Lecture to focus on stained glass in Milton museum Jan. 24

The Milton Historical Society will host a three-part lecture series beginning at 7 p.m., Thursday, Jan. 24, at the Lydia B. Cannon Museum, 210 Union St., Milton. Local historian Phil Martin and MHS Chief Curator Heidi Nasstrom Evans will discuss the beautiful stained-glass windows throughout the museum, which was formerly a Methodist church dating to 1857.

In People of the Windows, Martin will explore how the museum came to have the windows, the stories told by the emblems on them, and the people memorialized on them. Then, Nasstrom Evans will continue with the broader history of the American stained-glass movement.

Nasstrom Evans said, “Nineteenth-century American makers were the first to break with the medieval tradition of painting imagery onto the stained glass. Instead, they made their scenes out of individual opalescent glass pieces. Commonplace today, this technique, best known through the stained glass of Louis Comfort Tiffany, was revolutionary in the early 20th century when the museum’s windows were installed.”

Since retiring from a long IT career and moving to Milton six years ago, Martin has indulged his passions for history, photography and technology through his association with the Milton Historical Society. He has worked on identifiying and conserving 19th-century photos in the MHS collection, photographing and researching the stained-glass windows in the Lydia B. Cannon Museum, and providing the social context for many of the museum’s artifacts. His research is available on his history blog focusing on Milton from the mid-19th-to early 20th centuries; go to www.Broadkillblogger.org.

Before her recent local museum appointment, Nasstrom Evans taught decorative arts and design history at a master’s program offered at the Smithsonian by George Washington University’s Corcoran School of the Arts and Design – a program she helped found in 1997. She specializes in the design movements that gave rise to the American stained-glass renaissance out of which the MHS windows emerged. Earlier in her career, she gave gallery talks on the history of American stained glass at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Matthew Monk will give the second talk in the three-part series at 7 p.m.,Thursday, Feb. 28. Based on the journal entries of Miltonian Aletta Clowes Clarke, Monk’s presentation looks at women’s roles in weaving in the mid-Atlantic over the course of the 18th and 19th centuries.

Tad Fallon, a nationally recognized furniture and wood conservator, will conclude the series with The Art and Science of Furniture Conservation at 7 p.m., Thursday, March 28. Fallon’s presentation includes an informal show-and-tell in which the audience is invited to share small objects or photos.

Lectures are open to the public. Reservations are required. To make a reservation, go to www.historicmilton.org. Cost is $10 for nonmembers; there is no cost for current MHS members. Registrants can become MHS members during the process. Refreshments will be available for purchase.

The Lydia B. Cannon Museum is free and open to the public from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., Wednesday to Saturday, and by appointment. For more information, go to www.historicmilton.org or call 302-684-1010.