In 1895, the son of a runaway slave overcame various obstacles and fought racial inequality as he embarked on a journey, becoming the first African-American college football player in the state of Iowa. He attended the University of Iowa and lead the Hawkeyes to their first-ever conference championship. Learn about this football pioneer, Frank Kinney Holbrook,…
Domestic Manners of the Americans is a 2-volume 1832 travel book by Frances Trollope, which follows her travels through America. The book created a sensation on both sides of the Atlantic, as Frances Trollope had a caustic view of Americans and found America strongly lacking in manners and learning. She was appalled by America’s egalitarian…
With Dr. Concetta Martone on ZOOM One of the most influential figures of the nineteenth century, William Morris, was a poet, a designer, and an activist for social reform. His ideas about art and production stimulated a new way of thinking about the design and making of household objects. Morris established a successful commercial enterprise…
The Ebenezer Maxwell Mansion proudly celebrates Black History Month with a double feature of two powerful one-act plays written and directed by Shav’on Smith. Tea with Frederick Douglass finds him trying out his famous speech “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” while examining his own past. A Life in Three Dresses tells the story of…
The Ebenezer Maxwell Mansion proudly celebrates Black History Month with a double feature of two powerful one-act plays written and directed by Shav’on Smith. Tea with Frederick Douglass finds him trying out his famous speech “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” while examining his own past. A Life in Three Dresses tells the story of…
The Ebenezer Maxwell Mansion proudly celebrates Black History Month with a double feature of two powerful one-act plays written and directed by Shav’on Smith. Tea with Frederick Douglass finds him trying out his famous speech “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” while examining his own past. A Life in Three Dresses tells the story of…
Ebenezer Maxwell Mansion is pleased to announce that our new interpretive docent-led tour Deep Rivers, is now live and in person at the Mansion. Our docents take you through the museum highlighting the lives, stories, and achievements of 19th-century Black entrepreneurs, intellectuals, and artisans with soundscapes and images. Sample a ginger cookie made from a recipe from …
"No Limit to Space" with Robert Hicks, Ph.D. Visitors to Ebenezer Maxwell Mansion might discover a curious object in the children’s room, a large 1871 cardboard planisphere that shows the stars, a rotating disk adjustable to the appearance of the night sky at any date or time. Designed for schools and the curious public, the planisphere…
Ebenezer Maxwell Mansion is pleased to announce that our new interpretive docent-led tour Deep Rivers, is now live and in person at the Mansion. Our docents take you through the museum highlighting the lives, stories, and achievements of 19th-century Black entrepreneurs, intellectuals, and artisans with soundscapes and images. Sample a ginger cookie made from a recipe from …
Sarah Orne Jewett’s story of a young medical woman remains an incisive rendering of the dilemmas of gender, society, and self. Nan Prince first becomes interested in medicine as a child, as the ward of the widowed physician Dr. Leslie. In time she becomes his protégée. But when she enters medical college, she realizes that…
