Cherished Possessions: A New England Legacy

NEW YORK CITY

:Motivated by concern that "our New England antiquities are fast disappearing because no society has made their preservation its exclusive object," Boston blueblood William Sumner Appleton and a group of like-minded citizens founded the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities (SPNEA) in 1910. The first organization of its kind in America, from the start its mission has been to protect the region's architectural and cultural heritage.

Today, SPNEA, which recently changed its name to Historic New England, maintains 35 historic houses open to the public and sited on 1,350 acres. The organization's vast collections comprise more than 110,000 items, running the gamut from furniture, household objects and needlework to costumes, decorative arts and paintings. Historic New England owns more than 1.5 million historical photographs, architectural drawings and other documents relating to New England.

Drawing from these extensive holdings, Historic New England curator Nancy Carlisle has organized Historic New England's first major traveling exhibition, "Cherished Possessions: A New England Legacy," currently on view at the Bard Graduate Center. More than 175 objects were chosen not only for their visual and aesthetic appeal, but also for the stories they tell about nearly 400 years of regional life.