Emily Dickinson Museum
Encyclopedia
The Emily Dickinson Museum is a historic house museum consisting of two houses: the Dickinson Homestead (also known as Emily Dickinson Home or Emily Dickinson House) and the Evergreens. The Dickinson Homestead was the birthplace and home from 1855-1886 of 19th-century American
poet
Emily Dickinson
(1830–1886), whose poems were discovered in her bedroom there after her death. The house next door, called the Evergreens, was built by the poet’s father, Edward Dickinson
, in 1856 as a wedding present for her brother William Austin Dickinson
. Located in Amherst
, Massachusetts
, the houses are preserved as a single museum and are open to the public on guided tours. The Emily Dickinson Home is a US National Historic Landmark
.
in the 1630s, thousands of English settlers flooded into the Massachusetts Bay Colony
, some spreading eastward into the lower lands of the Connecticut River Valley where the towns of Hartford and Wethersfield
were founded. In December 1658, a dissenting minority of strict Congregationalists in Hartford and Wethersfield purchased land from the Native Americans for the new town of Hadley
, farther south along the Connecticut River on a fertile peninsular plain. In 1734 an eastern section of Hadley was carved off to become a separate third precinct of Amherst
. At that time the territory was described as “being seven miles (11 km) in length and two and three-quarters miles in breadth, bounded on the north by Sunderland, on the east by equivalent lands, on the south by the Boston road and on the west by Hadley common lands” .
Nathan Dickinson Sr., Emily Dickinson’s great-great-grandfather, moved from Hatfield
to Amherst in 1742 when the land was allotted and surveyed. He notoriously expanded his lot “in the eastern division, north of the Pelham road” by trespassing on highway rights. By 1813, the Dickinson family’s grounds consisted of 11 acres (4.5 ha) of meadow south of the Pelham road—now called Main Street—and 3 acres (1.2 ha) north of the road where two houses were built: the Homestead in 1813 and the Evergreens in 1856.
The houses today are located at 280 Main Street, across the street from the First Congregational Church (constructed in 1739). The property is one block east of the center of town and two blocks north of Amherst College
. It is bounded on the south by Main Street, on the east by Triangle Street, on the north by Lessey Street, and on the east by a public lot. The property contains a wide lawn east of the buildings, site of the Dickinson family gardens.
, settled in Wethersfield, and later removed to Hadley. He was a leader in municipal and religious affairs, and a century later his descendants remained one of Amherst’s most influential families. In 1813, Nathaniel’s great-great-great-grandson and Emily Dickinson’s grandfather, Samuel Fowler Dickinson (1775–1838), built the imposing Dickinson Homestead on Main Street, its grandeur reflecting his prominence then as a lawyer and later as one of the founders of Amherst College
. However, his financial affairs were less secure, and by 1817, he had mortgaged the house for $2500; in 1825, he mortgaged the Homestead again, along with other properties, to Oliver Smith for $6,000. In 1828, when Samuel Fowler went bankrupt, Smith sold the mortgaged Homestead and other properties to John Leland and Nathan Dickinson, Samuel’s nephew.
, was born there. Three years later, a second girl, Lavinia Norcross Dickinson
, was born.
In 1833, persistent money troubles forced Edward to sell the Homestead back to Leland and Nathan, who in turn gave the entire property to General David Mack, Jr. Mack’s family entered the western half of the Homestead, while Edward and his family moved to the eastern half. They remained there until 1840, when they moved to a nearby house on West Street (now North Pleasant), overlooking Amherst’s West Cemetery. By 1855, fifteen years later, Edward had risen to prominence and wealth, boasting the financial wherewithal to purchase the entire Homestead and surrounding land for $6,000 after Mack’s death.
The family moved back to the Homestead in 1856. That same year, Edward began construction of The Evergreens house just west of the Homestead, presented as a wedding gift to his eldest son Austin and new wife Susan. Emily Dickinson remained in the Homestead until her death in 1886, writing almost all of her poems there. The poems were found in her bedroom after her death.
. In 1965, the Parke family sold the house to the Trustees of Amherst College. It was made open to the public for tours and also served as faculty housing.
Next door, Austin and Susan Dickinson lived at The Evergreens until their respective deaths in 1895 and 1913. Their only surviving child, Martha Dickinson Bianchi, continued to live in the house, and preserved it, without change, until her own death in 1943. Her heirs – co-editor Alfred Leete Hampson, and later his widow, Mary Landis Hampson – continued to preserve the house as a “time capsule” of a prosperous nineteenth-century household in a New England town, recognizing the tremendous historical and literary significance of a site left completely intact. The Emily Dickinson Home was designated a U.S. National Historic Landmark
in 1962. In 1991, The Evergreens passed to a private testamentary trust, the Martha Dickinson Bianchi Trust, which began developing the house as a museum.
To that end, The Emily Dickinson Museum was created on July 1, 2003, when ownership of The Evergreens was transferred by the Martha Dickinson Bianchi Trust to Amherst College. The merger of the houses and the 3 acres on which they stand restored the parts of the property to the estate Dickinson herself had known and furthers the College's long-standing and complex associations with the Dickinson family and its stewardship of Emily Dickinson’s poetry and other manuscripts.
The 1.5 acre (0.607029 ha) garden was tended by Emily, Lavinia, and their mother, and Emily often sent flowers along with notes to her acquaintances. A large barn stood directly behind the house to shelter the family’s horses, cow, and chickens and provide rooms for the groundskeeper. Linking the two Dickinson houses was a path described by Emily Dickinson as “just wide enough for two who love,” crossing the lawn from the back door of the Homestead to the east piazza of The Evergreens.
In the 1860s, Edward and Austin Dickinson planted a low hemlock hedge that spanned the street frontage of both houses.
The Homestead began as a fashionable Federal style house, built around 1813 for Samuel Fowler Dickinson and Lucretia Gunn Dickinson, Emily's grandparents. Probably the first brick house in Amherst, it was originally painted red to mask the color and texture variations of bricks and mortar.
Subsequent changes to the house in the 1830s and 1840s introduced Greek revival architectural features as well as stylish white paint on the facades exposed to more public scrutiny. Owner Mack “enlarged the attic space by replacing the hip roof with gables, raised the roof line on the north and south sides, and added a second story to the wooden ‘office’ on the west” (88).
Emily Dickinson's father, Edward, made extensive interior and exterior alterations to the Homestead in 1855. He built a brick addition for the kitchen and laundry on the back of the house, erected a veranda on the western side, embellished the roof with an Italianate cupola
, and built a conservatory
for Emily’s exotic plants. He finished the house in an ochre and off-white paint scheme, one that it wore until 1916, when new owners removed all layers of paint through a sandblasting process and painted the woodwork white in accord with early twentieth-century colonial revival tastes.
In 2004 the Homestead was repainted in its late-nineteenth-century colors to interpret more accurately the house as Emily Dickinson knew it. The restoration also removed aging storm windows, repainted areas of failing masonry, and restored nearly 100 shutters and other architectural elements.
Designed by well-known Northampton
architect
William Fenno Pratt, the house is one of the earliest and best-preserved examples of Italianate domestic architecture in Amherst. The house is still completely furnished with Dickinson family furniture, household accoutrements, and decor selected and displayed by the family during the nineteenth century.
Situated on two high terraces, The Evergreens was surrounded by cultivated planting beds and looked out to the west over a neighbor’s orchard. Austin Dickinson applied the design principles of Andrew Jackson Downing
and Frederick Law Olmsted
to The Evergreens’ landscape. His wife, Susan, tended flower gardens that were held in high regard by townspeople. The lawn between the Homestead and The Evergreens was carefully arranged with an informal distribution of trees and shrubs meant to suggest natural growth, a mix of local and exotic specimens, and open areas where family members played lawn tennis and badminton.
As Treasurer of Amherst College (1873–1895), Austin Dickinson was also deeply involved in landscaping of the College grounds, cultivating at the same time a close relationship with prominent landscape architects Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux
. He later led the effort to drain and beautify the town common, and spearheaded the drive to form a new style of park-like cemetery in Amherst after the fashion of Mt. Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge
.
, an association of ten museums in the Amherst area. It is owned by nearby Amherst College
. It also hosts a number of literary events that vary from year to year, including poetry readings and parties.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
Emily Dickinson
Emily Dickinson
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was an American poet. Born in Amherst, Massachusetts, to a successful family with strong community ties, she lived a mostly introverted and reclusive life...
(1830–1886), whose poems were discovered in her bedroom there after her death. The house next door, called the Evergreens, was built by the poet’s father, Edward Dickinson
Edward Dickinson
Edward Dickinson was an American politician from Massachusetts. He is best known as the father of the poet Emily Dickinson; their family home in Amherst, the Dickinson Homestead, is now a museum dedicated to her....
, in 1856 as a wedding present for her brother William Austin Dickinson
William Austin Dickinson
William Austin Dickinson was an American lawyer. Known to family and friends as "Austin", he was the older brother of the poet Emily Dickinson....
. Located in Amherst
Amherst, Massachusetts
Amherst is a town in Hampshire County, Massachusetts, United States in the Connecticut River valley. As of the 2010 census, the population was 37,819, making it the largest community in Hampshire County . The town is home to Amherst College, Hampshire College, and the University of Massachusetts...
, Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
, the houses are preserved as a single museum and are open to the public on guided tours. The Emily Dickinson Home is a US National Historic Landmark
National Historic Landmark
A National Historic Landmark is a building, site, structure, object, or district, that is officially recognized by the United States government for its historical significance...
.
Location
During the Great MigrationGreat Migration (Puritan)
The Puritan migration to New England was marked in its effects in the two decades from 1620 to 1640, after which it declined sharply for a while. The term Great Migration usually refers to the migration in this period of English settlers, primarily Puritans to Massachusetts and the warm islands of...
in the 1630s, thousands of English settlers flooded into the Massachusetts Bay Colony
Massachusetts Bay Colony
The Massachusetts Bay Colony was an English settlement on the east coast of North America in the 17th century, in New England, situated around the present-day cities of Salem and Boston. The territory administered by the colony included much of present-day central New England, including portions...
, some spreading eastward into the lower lands of the Connecticut River Valley where the towns of Hartford and Wethersfield
Wethersfield
Wethersfield may refer to:* RAF Wethersfield, a British Ministry of Defence training facility in Essex, England* Wethersfield, Connecticut* Wethersfield, Essex, an English village near RAF Wethersfield* Wethersfield, New York* Wethersfield, Vermont...
were founded. In December 1658, a dissenting minority of strict Congregationalists in Hartford and Wethersfield purchased land from the Native Americans for the new town of Hadley
Hadley
- People :Surname* Arthur Twining Hadley , American economist* George Hadley, meteorologist, hence also:** Hadley cell** Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research...
, farther south along the Connecticut River on a fertile peninsular plain. In 1734 an eastern section of Hadley was carved off to become a separate third precinct of Amherst
Amherst, Massachusetts
Amherst is a town in Hampshire County, Massachusetts, United States in the Connecticut River valley. As of the 2010 census, the population was 37,819, making it the largest community in Hampshire County . The town is home to Amherst College, Hampshire College, and the University of Massachusetts...
. At that time the territory was described as “being seven miles (11 km) in length and two and three-quarters miles in breadth, bounded on the north by Sunderland, on the east by equivalent lands, on the south by the Boston road and on the west by Hadley common lands” .
Nathan Dickinson Sr., Emily Dickinson’s great-great-grandfather, moved from Hatfield
Hatfield, Massachusetts
Hatfield is a town in Hampshire County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 3,249 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Springfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area....
to Amherst in 1742 when the land was allotted and surveyed. He notoriously expanded his lot “in the eastern division, north of the Pelham road” by trespassing on highway rights. By 1813, the Dickinson family’s grounds consisted of 11 acres (4.5 ha) of meadow south of the Pelham road—now called Main Street—and 3 acres (1.2 ha) north of the road where two houses were built: the Homestead in 1813 and the Evergreens in 1856.
The houses today are located at 280 Main Street, across the street from the First Congregational Church (constructed in 1739). The property is one block east of the center of town and two blocks north of Amherst College
Amherst College
Amherst College is a private liberal arts college located in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. Amherst is an exclusively undergraduate four-year institution and enrolled 1,744 students in the fall of 2009...
. It is bounded on the south by Main Street, on the east by Triangle Street, on the north by Lessey Street, and on the east by a public lot. The property contains a wide lawn east of the buildings, site of the Dickinson family gardens.
Early history
Nathaniel Dickinson (-1676) was among the colonists who left England in 1629 on the Winthrop FleetWinthrop Fleet
The Winthrop Fleet was a group of eleven sailing ships under the leadership of John Winthrop that carried approximately 700 Puritans plus livestock and provisions from England to New England over the summer of 1630.-Motivation:...
, settled in Wethersfield, and later removed to Hadley. He was a leader in municipal and religious affairs, and a century later his descendants remained one of Amherst’s most influential families. In 1813, Nathaniel’s great-great-great-grandson and Emily Dickinson’s grandfather, Samuel Fowler Dickinson (1775–1838), built the imposing Dickinson Homestead on Main Street, its grandeur reflecting his prominence then as a lawyer and later as one of the founders of Amherst College
Amherst College
Amherst College is a private liberal arts college located in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. Amherst is an exclusively undergraduate four-year institution and enrolled 1,744 students in the fall of 2009...
. However, his financial affairs were less secure, and by 1817, he had mortgaged the house for $2500; in 1825, he mortgaged the Homestead again, along with other properties, to Oliver Smith for $6,000. In 1828, when Samuel Fowler went bankrupt, Smith sold the mortgaged Homestead and other properties to John Leland and Nathan Dickinson, Samuel’s nephew.
In her lifetime
In March 1830, Samuel Fowler Dickinson’s eldest son Edward purchased the western half of the Homestead for $1,500, and moved in with his wife and young son Austin. Nine months later, on December 10, their second child, Emily DickinsonEmily Dickinson
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was an American poet. Born in Amherst, Massachusetts, to a successful family with strong community ties, she lived a mostly introverted and reclusive life...
, was born there. Three years later, a second girl, Lavinia Norcross Dickinson
Lavinia Norcross Dickinson
Lavinia Norcross Dickinson was the younger sister of famed American poet, Emily Dickinson.Lavinia, "Vinnie", Dickinson was instrumental in achieving the posthumous publication of her sister's poems after having discovered the forty-odd manuscripts in which Emily had collected her work...
, was born.
In 1833, persistent money troubles forced Edward to sell the Homestead back to Leland and Nathan, who in turn gave the entire property to General David Mack, Jr. Mack’s family entered the western half of the Homestead, while Edward and his family moved to the eastern half. They remained there until 1840, when they moved to a nearby house on West Street (now North Pleasant), overlooking Amherst’s West Cemetery. By 1855, fifteen years later, Edward had risen to prominence and wealth, boasting the financial wherewithal to purchase the entire Homestead and surrounding land for $6,000 after Mack’s death.
The family moved back to the Homestead in 1856. That same year, Edward began construction of The Evergreens house just west of the Homestead, presented as a wedding gift to his eldest son Austin and new wife Susan. Emily Dickinson remained in the Homestead until her death in 1886, writing almost all of her poems there. The poems were found in her bedroom after her death.
Later history
The longest-lived member of the family was Lavinia, Emily’s younger sister, who lived on at the Homestead until she died in 1899. At that time, the Homestead was inherited by Austin’s daughter, Martha Dickinson Bianchi, and leased to tenants until 1916, when it was sold to the Parke family. In 1963, in response to the growing popularity of Emily Dickinson, the house was designated a National Historic LandmarkNational Historic Landmark
A National Historic Landmark is a building, site, structure, object, or district, that is officially recognized by the United States government for its historical significance...
. In 1965, the Parke family sold the house to the Trustees of Amherst College. It was made open to the public for tours and also served as faculty housing.
Next door, Austin and Susan Dickinson lived at The Evergreens until their respective deaths in 1895 and 1913. Their only surviving child, Martha Dickinson Bianchi, continued to live in the house, and preserved it, without change, until her own death in 1943. Her heirs – co-editor Alfred Leete Hampson, and later his widow, Mary Landis Hampson – continued to preserve the house as a “time capsule” of a prosperous nineteenth-century household in a New England town, recognizing the tremendous historical and literary significance of a site left completely intact. The Emily Dickinson Home was designated a U.S. National Historic Landmark
National Historic Landmark
A National Historic Landmark is a building, site, structure, object, or district, that is officially recognized by the United States government for its historical significance...
in 1962. In 1991, The Evergreens passed to a private testamentary trust, the Martha Dickinson Bianchi Trust, which began developing the house as a museum.
Founding of the Museum
Collaborations between the Homestead and The Evergreens began as the Martha Dickinson Bianchi Trust prepared to open Austin Dickinson’s house to the public in the late 1990s. The success of these joint efforts suggested that uniting as one museum would have great advantages for the public as well as for administration and governance of the sites. Together the houses tell a more complete story about the poet, her family, and the world in which she lived.To that end, The Emily Dickinson Museum was created on July 1, 2003, when ownership of The Evergreens was transferred by the Martha Dickinson Bianchi Trust to Amherst College. The merger of the houses and the 3 acres on which they stand restored the parts of the property to the estate Dickinson herself had known and furthers the College's long-standing and complex associations with the Dickinson family and its stewardship of Emily Dickinson’s poetry and other manuscripts.
Architecture and landscaping
The Dickinson family’s grounds on Main Street consisted of 11 acres of meadow south of the thoroughfare and 3 acres north of the road on which the Homestead and The Evergreens were situated.The 1.5 acre (0.607029 ha) garden was tended by Emily, Lavinia, and their mother, and Emily often sent flowers along with notes to her acquaintances. A large barn stood directly behind the house to shelter the family’s horses, cow, and chickens and provide rooms for the groundskeeper. Linking the two Dickinson houses was a path described by Emily Dickinson as “just wide enough for two who love,” crossing the lawn from the back door of the Homestead to the east piazza of The Evergreens.
In the 1860s, Edward and Austin Dickinson planted a low hemlock hedge that spanned the street frontage of both houses.
The Homestead
Subsequent changes to the house in the 1830s and 1840s introduced Greek revival architectural features as well as stylish white paint on the facades exposed to more public scrutiny. Owner Mack “enlarged the attic space by replacing the hip roof with gables, raised the roof line on the north and south sides, and added a second story to the wooden ‘office’ on the west” (88).
Emily Dickinson's father, Edward, made extensive interior and exterior alterations to the Homestead in 1855. He built a brick addition for the kitchen and laundry on the back of the house, erected a veranda on the western side, embellished the roof with an Italianate cupola
Cupola
In architecture, a cupola is a small, most-often dome-like, structure on top of a building. Often used to provide a lookout or to admit light and air, it usually crowns a larger roof or dome....
, and built a conservatory
Conservatory (greenhouse)
A conservatory is a room having glass roof and walls, typically attached to a house on only one side, used as a greenhouse or a sunroom...
for Emily’s exotic plants. He finished the house in an ochre and off-white paint scheme, one that it wore until 1916, when new owners removed all layers of paint through a sandblasting process and painted the woodwork white in accord with early twentieth-century colonial revival tastes.
In 2004 the Homestead was repainted in its late-nineteenth-century colors to interpret more accurately the house as Emily Dickinson knew it. The restoration also removed aging storm windows, repainted areas of failing masonry, and restored nearly 100 shutters and other architectural elements.
The Evergreens
Northampton
Northampton is a large market town and local government district in the East Midlands region of England. Situated about north-west of London and around south-east of Birmingham, Northampton lies on the River Nene and is the county town of Northamptonshire. The demonym of Northampton is...
architect
Architect
An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...
William Fenno Pratt, the house is one of the earliest and best-preserved examples of Italianate domestic architecture in Amherst. The house is still completely furnished with Dickinson family furniture, household accoutrements, and decor selected and displayed by the family during the nineteenth century.
Situated on two high terraces, The Evergreens was surrounded by cultivated planting beds and looked out to the west over a neighbor’s orchard. Austin Dickinson applied the design principles of Andrew Jackson Downing
Andrew Jackson Downing
Andrew Jackson Downing was an American landscape designer, horticulturalist, and writer, a prominent advocate of the Gothic Revival style in the United States, and editor of The Horticulturist magazine...
and Frederick Law Olmsted
Frederick Law Olmsted
Frederick Law Olmsted was an American journalist, social critic, public administrator, and landscape designer. He is popularly considered to be the father of American landscape architecture, although many scholars have bestowed that title upon Andrew Jackson Downing...
to The Evergreens’ landscape. His wife, Susan, tended flower gardens that were held in high regard by townspeople. The lawn between the Homestead and The Evergreens was carefully arranged with an informal distribution of trees and shrubs meant to suggest natural growth, a mix of local and exotic specimens, and open areas where family members played lawn tennis and badminton.
As Treasurer of Amherst College (1873–1895), Austin Dickinson was also deeply involved in landscaping of the College grounds, cultivating at the same time a close relationship with prominent landscape architects Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux
Calvert Vaux
Calvert Vaux , was an architect and landscape designer. He is best remembered as the co-designer , of New York's Central Park....
. He later led the effort to drain and beautify the town common, and spearheaded the drive to form a new style of park-like cemetery in Amherst after the fashion of Mt. Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge
Cambridge
The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...
.
Museum
Guided and self-guided tours of the Emily Dickinson Museum are offered from April through December. The grounds and gardens are open to the public, but the interiors of both houses are only accessible by guided tour. Specially themed tours change periodically.Associations
The Emily Dickinson Museum is a member of Museums10Museums10
Museums10 is a consortium of art, science, and history museums in Western Massachusetts. It is composed of museums from the Five Colleges and Historic Deerfield.-Art museums:*The Mead Art Museum...
, an association of ten museums in the Amherst area. It is owned by nearby Amherst College
Amherst College
Amherst College is a private liberal arts college located in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. Amherst is an exclusively undergraduate four-year institution and enrolled 1,744 students in the fall of 2009...
. It also hosts a number of literary events that vary from year to year, including poetry readings and parties.
See also
External links
- Emily Dickinson Museum website
- "Amherst, Mass homes offer glimpse of Emily Dickinson's world" 2004 article on the founding of the Museum
- "A door to Emily Dickinson's past"
- "Working the graveyard shift with Emily Dickinson" Participant describes the Museum's annual 19-hour Poetry Marathon event.
- "Emily Dickinson's life inspires group to plan trip to her homestead"