Dance Class with The Hartford Dance Collective [New Date TBA]
2026-05-09 10:00 - 11:00 (America/New_York) | WDS Museum, 211 Main Street, Wethersfield, CT, 06109
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May 9 Dance Class has been postponed. A new date will be announced shortly.
Dance with us! Join us one Saturday a month at 10 am to awaken your creativity and get moving. Each month, a choreographer from the Hartford Dance Collective will lead an open-level dance class designed to build curiosity, strength, range of motion and confidence in your own movement. Classes include warm-ups, exercises in mobility, and dynamic choreography phrasework. If you’ve been dancing all your life, are a former dancer, or have never danced before, YOU ARE WELCOME HERE! Move your body freely in a supportive community, surrounded by art and our beautiful Colonial Revival Garden.
Date: May 9
Tickets: $20
The Hartford Dance Collective | The Hartford Dance Collective aims to empower women to have a voice and an equal opportunity in dance by providing choreographic and leadership opportunities. By sharing professional contemporary dance with new audiences and providing performances in diverse locations, they work to bridge the gap between the arts and the community. Their studio space at Parkville Sounds in Hartford, CT, provides creatives with a home to hone in on their movement vocabulary, and they hold the belief that everyone can dance and everyone should. www.thedancecollective.org

PERFORMANCE | American Contemporary Dances with The Hartford Dance Collective
2026-05-09 14:00 - 15:30 | WDS Museum, 211 Main Street, Wethersfield, CT, 06109
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Join us in the intimate Webb barn for the Museum’s first commissioned dance performance! Experience dance in-the-round, featuring new and established works by The Hartford Dance Collective. Rooted in themes of female empowerment, the dances explore strength, resilience, and self-expression through bold physicality and nuanced storytelling. Inspired by America’s 250th anniversary, the Collective enriches the story of our nation’s founding by amplifying women’s voices and experiences. Surrounded by history and audience alike, the dancers invite viewers into a shared space where past and present converge—where the courage to claim one’s voice echoes the spirit of those who shaped a new nation within these very walls.
About This Commission In commissioning this work, the Museum celebrates both a milestone and a continuation: bringing contemporary artists into dialogue with a site where questions of identity, purpose, and collective future have always lived.
PERFORMANCE | Saturday, May 9, 2 PM

12:30 PM | VIP Ticket Holders Pre-Performance talkback with Hartford Dance Collective
1:15 PM | Doors open
1:15-2:00 PM | Cash Bar, furnished by Vino Crudo
2:00 PM | Performance in-the-round

TICKETS | $18 / $25 / $30 / $45
Students (16-22) | $18
Members | $25
General Admission | $30
Inner Circle VIP | $45

Premiere seating: first two rows
Pre-performance talk-back with dancers and choreographers of Hartford Dance Collective
Early-admission
Reserved Parking
Access to one open rehearsal on May 1 at the HDC studios

Hartford Dance Collective | The Hartford Dance Collective bridges the gap between dance and community by curating unique and accessible performances led by female identifying choreographers and offering open adult movement classes that foster artistic expression, connection, and inclusivity.
Since July 2017, the Hartford Dance Collective has curated performances in unique settings, featuring female choreographers from across the nation. We have shared dance at the Connecticut Convention Center, the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Mortensen Riverfront Plaza, ShapeShifter Lab, Real Art Ways, TheaterWorks Hartford, Dunkin Park, Parkville Market, & multiple breweries around the Connecticut, to name a few; and we aim to continue to share the art form with a wide range of demographics. Along with many small programs that we present throughout the year,
The Hartford Dance Collective curates the annual Hartford Dance Festival in Elizabeth Park with 25 performing groups, which is the largest free dance festival in Connecticut. Our studio space in Hartford, Connecticut, provides creatives with a home to hone in on their movement vocabulary and the opportunity for us to bring professional dancers to Hartford including dancers from Pilobolus, David Dorfman Dance, the Limon Company, the Radio City Rockettes, Doug Varone and Dancers, the Merce Cunningham Trust, and the Brooklynettes, to name a few. We hold the belief that everyone can dance and everyone should. Our professional and inspiring studio hosts open adult movement classes for the community featuring the Collective’s Resident Artists and Guest Instructors. A perfect place for a dancer to train, a former dancer to reignite their love for movement, or a member of the community looking to practice dance movement as a form of exercise, art, or meditation. Movement allows us to escape, which drives our commitment to curating experiences that allow for discovery and connection.

TEA | Mother's Day Tea
2026-05-10 10:00 - 11:30 | WDS Museum, 211 Main Street, Wethersfield, CT, 06109
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Treat the special women in your life to an elegant Mother’s Day filled with flowers and flavor. Enjoy music and a morning stroll through our gardens with WDS Head Gardener Pete Winne, learning about the blooms and blossoms that shine in early Spring. Then share tea, cake, and conversation overlooking the beautiful grounds. Whether you’re celebrating a mother, grandmother, daughter, or dear friend, this is a gracious way to honor the women who you hold dear.
Mother’s Day Tea Menu*
Savory Bites
Egg Tartlett (DF, GF)
Smoked Salmon Finger Sandwiches
Cucumber & Cheddar Finger Sandwiches
Coronation Chicken Tea Sandwich

Sweet Treats
Assorted Scones with Cream & Jam
Fruit Tart
Flourless Chocolate Torte (GF)
Bakewell Tart

Beverages
Blackberry Iced Tea
Strawberry Lemonade
Selection of Hot Tea
*Menu subject to change. Please share allergens and food sensitivities to rdumouchel@wdsmuseum.org

Note: Each event is limited to 20 guests. To book a private tour and tea for your friends and family, contact events@wdsmuseum.org.

LECTURE | The Art of Collecting
2026-05-14 19:00 - 20:00 | WDS Museum, 211 Main Street, Wethersfield, CT, 06109
LECTURE | The Art of Collecting with Ned Lazaro
Thursday, May 14, 7:00 PM
Purchase Tickets
What drives someone to seek out a two-hundred-year-old sampler—and what does that impulse tell us about who we are? 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. From early needlework to printed broadsides, discover how these rescued objects shaped our understanding of material culture—and why they still matter.
Tickets: $15 |$12.50 Virtual | $10 Members
This lecture will be offered in person and via Zoom.
*Zoom link will be provided in advance of the lecture to Members and Virtual ticket holders.

Ned Lazaro | David E. (Ned) Lazaro is the Associate Curator of Costume and Textiles at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford, Connecticut. He manages a collection of roughly 7,500 items, including costumes and textiles ranging from Egyptian artifacts to contemporary fashion. Lazaro specializes in interpreting fashion history, including 18th-to-20th-century deportment.

FEUDING FOUNDERS COLLECTIVE | Wethersfield Symposium: The Making of Silas Deane
2026-05-16 10:00 - 15:00 | WDS Museum, 211 Main Street, Wethersfield, CT, 06109
Walk the rooms where history unfolded. Then hear from the historians who know them best.
SCHEDULE
10:00 AM | Welcome & Orientation
10:30 AM | Tour: Webb and Deane Houses
12:00 PM | Lunch in the Webb Barn
1:00 PM | Historian Roundtable
3:00 PM | Walk to Wethersfield Cove Warehouse with the Wethersfield Historical Society
Roundtable also available via Zoom—$8

TICKETS
Full Day + Lunch: $55 | $50 Members
House Tours & Roundtable Discussion: $20 In Person | $15 Members
Virtual Roundtable Discussion: $8
Member pricing available to members of all four partner institutions.
Purchase Tickets

About the Symposium
We tend to remember the founders as marble men — monumental, unified, certain. The truth is messier and more interesting. The Feuding Founders Collective is a multi-site public history initiative that humanizes Silas Deane, John Jay, and the Lee brothers of Virginia—men who were in conversation, in collaboration, and sometimes in conflict with one another.
Meet the men behind America’s founding in this daylong exploration of Deane and his relationship to John Jay and the Lee brothers. Tour the Webb and Deane Houses, then join a roundtable featuring historians from Jay Heritage Center (NY), Menokin & Stratford Hall (VA), and the Webb Deane Stevens Museum (CT). This is the first in a three-part series across three states.
How does a man of middling origins rise to become America’s first diplomat—then plummet to disgrace? How did the Lee brothers leverage Virginia’s planter aristocracy into political influence? How did Jay’s legal prowess place him at the center of revolutionary diplomacy? This is a day for people who want the real story—not the tidy one.
Begin with a guided tour of the Webb and Deane Houses—stand in the rooms where political debates unfolded and military strategy was weighed. Share a meal in the Webb Barn. Hear from historians representing each partner institution as they build a more layered, more human portrait of Jay, the Lees, and Deane—their relationships to power and to one another. The day closes at the Wethersfield Cove Warehouse, the very waterfront where Deane built the merchant trade that launched everything.
In an era of weaponized media and public takedowns, these 250-year-old stories feel less like history and more like a mirror.

Attend All Three
Each roundtable discussion will be livestreamed on Zoom. Attend all events onsite, online, or a combination!
Webb Deane Stevens Museum | The Making of Silas Deane—May 16, Wethersfield, CT
Jay Heritage Center | John Jay, Diplomat and Spymaster—September 26, Rye, NY [Register your interest with an email to Suzanne Clary: jayheritagecenter@gmail.com]
Stratford Hall & Menokin | The Lee—Deane Conflict and the Political “Bloodbath” of 1778—November 8, Stratford, Virginia

WDS BOOK CLUB | The Great Contradiction: The Tragic Side of the American Founding
2026-06-09 18:00 - 20:00 | WDS Museum, 211 Main Street, Wethersfield, CT, 06109
Calling all bookworms, history buffs, preservationists and culture mavens! Join us for our NEW year-long book club, accompanied by a lecture series with acclaimed authors.
This month we’re reading:
The Great Contradiction: The Tragic Side of the American Founding
By Joseph Ellis
(Available on audible)
Tuesday, June 9, 6 pm | In Person and Virtual
Moderated by TR Revella-Hamilton, WDS Director of Preservation & Collections
Meet fellow history enthusiasts in person as we discuss thought-provoking books by acclaimed authors. Our carefully curated monthly selections delve into the rich tapestry of American and European history, featuring compelling works about revolutionary figures, historic preservation, decorative arts, and stories that shaped our cultural landscape. Whether you’re a seasoned historian, preservation enthusiast, or simply curious about the stories behind our built heritage, there’s a place for you in our community of learners.
JOIN BOOK CLUB

How it Works: Book Club meets bimonthly at the Museum and via Zoom on the second Tuesday of each designated month, unless otherwise noted. Book Club members will receive the newest book title via email two months prior to the book club date. You may join Book Club at any point during the year. Come when you can – there is no penalty for missing a session.
Book Club 2026 “Library Card” Annual Fee*: $25 General | $20 Museum Members | $15 Students
Your Book Club Library Card entitles you to in-person and virtual Book Club sessions, as well as discounted admission to the accompanying Book Talks lecture series held on Thursdays at the Museum.

LECTURE | Roots & Rhythms (New Date TBD)
2026-06-28 11:30 - 12:30 | WDS Museum, 211 Main Street, Wethersfield, CT, 06109
This event has been postponed. Contact rdumouchel@wdsmuseum.org to be notified when a new date is chosen.
Roots & Rhythms: A Garden Talk with Pete Winne Sunday, June 28 | 11:30 AM | Webb Barn
What does tending a garden have in common with playing a folk song? More than you might think. Join WDS head gardener Pete Winne for a one-of-a-kind presentation weaving together the art of horticulture and the art of musical expression—illustrated live with folk music. Part lecture, part performance, entirely unexpected.
Tickets: $15 | Children under 12 FREE
Offered in celebration of Connecticut Historic Gardens Day.
About Peter Winne | Hartford-based horticulturist Peter Winne designs and cares for gardens in public parks and on unique and historic residential properties in Connecticut and New York. He founded Peter Winne Gardens in 2021 after four years as Head Gardener at Elizabeth Park, home of the nation’s oldest public rose garden. Pete apprenticed under rosarian Stephen Scanniello, curator of the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden at New York Botanical Garden, and has received additional mentoring from Michael Shoup of the Antique Rose Emporium in Brenham, Texas and Gregg Lowery of The Friends of Vintage Roses in Sebastopol, California. He holds a BA in Urban Planning from Vassar College, an MA from the Gallatin School at NYU, and a Landscape Design Certificate from Naugatuck Valley Community College. Prior to going into horticulture full-time, he performed in the US and Europe as a touring bluegrass musician. He currently lives in his hometown of Hartford where he still occasionally performs.

WDS BOOK CLUB | The Painter's Fire: A Forgotten History of the Artists Who Championed the American Revolution
2026-08-11 18:00 - 20:00 | WDS Museum, 211 Main Street, Wethersfield, CT, 06109
Calling all bookworms, history buffs, preservationists and culture mavens! Join us for our NEW year-long book club, accompanied by a lecture series with acclaimed authors.
This month we’re reading:
The Painter’s Fire: A Forgotten History of the Artists Who Championed the American Revolution
By Zara Anishanslin
(Available on Audible)
Tuesday, August 11, 6 pm | In Person and Virtual
Moderated by TR Revella-Hamilton, WDS Director of Preservation & Collections
Meet fellow history enthusiasts in person as we discuss thought-provoking books by acclaimed authors. Our carefully curated monthly selections delve into the rich tapestry of American and European history, featuring compelling works about revolutionary figures, historic preservation, decorative arts, and stories that shaped our cultural landscape. Whether you’re a seasoned historian, preservation enthusiast, or simply curious about the stories behind our built heritage, there’s a place for you in our community of learners.
JOIN BOOK CLUB

How it Works: Book Club meets bimonthly at the Museum and via Zoom on the second Tuesday of each designated month, unless otherwise noted. Book Club members will receive the newest book title via email two months prior to the book club date. You may join Book Club at any point during the year. Come when you can – there is no penalty for missing a session.
Book Club 2026 “Library Card” Annual Fee*: $25 General | $20 Museum Members | $15 Students
Your Book Club Library Card entitles you to in-person and virtual Book Club sessions, as well as discounted admission to the accompanying Book Talks lecture series held on Thursdays at the Museum.

LECTURE | Portraits of Patriots with Historian Damien Cregeau
2026-08-20 18:30 - 20:30 | VA
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LECTURE | Portraits of Patriots with Historian Damien Cregeau
Thursday, August 20 , 6:30 PM [This lecture has been rescheduled from July 25]
One man painted the Revolution. Another held the Bible at Washington’s inauguration. And both have deep Connecticut roots.
Join us for Portraits of Patriots, a richly illustrated presentation tracing six extraordinary lives from the American Revolution—beginning with Colonel John Trumbull, who left the battlefield to become the young republic’s defining visual chronicler. Through Trumbull’s paintings and the work of his gifted sister Faith Trumbull Huntington, Cregeau brings an entire family into focus: soldiers, artists, and survivors bound together by war and ambition.
At the center of it all: Samuel Webb of Wethersfield. Aide-de-camp to both Generals Putnam and Washington. Veteran of Bunker Hill. The man who held the Bible as George Washington took the oath of office in 1789.

Meet the Author | Purchase a copy of Portraits of Patriots on-site and get your book personally signed.

Cash, check, Venmo and Zelle accepted.

Tickets: $15 |$12.50 Virtual | $10 Members
*This lecture will be offered in person and via Zoom. Zoom link will be provided in advance of the lecture.
Damien Cregeau | Damien Cregeau earned his B.A. in history from Hillsdale College and M.A. in history from Colorado State. He is a nationally-recognized scholar of the American Revolution who has spoken throughout the U.S. from Boston to Washington, D.C. to Chicago. He received the History Award and medal from the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution in 2021 in recognition of his scholarly research and many important contributions to the public’s appreciation for early American history. His talk on Alexander Hamilton is available to watch on C-SPAN. He has been published in numerous journals and magazines, including Military History Quarterly, ten features in the Journal of the American Revolution, and Financial History magazine. He published his first book, Portraits of Patriots, in 2025. He and his wife, Pam, a psychologist, own two homes in Connecticut built in 1765—the Private Samuel Hanmer House in Wethersfield and the General Jedediah Huntington House in Norwich.

LECTURE | Civic Stitches: Early American Needlework and National Identity
2026-09-10 18:30 - 20:00 | WDS Museum, 211 Main Street, Wethersfield, CT, 06109
LECTURE | Civic Stitches: Early American Needlework and National Identity  with Emily Whitted, Guest-Curator, American Girlhood: Needlework, Memory, and The Making of a Nation

Thursday, September 10, 6:30 PM
(Note: This lecture now begins at 6:30 PM)
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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. In the aftermath of the American Revolution, female education was a critical space for civic development, and needlework was one educational medium in which girls processed their own identities within the new nation. This lecture will connect needlework within the exhibition with pieces from other public collections, and broadly trace the rich lives of early American girls engaged in crafting a nation.
Tickets: $15 |$12.50 Virtual | $10 Members
*This lecture will be offered in person and via Zoom. Zoom link will be provided in advance of the lecture.
About the Curator | Emily Whitted is a PhD candidate at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the guest curator of American Girlhood: Needlework, Memory, and the Making of a Nation. Her research broadly explores the history of textiles, women’s history, and material culture in early America. Her current and past work includes projects with the New Bedford Whaling Museum, the National Park Service and National Council on Public History, the Mercer Museum & Fonthill Castle, and the Porter-Phelps-Huntington Foundation. She also holds an M.A. in American Material Culture from the Winterthur Program at the University of Delaware.

CHAMBER MUSIC CONCERT | Musick's Recreation: At-Home Musick-Making in Colonial New England
2026-09-12 18:00 - 19:00 | WDS Museum, 211 Main Street, Wethersfield, CT, 06109
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CHAMBER MUSIC CONCERT | Musick’s Recreation: At-Home Musick-Making in Colonial New England
Saturday, September 12, 6:00 PM-7:00 PM
Before recorded sound, music happened at home—played and sung by families, friends, and neighbors gathered in close quarters. This concert brings that tradition to our Waterman Room, overlooking the garden, with a performance by Lyracle, an acclaimed ensemble specializing in historically informed vocal and viol music, featuring mezzo-soprano Ashley Mulcahy and viola da gambist James Perretta.
Together they perform English songs and instrumental works that would have been familiar in colonial and early federal New England parlors, connecting local history to the sound of the era. It’s a rare chance to hear chamber music the way it was designed to be experienced: in a small, resonant room, with the performers close enough to feel the music.
Tickets: $25 | $18 Members

About the Performers
Ashley Mulcahy, mezzo-soprano, is a graduate of the Voxtet program at the Yale School of Music and Institute of Sacred Music and has performed with Bach Collegium Japan, the Boston Early Music Festival, the Handel and Haydn Society, and the Newberry Consort, among others.
James Perretta, viola da gamba, is a Boston-based performer, arranger, and teacher who has appeared with the Boston Camerata and Nota Bene and twice participated in the Silkroad Ensemble’s Global Musicians Workshop.
Together, Mulcahy and Perretta founded the ensemble Lyracle in 2018.

CONCERT | American Jazz in the Barn
2026-09-25 18:00 - 19:30 | Webb Barn, 211 Main Street, Wethersfield, 06109, United States
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American Jazz in the Barn
Friday, September 25, 6:00–7:30 PM
An intimate evening of live jazz in the Webb Barn, honoring the most distinctly American art form on a night made for close listening. American jazz built its language out of tension and release—call and response, a melody stated plainly and then taken apart. This September, join us for an evening of that language performed live: standards that shaped the tradition, and the improvisation that keeps redefining it.
Tickets: $25 | $18 Members

FEUDING FOUNDERS COLLECTIVE | Jay Heritage Center, NY: John Jay, Diplomat and Spymaster
2026-09-26 10:00 - 15:00 | Jay Heritage Center, 210 Boston Post Road, Rye, 10580
Register your interest with an email to Suzanne Clary: jayheritagecenter@gmail.com
This event takes place at Jay Heritage Center in Rye, NY. Attend the full day in person, or purchase a virtual ticket for the roundtable discussion.
We tend to remember the founders as marble men — monumental, unified, certain. The truth is messier and more interesting. The Feuding Founders Collective is a multi-site public history initiative that humanizes Silas Deane, John Jay, and the Lee brothers of Virginia — men who were in conversation, in collaboration, and sometimes in conflict with one another.
Presented in partnership with Jay Heritage Center (NY), Friends of John Jay Homestead, and Menokin and Stratford Hall (VA), this series destabilizes the one-dimensional portraits we’ve inherited and invites audiences to sit with the full complexity of these lives: the ambition and the insecurity, the idealism and the grudges, the smear campaigns and the shared cause.
In an era of weaponized media and public takedowns, these 250-year-old stories feel less like history and more like a mirror — and understanding how the founders navigated political polarization, character assassination, and the tension between principle and self-interest may be one of the most useful things the past can offer us right now. Three sites. Three perspectives. Not a story of heroes and villains, but of imperfect people trying to build something that had never existed before.
Rye Symposium: John Jay, Diplomat and Spymaster
How did our earliest American diplomats accomplish their secret and very delicate assignments abroad? The Jay Heritage Center symposium will focus on the interactions of John Jay, Silas Deane and the Lee brothers, Arthur and William, as illustrated by the decipherable records and cyphers that they left behind. What was the Jay-Deane code and why is John Jay credited by the CIA as being the first chief of US counterintelligence? What controversy put Jay at the center of a legal defense of Deane’s actions in France? Learn firsthand about the security concerns that prompted the Lee brothers of Virginia to launch public accusations that Deane was a traitor.
This is an experience for people who want to hear our whole history. Join us and fellow history lovers for a daylong exploration of 18th century political quandaries and fragile allegiances. Stand on the very spot where Jay looked out at the horizon during the Stamp Act and imagined a new nation and his own role in shaping it. Contemplate the contradictions he faced in seeking freedom from British rule while his family denied freedom to others who worked the land. Tour the historic Jay Estate gardens followed by lunch at the same place where Jay celebrated the end of the Revolutionary War and his negotiation of the Treaty of Paris. Then hear from scholars representing each partner site as they paint a more layered, more human picture of Jay, the Lees, and Deane — their relationships to power and to one another. The program closes with a walk of the property that inspired James Fenimore Cooper’s Revolutionary War novel, “The Spy.”

10:00 AM: Welcome and Orientation (210 Boston Post Road) at Jay Mansion
10:30 AM: Jay Mansion Tour
11:00 AM: Jay Estate Gardens and Grounds Tour
12:00 PM: Lunch break on the Veranda
1:00 PM: Round Table Discussion at the Wachenheim Center
Hour long round table discussion plus Q&A.  Discussion will focus on the early lives and background of the Lee Brothers, Silas Deane and John Jay.  Each site will give a brief introduction to their founding father(s) and historic site(s).
3:00 pm: Tour of the 18th century Lyon Farmhouse exterior and archaeological area.

Attend All Three!
Each roundtable discussion will be livestreamed on Zoom. Attend all events onsite, online, or a combination!
Webb Deane Stevens Museum | The Making of Silas Deane: May 16, Connecticut
Jay Heritage Center | John Jay, Diplomat and Spymaster: September 26, New York
Stratford Hall & Menokin | The Lee—Deane Conflict and the Political “Bloodbath” of 1778: November 8, Virginia

LECTURE | Women of the Revolution with Zara Anishanslin
2026-10-01 18:00 - 19:30 | WDS Museum, 211 Main Street, Wethersfield, CT, 06109
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Women of the Revolution with Zara Anishanslin
Thursday, October 1, 6:00 PM*
*Please note the new time of 6:00 PM (previously 7:00 PM)
The Revolution wasn’t won by generals alone. In this companion lecture to the Webb Deane Stevens Museum’s exhibition Remember the Ladies: Women of the Revolution, Zara Anishanslin introduces us to the women who shaped the war for independence—from those who rallied communities and supplied armies to the enslaved women whose pursuit of freedom exposed the deepest contradictions of the new nation. These are stories of courage, resourcefulness, and influence that have waited too long to be told.
Tickets: $15 |$12.50 Virtual | $10 Members
*This lecture will be offered in person and via Zoom. Zoom link will be provided in advance of the lecture.
Zara Anishanslin | Zara Anishanslin is a historian of Early America and the Atlantic World specializing in eighteenth-century material culture. She holds a PhD from the University of Delaware and BAs in Comparative Literature and History from UNC Chapel Hill, where she was a Morehead-Cain Scholar. A former faculty member at Columbia and CUNY and Postdoctoral Fellow at Johns Hopkins, she has held fellowships from the Huntington Library, American Antiquarian Society, Winterthur Museum, the Royal Archives at Windsor Castle, and the American Philosophical Society, among others. Her first book, Portrait of a Woman in Silk (Yale University Press, 2016), won the Library Company of Philadelphia’s Biennial Book Prize. Her forthcoming The Painter’s Fire: A Forgotten History of the Artists who Championed the American Revolution (Harvard University Press, July 2025) continues her work bridging rigorous scholarship and public history — most visibly as Material Culture Consultant for Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton! The Exhibition.

WDS BOOK CLUB | Spiritualism's Place: Reformers, Seekers, and Séances in Lily Dale
2026-10-13 18:00 - 20:00 | WDS Museum, 211 Main Street, Wethersfield, CT, 06109
Calling all bookworms, history buffs, preservationists and culture mavens! Join us for our NEW year-long book club, accompanied by a lecture series with acclaimed authors.
This month we’re reading:
Spiritualism’s Place: Reformers, Seekers, and Séances in Lily Dale
By Averill Earls
Tuesday, October 13, 6 pm | In Person and Virtual
Moderated by TR Revella-Hamilton, WDS Director of Preservation & Collections
Meet fellow history enthusiasts in person as we discuss thought-provoking books by acclaimed authors. Our carefully curated monthly selections delve into the rich tapestry of American and European history, featuring compelling works about revolutionary figures, historic preservation, decorative arts, and stories that shaped our cultural landscape. Whether you’re a seasoned historian, preservation enthusiast, or simply curious about the stories behind our built heritage, there’s a place for you in our community of learners.
JOIN BOOK CLUB

How it Works: Book Club meets bimonthly at the Museum and via Zoom on the second Tuesday of each designated month, unless otherwise noted. Book Club members will receive the newest book title via email two months prior to the book club date. You may join Book Club at any point during the year. Come when you can – there is no penalty for missing a session.
Book Club 2026 “Library Card” Annual Fee*: $25 General | $20 Museum Members | $15 Students
Your Book Club Library Card entitles you to in-person and virtual Book Club sessions, as well as discounted admission to the accompanying Book Talks lecture series held on Thursdays at the Museum.

LECTURE | From Variolation to Vaccination: The Transformation of Disease Prevention in the Early Republic (1796–c.1825)
2026-10-15 18:00 - 19:30 | WDS Museum, 211 Main Street, Wethersfield, CT, 06109
PURCHASE TICKETS

From Variolation to Vaccination: The Transformation of Disease Prevention in the Early Republic (1796–c.1825)
October 15, 6:00 PM
*Please note new time of 6:00 PM. (Previously 7:00 PM)
Forensic anthropologist Anna Dhody traces America’s dramatic shift from dangerous variolation to revolutionary vaccination, revealing a founding-era debate about trust, authority, and what it meant to be American that feels strikingly familiar today.
Tickets: $15 | $12.50 Virtual | $10 Members * This lecture will be offered in person and via Zoom.
Bio | Anna N. Dhody, MFS is the Founder and Executive Director of the Dhody Research Institute. She was previously the Gretchen Worden Curatorial Chair, Mütter Museum and Director, Mütter Research Institute of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia. She received her BA in archaeology from Boston University, Masters in Forensic Science from The George Washington University. A forensic anthropologist, Ms. Dhody previously served as an osteologist at Harvard University’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology and worked with the United Nations Development Programme and the Public Ministry of Peru to identify some of the estimated 69,000 “Desaparecidos” victims of state terrorism. Ms. Dhody is a member of the Vidocq Society, a Consulting Scholar at The University of Pennsylvania’s Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology and was appointed a Fulbright Specialist in 2023 in museum studies and physical anthropology.

FEUDING FOUNDERS COLLECTIVE | Stratford Hall & Menokin, VA: The Lee—Deane Conflict and the Political "Bloodbath" of 1778
2026-11-08 10:00 - 18:00 | Stratford Hall, 483 Great House Road, Stratford, VA, 22558
This event takes place at Stratford Hall and Menokin in Virginia. Attend the full day in person, or purchase a virtual ticket for the roundtable discussion.
Presented in partnership with Jay Heritage Center (NY), Friends of John Jay Homestead, and Menokin and Stratford Hall (VA), this series destabilizes the one-dimensional portraits we’ve inherited and invites audiences to sit with the full complexity of these lives: the ambition and the insecurity, the idealism and the grudges, the smear campaigns and the shared cause.
How did a diplomatic dispute become one of the first political media storms in American history?
Join us at Stratford Hall in Montross, VA for a Semiquincentennial conversation on the aftermath of the Lee—Deane Conflict. In 1776, Silas Deane of Connecticut was sent to France to secure crucial wartime support. He came under fire when Arthur Lee, a Virginian also posted in Europe, accused Deane of profiteering and fraud. The matter exploded into the public sphere when Deane fired back, charging Arthur Lee with spying for the British and sharing information with them. Virginia congressmen Richard Henry Lee and Francis Lightfoot Lee found themselves defending their family’s reputation amid a fierce smear campaign that played out in the pages of newspapers up and down the Eastern seaboard. John Jay, then president of Congress, was drawn into the dispute as well, with consequences that would shadow his diplomatic career for years. As accusations and defenses spilled from private correspondence into newspapers, the reputations of all four men were tested before a watching public.
This is a day for people who want to see how the Revolution unfolded not only in congresses and courts, but in print and in public opinion. Begin the morning with a tour of Menokin, Francis Lightfoot Lee’s home, before traveling to nearby Stratford Hall to walk the grounds and tour the house where the Lee brothers grew up. Share lunch and conversation, then hear from scholars representing all four partner sites—Menokin, Stratford Hall, the Webb Deane Stevens Museum, and the John Jay Historic Site—as they examine how the Deane controversy reverberated through the early republic. This Affair affected the reputations of other “feuding fathers” including Thomas Paine, Ben Franklin, and John Adams. It offers a window into the rough-and-tumble politics of the 1770s—and a reminder that the tensions between press, politics, and personal reputation are as old as the republic itself.
SCHEDULE (subject to updates)
10:00 AM-11:30 AM: Tour Menokin house and grounds, Warsaw, VA
12:00 PM-1:00 PM: Lunch at Stratford Hall, Montross VA
1:00 PM-2:30 PM: Hour long round table discussion plus Q&A on the Lee—Deane Conflict with representatives from the historic homes of John Jay (NY), Silas Deane (CT), Richard Henry Lee (VA) and Francis Lightfoot Lee (VA).
3:00-4:30 PM: Tour of Stratford Hall
5:00-6:00 PM: Wrap-up Reception and NNK Symposium Kick off, Stratford Hall
6:30-7:30 PM: Talk | NNK Symposium Keynote [add-on $10]
Pricing:
$30 | Sun, 11/8 Day Pass: Includes Menokin tour, Stratford tour, Roundtable, Reception
$10 | Add-on: NNK symposium keynote on 11/8 and NNK Symposium ticket for 11/9
$15 | Roundtable only
$5 | Virtual admission only to Roundtable
Special: $60: Pass to 11/8 Feuding Founders Symposium + Pass to 11/9 NNK Symposium
For more information or to register interest, email Connie Rosemont at crosemont@menokin.org or Hunter Peal at hunterp@stratfordhall.org

Attend All Three!
Each roundtable discussion will be livestreamed on Zoom. Attend all events onsite, online, or a combination!
Webb Deane Stevens Museum | The Making of Silas Deane: May 16, Connecticut
Jay Heritage Center | John Jay, Diplomat and Spymaster: September 26, New York
Stratford Hall & Menokin | The Lee—Deane Conflict and the Political “Bloodbath” of 1778: November 8, Virginia

About Stratford Hall
Stratford Hall brings together people from around the world to experience two-thousand acres of natural and human history, preserved and presented so that we can all learn from the courageous struggles of our ancestors, taking inspiration both from what they endured and what they accomplished. There are few places in America where people can travel down small, rural roads to arrive at a vast site that preserves so many aspects of early-American life, from the Great House where the influential Lee family helped to forge a new nation, to the fields worked by enslaved Africans, to the waters of the rivers that fueled trade, to the ground, which still yields secrets about the people and animals that lived before. Come experience this extraordinary place and learn about a layered history that began millions of years ago—a history that continues to educate, inspire, and influence Americans to the present day.
About Menokin
The Menokin Foundation uses the historic ruin of Francis Lightfoot Lee’s 18th-century home — and the surrounding built and natural environments — as a living laboratory for preservation and public engagement. Rather than recreating the past, Menokin employs contemporary methods to invite visitors into an active exploration of how America was built and what that history means today. One of the most distinctive historic sites in Virginia, Menokin reimagines what a house museum can be — and what honest, provocative engagement with our nation’s founding ideals and realities looks like on the ground.

SPECIAL EVENT | Thanksgiving Dinner
2026-11-15 14:00 - 17:00 | WDS Museum, 211 Main Street, Wethersfield, CT, 06109
Save the date for our Annual Thanksgiving Dinner.
A beloved annual tradition returns: an intimate journey through centuries of American culinary heritage, from the landmark houses to a family-style feast in the Webb Barn, in support of preservation that keeps this history alive.
Come share a table, a toast, and a tradition at our annual Thanksgiving Dinner in the historic Webb Barn, supporting the preservation and education mission of the Webb Deane Stevens Museum.
