Greater New Haven Community Events Calendar

On Sunday, July 11, 2021, 2 p.m., Curator and Scholar Lynne Zacek Bassett will give a virtual talk titled, Textiles of the Homefront: Civil War Stories. To reserve a ticket attendees can visit the Events page on the Museum’s website at www.lockwoodmathewsmansion.com. Admission for member is complimentary and $5 for non-members.

“Looking at the Civil War through textiles allows us to understand the experience of the war in deeper terms than just through the usual analysis of battle strategy and heralding of military heroes,” Ms. Bassett said. ​“Quilts in particular, with their implicit and explicit messages, allow us to examine the experiences of civilians — especially women―on the home front.”

This lecture will discuss quilts from both the North and the South and how they represent the emotions and actions involved in sending loved ones to battle, the incessant work to keep soldiers clothed, warm, and properly aided in hospitals, and the work of healing after the war for veterans and civilians alike.

Lynne Zacek Bassett is an independent scholar specializing in New England’s historic costume and textiles. From 1995‒2000, she was the curator of textiles and fine arts at Old Sturbridge Village in Sturbridge, Massachusetts. Since going independent, Lynne has undertaken a number of large projects, including curating an exhibition and catalog for the Mark Twain House & Museum in Hartford, Modesty Died When Clothes Were Born: Costume in the Life and Literature of Mark Twain, for which she won the Costume Society of America’s Richard Martin Award for Excellence. From 2007 to 2017, Lynne was the guest curator of costumes and textiles for the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, also in Hartford. Her 2016 exhibition and catalog for the Wadsworth, Gothic to Goth: Romantic Era Fashion & Its Legacy, garnered enthusiastic reviews from bloggers and publications including the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. Another publication, Homefront & Battlefield: Quilts & Context in the Civil War, co-authored with Madelyn Shaw and published in 2012 by the American Textile History Museum of Lowell, Massachusetts, was awarded a bronze medal in history by the Independent Publisher Book Awards. Lynne was also the editor of Uncoverings, the annual journal of the American Quilt Study Group from 2011 to 2017. Her contribution to the field of historic costume and textiles has been recognized by the American Antiquarian Society, the Massachusetts Historical Society, Historic New England, and the International Quilt Museum, which have all elected her to membership in their honorary or advisory societies.

The Museum’s 2021 cultural and educational programs are made possible in part by generous funding from LMMM’s Founding Patrons: The Estate of Mrs. Cynthia Clark Brown; LMMM’s Leadership Patrons: The Sealark Foundation; LMMM’s 2021 Season Distinguished Benefactors: The City of Norwalk and The Maurice Goodman Foundation; King Industries, and LMMM’s 2021 Distinguished Benefactors for Education: The Daphne Seybolt Culpeper Memorial Foundation, Inc.

The Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum is a National Historic Landmark. For reservations and additional information on schedules and programs please visit our website: www.lockwoodmathewsmansion.com or call 203 – 838-9799, ext. 4.