Westport Museum for History and Culture

Colonial Field Day
2024-05-18 14:00 - 16:00 (America/New_York)
Ever wondered how to play hoop and stick? Or break flax? What about spinning yarn? Bring the whole family and see for yourself at the museum’s Colonial Field Day!

Take part in activities that were commonplace in the 18th century. Speak with costumed staff and volunteers about the lives of those in the colonial era. Try your hand at beating a rug, playing nine-mans-Morris or writing with a quill and ink. Enjoy colonial music and some treats while you explore the activities as well as the fun and games of the past.

Tickets are $5 for nonmember adults, free for members and children under 10. Registration is available below. Tickets are nonrefundable. In the event you must cancel, we will consider your purchase a donation and will happily issue you a donation receipt.

Dress Construction Viewing
2024-03-27 13:00 - 17:00
Ever wanted to know how a dress from your favorite period drama was made? Have questions about fashion from the past?

Join our Director of Programs and Collections, Nicole Carpenter, as she creates a reproduction gown based on 18th century examples and techniques. Visitors are encouraged to ask questions about the process of creating a gown, the history of mantua-makers or dress makers, and the Museum’s textile collection. Visitors can also try textile art objects like a spinning wheel, loom, and embroidery hoops for themselves.

This gown will be displayed and worn during our Colonial Field Day. Interested in attending? Tickets can be purchased with the form below. Tickets are $5 for nonmember adults, free for members and children under 10.

Destination Westport: In Gatsby’s Shoes
2024-05-25 09:30 - 11:00 | Longshore Club Park, 260 Compo Rd. S., Westport, 06880
Imagine it’s the summer of 1920. Westport is a sleepy farm community that lures New York’s most glamorous couple-F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald—to its shores.

Seeking respite from their whirlwind Jazz era lives, the Fitzgeralds set up in an 18th century farmhouse that has seen Revolution and the building of a nation over many decades. Zelda swims daily in the peaceful waters of the Long Island Sound while Scott takes advantage of the bucolic quiet to work on what he hopes will be his next great novel—The Great Gatsby. Join the Museum, as we recreate the summer of 1920 and the sites and characters that influenced Fitzgerald’s Great American novel.

Come prepared for a gorgeous, vigorous 90-minute walk in one of the East Coast’s most beautiful settings. Please bring water and wear comfortable walking shoes.

PARKING INFORMATION: Guests should park at Longshore Marina, along the asphalt and dirt areas, in Lot F.

Tickets $20 for members, $25 for nonmembers. Reservations are required, register below. Tickets are nonrefundable. In the event you must cancel, we will consider your purchase a donation and will happily issue you a donation receipt.

Space is limited to 25 persons per tour. If you wish to join but the tour has been sold out or are interested in a private tour, please email your interest to programs@westporthistory.org

Destination Westport: Path of Patriots
2024-05-26 10:00 - 11:00 | Greens Farms Lower Cemetery, Nyala Farms Road, Westport, Connecticut, 06880, United States
On July 8, 1779, during the war for Independence, British soldiers attacked Green’s Farms, burning buildings to the ground. Learn about Westport’s role in the American Revolution, by visiting the gravestones of those who served during the war for Independence—including stories of the fateful day Greens Farms burned. Even as you hear the story of colonists fighting for their freedom you will also hear the stories of enslaved Africans who chose sides and fought for their voices to be heard.

Park on Nyala Farms Road and meet on the marked green at the back entrance to the cemetery. We recommend you wear comfortable walking shoes and bring bottled water—the ground is uneven and the weather may be warm.

Tickets $10 for members, $15 for nonmembers. Pre-registration is required. Register online below. Tickets are nonrefundable. In the event you must cancel, we will consider your purchase a donation and will happily issue you a donation receipt.

Space is limited to 25 persons per tour. Additional tours may be added if demand requires. If you wish to join but the tour has been sold out or are interested in a private tour, please email programs@westporthistory.org

Connecticut 29th Plaque Dedication
2024-06-19 09:15 - 09:45
Westport Museum and Saugatuck Church will be dedicating a temporary plaque honoring the service of the Connecticut 29th Regiment, and that of their Commander, Lt. Louis McDonough, who is buried at the church’s Evergreen Cemetery. The free memorial will be unveiled by local veteran Sergeant First Class Buyile Rani, CT Army National Guard.

The event is part of a day long Juneteenth celebration hosted by the Museum. To learn more about the day-long event schedule please visit, westporthistory.org/juneteenth/

Destination Westport: Black Stories
2024-06-19 10:00 - 11:30, 2024-06-19 12:30 - 14:00, 2024-09-28 09:30 - 11:00
Traverse downtown Westport and learn the hidden African American history of Westport, based on the Museum’s award-winning exhibit Remembered: The History of African Americans in Westport. Trained guides reveal the untold stories of the region’s Black community from colonial times through today. From enslaved people to soldiers, sailors, activists, artists, and respected citizens, this rich history is deeply explored through existing buildings and long destroyed sites. Follow along with our virtual exhibit of the same name online here.

Meet on the Westport Museum’s brick walk along Myrtle Avenue. The tour covers 1-2 miles of sidewalk walking, please bring water and suitable outdoor attire.

Tickets $10 for members, $15 for nonmembers. Reservations are required, register online below. Tickets are nonrefundable. In the event you must cancel, we will consider your purchase a donation and will happily issue you a donation receipt.

Space is limited to 25 persons per tour. Additional tours may be added if demand requires. If you wish to join but the tour has been sold out or are interested in a private tour, please email your interest to programs@westporthistory.org

Film Screening and Celebration
2024-06-19 15:00 - 17:00
Celebrate Juneteenth with a screening of the short documentary film The 29th Connecticut about the African American soldiers who enlisted in Connecticut during the American Civil War, specifically eleven men from Berlin. Enjoy refreshments afterwards while hearing more about the 13 men who enlisted from Westport and their contribution to the liberation of enslaved people on June 19th, 1865 in Galveston, Texas.

Make your free reservation below to view the film, enjoy refreshments, and receive admission to the Museum’s exhibitions for the program’s duration. Donations will support the Museum as well as the activities of the Berlin Equity Action Team. Produced by the Berlin Equity Action Team, The 29th Connecticut was selected as the Best Connecticut film at the Mystic Film Festival in 2023.

The 29th Regiment of United States Colored Troops, formed just after Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, fought in critical battles near the end of the war and helped to secure freedom from enslavement for all United States citizens. Despite discrimination, more than 1,200 African and Native American men served in the Union Army as members of the 29th Connecticut Volunteer Infantry Regiment.

To learn more about Westport in the Civil War period and the actions of the 29th Connecticut Colored Infantry Regiment, read our blog post by clicking here.

Caribbean Cooking Class
2024-06-27 18:30 - 20:30
Celebrate Caribbean Heritage month by learning to cook iconic heritage dishes from different islands. Chef Kashia Cave, a noted Trinidadian trained chef and founder of My City Kitchen, a nonprofit that teaches culinary skills to young people will be your instructor for this class. This year, Chef Kashia is in Chef Carla Hall’s Favorite Chef competition. Attendees work in groups and at the end of the evening share in a feast of their final dishes with wine in our historic 7-sided Cobblestone Barn.

Menu:

Appetizers: Mini Jamaican Meat or Veg. Patties & Conch Ceviche

Main: Rice & Peas, Spicy Tamarind Chicken, & Caribbean Jicama Slaw

Dessert: Coconut Pone

Tickets $125 for members, $150 for non-members. Reservations are required and can be made with the online form below. Limited to 10 participants. Cancellations up to one week prior to the workshop will be given a full refund. Cancellations with less than one week’s notice will be refunded 75% of their registration amount.

Interested in a private event? Our historic foodways classes are a wonderful opportunity for your company get-together or a family outing to try something new and take away a delicious souvenir. If you’re interested in a private event, please contact programs@westporthistory.org.

Destination Westport: Saugatuck Stories
2024-08-10 09:30 - 10:30
Explore diverse experiences as you stroll through the riverside neighborhood of Saugatuck. Situated at the mouth of the Saugatuck River at the Long Island Sound, the area has been historically significant from before European colonization, through the 20th century. Explore commerce, including the Atlantic trade, as well as 19th and early 20th century immigrant and women’s experiences in the town through the history of this area.

Bring your walking shoes as the tour covers one mile. Meet at the Saugatuck Train Station, New York bound side (45 Railroad Place).

Tickets $10 for members, $15 for non-members. Reservations are required, register below. Tickets are nonrefundable. In the event you must cancel, we will consider your purchase a donation and will happily issue you a donation receipt.

Space is limited to 25 persons per tour. Additional tours may be added if demand requires. If you wish to join but the tour has been sold out or are interested in a private tour, please email your interest to programs@westporthistory.org

Chats on the Past: Waite “Schoolboy” Hoyt
2024-08-14 12:00 - 13:00
In conjunction with the Westport Museum’s exhibition “Playful Pastimes,” join Westport author Tim Manners to discuss Schoolboy: The Untold Journey of a Yankees Hero (University of Nebraska Press 2024).

Waite “Schoolboy” Hoyt’s improbable baseball journey began when the 1915 New York Giants signed him as a high school junior, for no pay and a five-dollar bonus. After nearly having both his hands amputated and holding his own with players twice his age in the hardscrabble Minor Leagues, he somehow ended up the best pitcher for the New York Yankees in the 1920s. Based on a trove of Hoyt’s writings and interview transcripts, Tim Manners has reanimated the baseball legend’s untold story, entirely in the pitcher’s own words. Schoolboy dives straight into early twentieth-century America and the birth of modern-day baseball, as well as Hoyt’s defining conflict: Should he have pursued something more respectable than being the best pitcher on the 1927 New York Yankees, arguably the greatest baseball team of all time?

Tickets for this virtual event are free for members and $5 for nonmembers. To watch this program please use the direct link in your emailed purchase receipt.

Register online below. Tickets are nonrefundable. In the event you must cancel, we will consider your purchase a donation and will happily issue you a donation receipt.

To learn more about our exhibit on the history of play click here.

Exhibition Curator Tour: “Playful Pastimes”
2024-09-12 19:00 - 20:00
Join our curators for a behind the scenes tour of our newest exhibit Playful Pastimes that explores the golden age of “accessible leisure” when everyday folks found themselves with leisure time and extra cash. See how Americans indulged in a variety of fun hobbies and activities from sand and surf to ports, board games, the circus or even bicycle races to name a few. You’ll glimpse unique artifacts from the Museum’s collection including images and artifacts from Westport’s sports teams, a wooden bicycle, an homage to silent film and much more. See the artifacts up close, and learn how this interactive big-top style exhibit came to life.

Tickets are $10 for nonmembers, free for members. Registration is available below. Tickets are nonrefundable. In the event you must cancel, we will consider your purchase a donation and will happily issue you a donation receipt.

Chats on the Past: Marilyn Chambers
2024-09-18 12:00 - 13:00
Join author Jared Stearns to discuss Pure: The Sexual Revolutions of Marilyn Chambers (Headpress 2024). The untold story of the world’s most famous X-rated star, the Westport native who rose to fame as the face of Ivory Snow laundry detergent (product tagline: 99 44/100% pure) and the star of Behind the Green Door but struggled to find her true self in a world of sex, scandal, and shattered dreams.

Chambers sustained a versatile three-decade career in entertainment, including roles in dramatic plays, a Broadway musical revue, her own television show, and the lead role in David Cronenberg’s film Rabid. But her success in adult films also proved to be her undoing. With recollections from family and friends, many of whom have never spoken publicly, along with Marilyn’s own words, and never-before-published photos, Jared Stearns vividly captures the revolutionary career of one of the twentieth century’s most misunderstood icons.

Tickets for this virtual event are free for members and $5 for nonmembers. To watch this program please use the direct link in your emailed purchase receipt.

Register online below. Tickets are nonrefundable. In the event you must cancel, we will consider your purchase a donation and will happily issue you a donation receipt.

To learn more about another groundbreaking Westport woman click here to explore our online exhibition about Sigrid Schultz.

“Dragon From Chicago” Short-Film Preview
2024-09-19 19:00 - 20:00
When the rise of the German Third Reich menaced the world, American journalist Sigrid Schultz risked it all to out-scoop her male rivals and give readers the unvarnished truth – whether they wanted it or not. In partnership with Plumline Films, preview the documentary created in-part with material from Westport Museum about the preeminent American correspondent who covered Germany for the entire period between the wars: From the liberal exuberance of Weimar Berlin to the rise and fall of the Nazi regime. Appointed the first-ever woman bureau chief for The Chicago Tribune, Schultz ingeniously broke some of the biggest stories of the age. She was one of the first to see the true threat Hitler posed and was ruefully derided as “that dragon from Chicago” by Hermann Goering, the infamous Nazi deputy leader. Facing constant threats of expulsion and worse, Schultz pierced through the veil of Nazi lies in every one of her stories.

However, for all her accomplishments, Schultz’s story has been largely – and perplexingly – left out of the history books. This full-length film will explore the full arc of her extraordinary career: from her heady days as a young cub reporter covering Germany’s messy, new democratic Weimar Republic; to writing in secret under the alias “John Dickson” to avoid Nazi censors; to her anguish at seeing the Buchenwald concentration camp, followed by her descent into relative obscurity in Westport, Connecticut. What was it like to witness such a catastrophe unfold in real time, and what made her one of the greatest foreign correspondents of the 20th Century?

The Thursday evening event will feature a short preview of the unfinished film, a talkback with the film’s producer, and admission to the one-night only display of museum artifacts owned by Schultz including her war correspondent uniform. Enjoy light refreshments while learning more about this historic woman with all the evening’s proceeds going to support the museum’s award-winning exhibitions, programs and research.

Get your member tickets for $5 now, $10 for non-members. Limited quantities will be available at the door. Purchase your tickets using the online form. Tickets are nonrefundable. In the event you must cancel, we will consider your purchase a donation and will happily issue you a donation receipt.

Refreshments provided by Mrs. London’s Bakery & Cafè.

To learn more about Sigrid Schultz’s legacy, read our blog post and explore our virtual exhibit on her life by clicking here.

Exclusive Behind-the-Scenes Tour of the Barnum Museum
2024-09-28 14:00 - 16:00 | Barnum Museum, 820 Main Street, Bridgeport, Connecticut, 06604, United States
A tornado closed the doors of the Barnum Museum in 2010. Since then, extensive repair and reconstruction have taken place at the Nationally Registered landmark. Now, for the first time a select number of visitors will be able to participate in an exclusive hard-hat tour to see the ongoing reimagining of the Barnum. This one-time tour has been created in connection with our exhibition “Playful Pastimes 1890-1910” focusing on the history of fun and games, as well as a Connecticut showman.

The Greatest Showman, P.T. Barnum created multiple museum’s including the American Museum in New York City. Barnum’s American Museum burned in 1865, and his rebuilt New Museum burned again in 1868. Following the fires Barnum left show business but in 1871 employed Westporter George Bunnell, who would become a successful showman himself. Barnum financially supported Bunnell’s New American Museum in New York in 1876. Finally, Barnum approved construction of Bridgeport’s Barnum Institute of Science and History (as the museum was originally known) as a celebration of American cultural and scientific achievement. Barnum never saw the Barnum Museum’s completion before his death in 1891, but the site became an icon for showman of the era including Bunnell.

The Saturday afternoon event at the Barnum Museum will feature a 30-minute hard-hat tour of the historic building and admission to an exhibit of items related to Barnum’s life including furniture owned by General Tom Thumb, who was among both Barnum and Bunnell’s most famed performers. Enjoy light refreshments, mocktails, and virtual content while waiting for your tour. The evening’s proceeds will go to support both the Barnum and the Westport Museum. One free admission ticket for the Westport Musuem’s exhibit (to be used through December 28th) is also included with your event purchase.

Get your tickets for $75 per person now using our online form. Only 20 tickets are available for this private tour. Tickets are fully refundable up to one week before the tour and 50% refundable up to 24 hours before the tour. In the event you must cancel, we will consider your purchase a donation and will happily issue you a donation receipt.

Can’t make the event but want to support the museum? Make a tax-deductible donation using our donation form linked here.

Daring Dinner Escape Room
2024-10-01 11:30 - 19:00, 2024-10-01 11:30 - 20:00, 2024-10-01 11:30 - 2025-06-28 20:00
As a famous reporter investigating the rising National Socialist German Workers’ Party in Germany, you’re not surprised to receive an invitation at the home of a top German General for a dinner party. After a tip that this General owns top-secret documents that could reveal vital information about what the Germans are planning, you accept. Arriving early, you sneak into the house and steal a glimpse of these documents before dinner starts. However, you are on a strict time limit – the General and his dinner guests will arrive in 60 minutes. If you are caught with these documents, the consequences will be dire. Can you find the information before you are found out?

This is a great group activity! Wonderful for birthdays, company activities or a club outing. Fun for the whole family, this escape room is recommended for children over eight. Online waiver acknowledgment is required prior to entry into the escape room. Those 17 and under must have the waiver signed by a parent or guardian. Participants under 15 must have an adult ticket holder in their group.

Tickets $20 for members, $25 for non-members. Groups of 2-10 people. Reservations are required, select your date and time online. Reservations close 48 hours prior to their posted start date. You may make your reservation private for an additional $10 per group.

Tickets may be purchased with the online form. To book a private session or use your member discount, please email the museum at info@westporthistory.org.

Time slots are available Tuesdays-Thursdays from 11:30 am to 5 pm; on Fridays and Saturdays slots run from 11:30 am through 8 pm. All reservations last for 60 minutes, with the recommendation of arriving 15 minutes prior to your start time.

Tickets are nonrefundable. In the event you must cancel, we will consider your purchase a donation and will happily issue you a donation receipt. Groups arriving 15 minutes after their reservation start time will have their reservation cancelled without a refund.

Sponsored, in part, by Cohen and Wolfe
