E-Update Header

February 2007

In this issue
-- Your Feedback Can Help Us Plan Our Next Tour Program
-- If These Walls Could Talk: Electricians Re-Wire the Homestead
-- March 28 "Wider than the Sky": The Healing Power of Emily Dickinson
-- March 30 Poetry Discussion Group
-- April 28-29 "A little Madness in the Spring"
-- Museum Board Member Wins Conch Shell Award

Greetings!

Greetings from the Emily Dickinson Museum! The Museum's first e-update was met with resounding support last month, so we are excited to be able to offer you our second installment. This month, we’re breaking even more electronic ground. We are inviting all of you to give us feedback that we hope will help us as we plan our next tour experience – an architecture-inspired tour that focuses on 200 years of building projects and improvements on the property. The survey should only take you a few moments to complete and the results will be invaluable to us.

Here in Amherst, Massachusetts it’s quite cold, but inside the Homestead and the Evergreens things are warming up as we prepare for our 2007 season to open on Saturday, March 3. In preparation for a blockbuster year, we have extended our Tour Center's hours, opening at 12:30 and closing at 5:30 p.m. In March, we’re open Wednesdays and Saturdays and in April, our schedule extends to Wednesdays through Sundays. For a complete operating schedule, be sure to visit our website. With extended hours and new tours, we hope you’ll find even more reasons to stop by and visit us at the Emily Dickinson Museum.


Your Feedback Can Help Us Plan Our Next Tour Program
Starting in April, the Emily Dickinson Museum will offer three different tours – two guided tours of the Homestead and/or the Evergreens and an audio tour that lets visitors meander through Emily’s garden, stopping at outdoor spots on the three-acre property that were significant to the poet and her family.

The Museum isn’t stopping with three tours, however. Set to launch this summer is a brand new architecture tour that lets visitors understand the stylistic choices and building improvements that took place on the property throughout Dickinson’s lifetime and beyond. That’s where museum friends like you come in. We would love feedback on your ideal tour. Click here to complete a brief online survey. Your answers are appreciated!


If These Walls Could Talk: Electricians Re-Wire the Homestead
In the next few months, the Museum will be a bit busier than usual as electricians introduce 2007 electrical wiring to the nearly 200-year-old Homestead . It is believed that the Homestead was wired for electricity at some point after Martha Dickinson Bianchi sold it to the Parkes in 1916.The Evergreens was wired some time between 1893 and 1910 and was rewired in 2002.

This will be the first complete electrical overhaul for the Homestead; the job was made a priority during the Museum’s capital campaign which raised $705,000 for improvements that included, among other things, redoing the electrical system and installing state-of- the-art fire detection and sprinkler systems to protect both homes in case of a fire. An exciting perk when it comes to rewiring the Homestead? Staff members will have the chance to look in cracks and crannies that haven’t been exposed in 100 years. If these walls could talk!


March 28 "Wider than the Sky": The Healing Power of Emily Dickinson
The world over, readers have turned to Dickinson’s poetry during times of grief or loss and found comfort and healing. Editors Cindy MacKenzie and Barbara Dana explore essays and meditations on the healing power of Emily Dickinson in their forthcoming book by the same name. At 7 p.m. on March 28 at the Homestead, MacKenzie and Dana will read excerpts from their book and share selected poems that helped them get through hard times. Audience members are invited to participate in the discussion. No charge but reserve your seat by e-mailing Nan Fischlein.


March 30 Poetry Discussion Group
Want a monthly outing that’s pure poetry? Literary scholar Margaret Freeman leads the Emily Dickinson Museum’s Poetry Discussion Group on Friday, March 30 from noon to 2 p.m. Membership in the group is limited to 12 people and the fee to join is $50. The group meets from September through May. To inquire about securing a regular space in the group, call 413-542-8429 or e-mail Cindy Dickinson.


April 28-29 "A little Madness in the Spring"
Mark your calendars. The Emily Dickinson Museum’s fourth annual celebration of National Poetry Month turns into a sometimes serious, sometimes silly weekend-long celebration of all things literary. Festivities include the official launch of the Museum's new landscape audio tour Grounds of Memory, a talk on the nature of portraiture inspired by A Light Within the Light featuring editor Jeanne Braham and illustrator Barry Moser, a panel discussion moderated by the Juniper Literary Festival and a fun day devoted to the colorful history of man's best friend in honor of the poet's dog Carlo. A complete schedule of "Madness in the Spring" events will be released soon. Check the Museum's website in March for a full schedule of events.


Museum Board Member Wins Conch Shell Award
On Tuesday, February 13, Emily Dickinson Museum board member and former board chair Polly Longsworth was honored by the Amherst Historical Society with the organization’s first Conch Shell Award. The award recognizes historians and others with a deep commitment to Amherst history. Longsworth has contributed greatly to the body of knowledge of both Amherst and Emily Dickinson. She has written several books on the Amherst Dickinsons in addition to serving on the board of the Emily Dickinson Museum. When the Homestead and The Evergreens merged, creating the Emily Dickinson Museum, Longsworth became the first chair of its Board of Governors. Under her leadership, the Museum successfully completed its first capital campaign and unveiled its Master Plan. Longsworth stepped down as board president this past fall to work on her long-planned biography of the poet. Her service to both Amherst and the Emily Dickinson Museum is much appreciated!


The Emily Dickinson Museum: The Homestead and The Evergreens is dedicated to educating diverse audiences about the poet's life, family, creative work, times, and enduring relevance, and to preserving and interpreting the Homestead and The Evergreens as historical resources for the benefit of scholars and the general public. The Emily Dickinson Museum is owned by the Trustees of Amherst College and has its own Board of Governors, which is charged with the responsibility of raising the Museum’s operating and capital funds. To find out how you can support the Emily Dickinson Museum, click here.



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