Step back in time with historian and curator Christina Volpe as she explores The Barnes Museum and Homestead. Once home to industrialist Amon Bradley, this beautifully preserved estate offers a rare glimpse into Victorian life, complete with original antiques, family diaries, and Civil War letters. Discover the stories behind this remarkable collection and Southington’s legacy as Connecticut’s "City of Progress" in an engaging discussion with the museum’s curator.
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Once the center of bolt manufacturing in the United States, Southington has been affectionately called Connecticut's "City of Progress." At the center of this progress was Amon Bradley, an industrialist and philanthropist whose family legacy remains intact inside the Barnes Museum. Beginning as a six-room Greek Revival-style home, the Barnes Museum was built in 1836 for Amon and Sylvia Bradley and was lived in by the family for 136 years. The opulent seventeen-room homestead remains fully staged with the family's impressive collection of Victorian antiques and more than one thousand pressed-glass goblets. Author and museum curator Christina Volpe reveals their unique collection of Civil War letters, family diaries, photographs and other historic treasures.
Christina Volpe is an esteemed historian and curator specializing in the captivating era of the Gilded Age, with a focus on Connecticut's role in the Second Industrial Revolution and the material culture of the time. Volpe's expertise stems from her degrees in archaeology and classics from the American University of Rome and a master's degree in public history from Central Connecticut State University. Her previous roles include serving as an assistant curator and archivist for prominent family archives, and she has contributed her knowledge to esteemed institutions, such as the Wadsworth Atheneum and the Barnes Museum, where she assumed the role of curator in 2021. Christina serves on several boards, including those for the New England Chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians and the Connecticut History Review Journal. She is pursuing a doctorate degree in humanities from Salve Regina University ('26).
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