FREE ADMISSION AT THE FLYNT CENTER THIS WINTER!
9:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. Saturdays & Sundays through February 23, 2025.
See our special events, or find visitor info.
The Blog of Historic Deerfield
In 1896, Deerfield historian George Sheldon (1818–1916), while reflecting on the hyper-partisanship noted in Deerfield resident David Hoyt, Jr.’s letters of an earlier time, wryly commented, “Before me lies a letter written in one of those periods, familiar to old men: ‘A crisis in the affairs of the country.’ We smile as we read the customary statement that, ‘on the result of this election, as on that of no other since the government was founded, does the life of the nation depend.’”
Welcome back! Historic Deerfield will soon reopen to the public in full! Over the long winter, only the Flynt Center of Early New England Life has been open, and only on the weekends. Starting April 15th, Historic Deerfield will be fully open to the public, Wednesday through Sundays and Holiday Mondays.
We are particularly excited to announce…
At Historic Deerfield, our spring tasks aren’t the same as those recommended to the rural New Englanders of over 150 years go. We don’t get our potatoes in the ground early, set up our asparagus beds, nor plow. But the same spirit of renewal and preparation holds sway for us as we prepare to receive our own favorite crop: visitors!
This Monday we’re encouraging you to create your own commemorative plate. See examples in the Historic Deerfield collection and learn step by step how to make your own.
Every object has multiple meanings. Usually these need to be discerned or discovered—there’s the obvious meaning of what an object is and how it was used as well as the layers of secret meanings with which people endow the objects in their lives.
Unusually, this chair makes that process blatant.
Chairs are for sitting; spinning wheels for spinning fibers. Not anymore. Now spinning wheels are for sitting—and for an ideological respite at that.