Join WDS and America's Tapestry to learn about the prominent role needle art is playing in our nation’s upcoming 250th anniversary. America’s Tapestry founder and director Stefan Romero will discuss the creation of this collaborative community embroidery project highlighting lesser-known stories from the American Revolution.
For the first time, the Webb Deane Stevens Museum brings live dance into its historic barn. Experience an in-the-round performance by The Hartford Dance Collective featuring new and established works that explore strength, resilience, and self-expression. Inspired by America's 250th anniversary, these bold dances amplify women's voices—in a space where the courage to claim one's own has always mattered. Seating is limited.
For the first time, the Webb Deane Stevens Museum brings live dance into its historic barn. Experience an in-the-round performance by The Hartford Dance Collective featuring new and established works that explore strength, resilience, and self-expression. Inspired by America's 250th anniversary, these bold dances amplify women's voices—in a space where the courage to claim one's own has always mattered. Seating is limited.
Join textile historian Ned Lazaro, Associate Curator of Textiles and Costumes at The Wadsworth Atheneum and former curator of textiles at Historic Deerfield for a moderated discussion on the history of collecting schoolgirl samplers and other forms of needlepoint in the United States.
They were allies, rivals, and collaborators — sometimes all at once. The Feuding Founders Collective launches at WDS with a daylong symposium exploring the real Silas Deane, John Jay, and the Lee brothers of Virginia. Walk the historic houses, hear from scholars at three partner sites, and discover why these 250-year-old rivalries feel so familiar. This is the real story — not the tidy one.
Travel back in time and experience our Annual Revolutionary War Encampment and Traditional Trades Fair. Join us all day for a fun, educational immersion in the Colonial era, including period music, open hearth cooking demonstrations, children’s colonial games, traditional craft-making, woodworking, masonry, weaving, musket demonstrations, camp tours with the 5th Connecticut Regiment, and so much more.
The Webb Dean Stevens Museum will celebrate the annual Connecticut Open House Day with reduced Museum admission all day and free self-guided tours of the first floor of the Deane house from 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Experience living history on a guided tour of our three historic homes, relax in our tranquil garden, and enjoy treasures both antique and modern in our thoughtfully curated gift shop.
One man painted the Revolution. Another held the Bible at Washington's inauguration. Both have deep Connecticut roots. Historian Damien Cregeau traces six extraordinary Revolutionary War lives—including Wethersfield's own Samuel Webb—in this richly illustrated presentation. In person and via Zoom. Books available for signing on-site.
Head Gardener Peter Winne explores the science and folklore behind the influence of sound on plant life—part lecture, part live demonstration, and completely unlike anything else on our calendar.
This companion lecture to the exhibition American Girlhood by guest curator Emily Whitted will explore the larger history of needlework as part of early American education for girls.
Join WDS for a summer concert in the Webb Barn on September 25. An intimate evening of live jazz.
Onsite at Jay Heritage Center in Rye, NY | Spy codes, smear campaigns, and fragile alliances: explore John Jay as diplomat and spymaster at the Jay Heritage Center in Rye, NY. Part of the Feuding Founders Collective.