate Something >
      • COVID-19 History Project
    • Help Us Conserve Something
  • Research
    • Archival Procedures
    • Archives & Research Center
    • Online Collections
    • Online Exhibits
    • Publications and Reports
    • Research Requests
    • Research & Reproduction Fees
  • Rent
    • Catering, Bartending & Equipment Rental
    • Depot Floor Plan
    • Depot History
    • Depot Photos
    • Rental Inquiry Form
    • Rental Rates
    • Venue Details
  • Shop

Past Exhibits


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Exhibit funding provided by:
Massachusetts Society of the Cincinnati
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Peek inside John Hancock's traveling desk
​with Collections Manager Stacey!

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"The Old Tavern Debate: Which Town Fired First?"
Boston Globe, April 28, 2014

Credits:
The Battle After the Battle
An exhibit by Lexington Historical Society

Funding provided by the Massachusetts Society of the Cincinnati.

Guest Curators: Rick Beyer and Lauren Kennedy
Curator/Archivist: Elaine Doran
Historical Research: Richard Kollen
Photography: Paul Doherty

Special thanks to the following individuals and organizations for their support:
The Concord Museum, New York City Hall, The American Antiquarian Society, Windsor Conservation, Lexington Town Offices, MegaPrint Inc., Plymouth, NH
#Alarmed! 18th Century Social Media
Buckman Tavern
April 2017-December 2019


Networks. Posting. Sharing. Memes. These may sound like buzzwords describing 21st century social media, but all had their equivalents in the 18th century, some with the same names.
 
In a time of candlelight and horse drawn carriages, there were many sophisticated communications networks in place. Taverns like Buckman Tavern in Lexington played an important role, providing places for people to discover and share information.
 
Lexington Historical Society’s exhibit #Alarmed! 18th Century Social Media explores how news went viral 250 years ago, and lets visitors imagine how colonials might have made use of our modern media tools to kick start a revolution.
 
The exhibit is located on the second floor of the tavern and open with a regular admission ticket seven days a week. It contains nearly a dozen interactive activities and provides paths for visitors engage in both analog and digital ways. The exhibit team was composed of Susan Bennett, Rick Byer, Stacey Fraser, and Lauren Kennedy.
 
Mass Humanities sponsored a consulting scholar, J. L. Bell, who is a savvy social media user in his own right.  He writes the blog Boston 1775 and is an active twitterstorian, which made him an excellent fit for #Alarmed! The Massachusetts Society of the Cincinnati provided additional funding for the exhibit.
 
Local Boy Scout Pierce Warburton, member of troop #160, earned his Eagle Scout badge by building a replica colonial bar for #Alarmed! David Bogdan, Chris Kauffman, the Lexington Minute Men, and the Historical Society of Pennsylvania provided exhibit materials, photo opportunities, documents, and printed materials.

The Battle after the Battle
A special exhibit at Buckman Tavern
May 2014 to November 2016

*This exhibit is now on view at the Whittemore House in Minute Man National Historical Park. More info.*


Where did America’s War for really begin? For two centuries, two towns have battled over bragging rights. A controversy ignited by a visit from the Revolutionary War hero Lafayette eventually escalated into open warfare involving accusations, depositions, and even a sitting president of the United States.

The Battle after the Battle takes a lighthearted look at two centuries of “local bickerings and petty jealousies” between the two towns, complete with bold graphics, historic artifacts, audio content, and hands-on displays. Visitors will be invited to vote for themselves whether Lexington or Concord has the better claim as the place the American Revolution really began.

Rarely seen artifacts on display include:

• The 1799 slate tablet commemorating the fight on Lexington Common

• The forty-foot long banner that greeted Marquis de Lafayette in 1825

• Stereoscope cards visitors can use to get a 3-D view of the 1875 Centennial celebrations

• The original Patriots’ Day proclamation issued by Governor Frederic Greenhalge in 1894, along with the quill pen he used to sign it.

“This brings up the great civil war now raging between the two towns…When Concord announced an oration, Lexington met it with another, and so both went on with processions, balls, unveiling of statues.”

            -New York Times, April 17, 1875

As proof that the dispute between the two towns is largely a thing of the past, Lexington Historical Society is delighted to be mounting the exhibit in partnership with the Concord Museum, which is putting on a simultaneous exhibit entitled The Shot Heard Round the World: April 19, 1775. The Concord exhibit presents an hour-by-hour chronology of April 19, 1775, with fifty authentic artifacts from that day, including several from Lexington.


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Lextopia Cocktail Party and Mid-Century Marketplace
Friday, September 11, 2015
6-8 PM


Spend a fun and entertaining evening in Lextopia before the exhibit closes!  Enjoy this delightful, fun, and engaging exhibit at the Lexington Depot (13 Depot Square) from 6:00-8:00pm.

Enjoy popular mid-century cocktails, refreshments, a tour of the Lextopia exhibit, a chance to purchase wonderful vintage mid-century modern furniture and housewares, AND a showing of  Still Standing: Conversations with Three Founding Partners of the Architect's Collaborative. This half hour film as wonderful images and conversations about the work of TAC.


Lexington Mid-Century Modern
House Tour

Sunday, October 4, 2015
10 AM to 4 PM


Lexington's finest Mid-Century Modern homes open their doors today for this special event.  Tour ten homes in the Moon Hill and Peacock Farm neighborhoods.

Carpooling is encouraged due to restricted parking at the houses!

During the house tour, remember to visit the Modern Marketplace at the Depot, where Mid-Century furniture and housewares will be offered for sale by some of the finest purveyors in the area.

Lextopia: Lexington Launches Mid-Century Modern

Exhibit ran from June 20 through September 19, 2015.

This exhibit celebrated and explored Lexington's unique architectural legacy - and its impact on the world!

In the years after World War II, a diverse group of bold young architects came to the sleepy Boston suburb with a dream of revolutionizing home architecture and design. What they accomplished here has been called Lexington’s second revolution, and it certainly was an architectural “shot heard ‘round the world.”

The exhibit highlighted the architects who worked here, the neighborhoods they created,  and the ways their work affected Lexington and the larger world. It showcased modernist architecture, furniture, and housewares from the Society’s collections, as well as artifacts donated by numerous other individuals and organizations. Several mid-century modern house tours, a mid-century modern marketplace, Sunday afternoon gallery talks and other events occurred throughout the exhibit's run.

Gallery Talks:
  • June 21 -  Wendy Cox,  Associate Professor, School of Architecture and Art  at Norwich University, Realizing Intentions:  Founding of TAC and Six Moon Hill.
  • June 28 - Susan Ward, independent curator and consultant, Textiles in Mid-Century Interiors: The Softer Side of Modernism
  • July 12 - Jane Thompson, co-owner with her husband Ben of the Design Research stores, and author of Design Research: The Store That Brought Modern Living to American Homes
  • July 19 - Peter McMahon, founding director of the Cape Cod Modern House Trust, and Christine Cipriani, architecture writer, authors of the new book Cape Cod Modern
  • July 26 – Timothy Techler, architect principal of Techler Design Group, A Moon Hill Restoration
  • August 2 – Wendy Hubbard, Site Manager of Historic New England’s Gropius House in Lincoln, Walter Gropius, the Bauhaus and the Gropius House: Roots of Mid-Century Modern in Middlesex County
  • August 9 – Andrea Quagliata, former Moon Hill resident, creative director, photographer and author of Modern Orthodoxy and Eclecticism, The Case Study of Six Moon Hill.
  • August 16 – Pamela Hartford, landscape historian and preservation consultant, It's Not Just the Buildings:  Landscape in the Aesthetics of Mid Century Modernism
  • August 23 – Bruce Clouette, senior historian of the Public Archaeology Survey Team in Storrs, Connecticut and author of the National Historic District Nomination for Moon Hill in Lexington
  • August 30 - Katie Rowley, Manager, and Somers Killian, Associate of Machine Age, Highlights of Mid-20th-Century Furniture Design.
  • September 13 – Bill Janovitz and John Tse – Marketing and Purchasing Your Mid-Century Modern Home​​
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Funding from Mass Humanities has been provided through the National Endowment for the
​Humanities ​as part of the 2020 Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act.

Copyright 2020 Lexington Historical Society
Physical Address:
Lexington Historical Society
13 Depot Square
Lexington, MA 02420

Mailing Address:
Lexington Historical Society
P.O. Box 514
Lexington, MA 02420

Main  Office: 781-862-1703
Archives & Collections: 781-862-3763
Tours: 781-862-3763

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