TUDOR PLACE | Last day open of 2024: Sunday, December 29.
Listen to an interview with Mark Hudson, introducing “Ancestral Spaces: People of African Descent at Tudor Place,” the special new installation and guided tour.
From left to right the guests included: Vincent Carter, Ann Chinn, Stephen Hammond, Frederick Murphy (facilitator), Jerolyn Cole and Karl Haynes. Photo credit: Francesca Donovan.
Documentary filmmaker, Frederick Murphy, hosted a conversation with descendants of enslaved individuals associated with Tudor Place and other historic sites with a history of enslavement on October 10, 2023. The event considered the vitality of descendant communities, intergenerational identity, historical trauma and reconciliation. His first film, the award-winning The American South as We Know It, explored the lives of survivors of Jim Crow and those didn’t make the headlines. Mr. Murphy is the founder of History Before Us, and a graduate of Tennessee State University & Bethune-Cookman University with a masters degree in Transformative Leadership.
This event was presented with Georgetown’s Art and Museum Studies Masters Program and held onsite at the Maria & Alberto de la Cruz Art Gallery at Georgetown University. All lectures are free and open to the public. Support for the Tudor Place 2023 Landmark Lecture Series is made possible through an Institute of Museum and Library Sciences (IMLS) Inspire! Grant for Small Museums. The views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this series do not necessarily represent those of the IMLS.
Hidden Gems in DC: 15 Free Spots in 2023If you are looking to get off the beaten path, check out one of these hidden gems in DC. All spots are outdoor, kid-friendly and free! I’ve organized them by Hidden Gems and Off the Beaten Path Memorials and Google Map at the end. Check out the full list, click here from www.familytripguides.com.
Tudor Place has a hive of honeybees. Our hives are located on the South Lawn and home to a colony of bees. Different types of bees build their hives in different ways; some bees build their homes in trees and some bees build their homes in the ground. The hives at Tudor Place were built so that we could easily take out some of the extra honey for us to have. The bees here help pollinate our garden and keep it healthy and growing.
Bees are insects that live all over the world. Like all insects, bees have two pairs of wings and six legs. Most bees are black and have yellow or brown markings on their body. Bees play an important role in our ecosystem. Bees are pollinators, meaning they help move pollen from flower to flower. Pollen is a fine powder that is needed for flowers to make seeds and fruit. In order for this to happen the pollen needs to be moved from the petals of the flower to the middle of the flower. Since the pollen cannot move itself, it needs the help of pollinators such as bees. When bees collect nectar from flowers to bring back to the hive, they help pollinate flowers by moving the pollen from flower to flower. Worker bees visit over 100 flowers every day and each visit pollinates another flower.
There are over 20,000 different types of bees, but the best-known bees are honeybees and bumblebees. Honeybees are very social insects. They live in large colonies that are able to last for years. During the spring and summer months, the bees focus on storing up honey they can eat during the winter. While the worker bees are collecting nectar, they will fly nearly five miles away before returning back to the hive. In order to collect enough nectar to produce one pound of honey, they need to visit 2 million flowers!
This summer you might see some bees flying around Tudor Place’s garden and pollinating the different flowers and plants. Here is how you can make your very own Bee Finger Puppet to fly around your own garden.
What you will need:
First cut out a circle for the head of the bee and a larger oval for the body of the bee out of the yellow paper. Cut two wing shaped pieces out of the white paper. Draw black stripes on the larger oval and cut two small holes in the bottom of the oval that are big enough for your fingers to fit through.
Glue the smaller yellow head onto the top of black and yellow striped body, making sure that the holes are at the bottom. Then glue the two wings onto the back of the bee body, while making sure that they are close enough to the sides of the bee that they can be seen when you flip them over.
Glue your googly eyes onto the face of the bee and use markers to draw the rest of the face. Lastly, fold your pipe cleaner into a V and glue it onto the back of the bee head.
Vocabulary:
Ecosystem: the interactions between all the living and non-living things in a specific place.
Pollinator: An animal that helps move pollen from one plant to the next.
When we celebrate holidays like Halloween, we usually decorate with symbols like black cats, witches, pumpkins and bats. Bats might seem spooky, but they are actually an important part of our ecosystem. Bats eat bugs that people find annoying, like mosquitoes. They also eat other pests that might hurt plants. At Tudor Place, we’ve built a bat house in the garden to make it a welcoming place for bats.
Washington, DC is home to many different bat species. These species are broken up into two different main groups
Cave Bats found in Washington, DC include the Big Brown Bat (Eptesicus fuscus), the Little Brown Bat (Myotis lucifugus), the Tri-colored Bat (Perimyotis subflavus) and the Northern Long-eared Bat (Myotis septentrionalis).
This area’s Tree Bats include the Eastern Red Bat (Lasiurus borealis), the Hoary Bat (Lasiurus cinereus), the Silver-haired Bat (Lasionycteris noctivagans), and the Evening Bat (Nycticeius humeralis).
You might be able to see bats in your neighborhood just before dark. Even if you cannot, you can make some bats out of paper to decorate for Halloween.
Watch the video below to create your own bat origami:
Vocabulary:
Ecosystem: the interactions between all the living and non-living things in a specific place.
Woodrow Wilson by Marietta Minnegerode Andrews, Collection of Tudor Place Historic House & Garden, 61693.02
Today if we want a quick picture of our friends or family, we can grab a camera or phone and snap a picture. But what did people do before cameras? If they did not have the time or money to get their portrait formally painted, they may have instead paid for a silhouette.
Silhouettes, like the one above showing President Woodrow Wilson, are quick and cheap compared to portrait painting. Artists could replicate a person’s profile with just some paper and a pair of scissors! In the United States, silhouettes were very popular from the mid-1700s to the mid-1800s when the camera was finally invented. There are many silhouettes in the Tudor Place collection. In fact, a silhouette is the only image we have of Columbia Peter (Thomas and Martha Peter’s daughter). You can see her silhouette here, on the left, next to her cousin Lorenzo and her sister America.
America, Lorenzo, and Columbia Image. Caption: America Peter, Lorenzo Lewis and Columbia Peter by Marietta Minnegerode Andrews, Collection of Tudor Place Historic House & Garden 6129, 6139, 6140.
Although they only showed a person’s profile, silhouettes could capture their personality too. A silhouette artist named Marietta Minnegerode Andrews was part of the Peter’s extended family. She created the silhouettes below.
Self-portrait by Marietta Minnegerode Andrews, Collection of Tudor Place Historic House & Garden, 61693.06
General Pershing by Marietta Minnegerode Andrews, Collection of Tudor Place Historic House & Garden, 61693.03
Now it’s your turn to create a silhouette! Grab a friend, family member, or toy to get started.
First, pose the subject of your art next to a blank wall. Experiment with a flashlight to see what creates the best shadow. For example, a flashlight closer and just off-center gave us a strong shadow.
Step 1: Create a good shadow
Then, place a piece of construction paper behind your subject, where their shadow is. Traditional silhouette art uses black paper, but you can be creative and use colorful or even patterned paper.
Step 2: Tape paper onto the wall behind the shadow
Next, use a white crayon to trace the outline of the shadow.
Step 3: Outline the shadow with white crayon or pencil
Finally, carefully cut along the outline you traced. Once you have your silhouette, glue or tape it to a full sized white piece of paper, the sign your artwork. Now you can share your silhouette with your friends and family!
Step 4: Cut out your silhouette outline and glue or tape it to a full piece of paper
In his will Armistead Peter 3rd wrote:
“It is my wish that Tudor Place will always be a refuge for the squirrels and rabbits that make it their home. The birds should be given special consideration… in particular, the fountain and bird bath on the lower walk I request be maintained in its present location, where it has given infinite pleasure both the birds and to me.”
Tudor Place has always been home to squirrels, rabbits, birds and other wildlife. Our garden staff work hard to make sure they have comfortable spaces to live. One way you can help the birds that live near you is by making your own bird feeder.
Follow the directions below to turn a juice carton into a bird feeder.
What you’ll need:
First, on two sides of a recycled carton, draw outlines for an opening. These can be any shape you want. We made ours rectangles. Then, on the two sides you haven’t used, draw an outline for a wing-shaped flap. This step is optional. If you don’t want your bird feeder to have wings, you can add more openings. Next, have an adult help you cut out the openings and flaps.
Finally, it’s time to decorate your bird feeder. We made ours look like a bird with paint and googly eyes. If you paint your bird feeder, you will probably need three or four coats of paint. The cardboard exterior that juice cartons are made of makes paint difficult to stick. Pro tip: make sure to let the paint dry completely before painting the next layer. If you want to hang your bird feeder up outside, punch a hole in the top, and add a loop of twine. Happy bird feeding!
Photo: Tudor Nights: Stepping Out in Style, October 17 2019
At Tudor Place, we tell the stories of the Peter family and of the people they enslaved and employed. One way we tell this story is through sharing the objects the Peter family owned.
The collections manager and curator at Tudor Place are two people who help to share these stories while keeping historic objects safe. The collections manager keeps track of all the objects in the Tudor Place collection and makes sure they are stored and displayed in ways that preserve and maintain them. The curator researches objects and arranges them in special ways that help visitors experience and learn from them.
Just like Tudor Place tells the story of the Peter family using their collection of objects, you can tell the story of your family with objects of your own. Everyone collects things – you might have a collection of games, puzzles or books. Sometimes people plan out their collections very carefully, and sometimes they happen accidentally. Tudor Place has a collection of over 18,000 objects that the Peter family owned, including furniture, clothing, art, jewelry, plates and silverware. Your collection is probably a little bit smaller.
Tudor Place staff have their own personal collections too!
Katie collects mugs. If she displayed her mugs in an exhibit, they would tell visitors all about the places she has travelled:
Katie’s mug collection
Helen collects earrings. Helen’s earrings tell a story about her colorful fashion sense:
Helen’s earrings collection
Now it’s your turn to be the curator. Take a few minutes to think about your own collections. Answer the questions below once you have:
What do you collect?
If you put your collection together into an exhibit, what stories could you tell?
What could a curator 200 years in the future learn from your collection? What or stories might they be able to tell about you?
At Tudor Place, you can find many statues and fountains. The Peter family added them because they liked how the decorations looked with the plants and flowers. Some of the fountains have a special purpose. There are fountains for birds to drink from and wash off in. Some fountains were meant to be homes for goldfish. Some of the fountains and statues are there to look pretty. Some statues look like animals and some look like people.
On hot summer days, it is nice to imagine dipping our fingers into a cool fountain. What kinds of fountains would you put in your garden? Would your statue be based on an animal or a person? Would it have a special purpose, or would it be there just for decoration? What material would it be made of? What color would it be? Design your own fountain using the worksheet below.
In the United States, we celebrate July 4th as Independence Day. On July 4th, 1776, the Continental Congress voted to adopt the Declaration of Independence. In it, the colonists explained why they wanted independence from England and formally stated their separation. Ever since then, Americans have celebrated the 4th of July with concerts, bonfires, parades and fireworks.
The Declaration of Independence begins, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” However, it would take almost another hundred years until the passage of the 13th Amendment ended legal slavery in the United States. Since 1776, there have always been people working towards equality for all. We’re still working towards it today.
As you celebrate 4th of July with your family, bring fireworks indoors with this fun and easy craft.
What you’ll need:
• Recycled paper towel or toilet paper rolls
• Paper Plates
• Scissors
• Paint
• A pen
How to create a fireworks painting:
First, draw a line around your recycled paper tube about 2/3rds down. Using scissors, carefully cut one half of the tube into vertical strips. Press it against the table so that the strips fan out and the roll can stand up on its own.
Add paint to each paper plate. You can do one color per paint or mix it up. Each paper plate should get its own paper towel roll, but if they get mixed up, that is OK too!
Press the paper towel roll into the paint, and then stamp it onto your paper. You can repeat as many times as you would like.
When you’re done with your fireworks, hang them up on a wall for your own private show!
As an historic site that bears the scars of slavery, Tudor Place seeks to look this injustice in the eye. Click here to learn more.
