Emily Dickinson Museum

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Dickinson, Emily, House
(U.S. National Historic Landmark)
The Homestead
Location:	Amherst, Massachusetts
Coordinates:	42°22′33.38″N 72°30′52.14″W / 42.3759389, -72.5144833Coordinates: 42°22′33.38″N 72°30′52.14″W / 42.3759389, -72.5144833
Built/Founded:	1813
Architect:	Unknown
Architectural style(s):	Federal
Added to NRHP:	October 15, 1966
NRHP Reference#:	66000363 ^[1]
Governing body:	Private

The Emily Dickinson Museum is a historic house museum located in the town of Amherst, Massachusetts. Two homes, the Homestead and the Evergreens, merged to form the Emily Dickinson Museum in 2003 under the ownership of Amherst College.

1 History
2 Museum today
3 See also
4 References
5 External links

[edit] History

The Homestead was the birthplace of Emily Dickinson and is where she spent much of her childhood and almost all her adult life. Just next door, The Evergreens was built by her father, Edward, as a wedding present for his son Austin and Austin's new wife, Susan. Susan was Emily's closest friend; she, Austin and their three children, Ned, Mattie and Gilbert,lived in the Evergreens during Emily's lifetime and throughout their own. In the small world made up of these two houses Dickinson wrote nearly 1,800 poems and a meaningful collection of letters. While few of her poems were published in her lifetime, her legacy of rich writing makes her one of America's best loved poets.

The Emily Dickinson Museum is dedicated to educating diverse audiences about Emily Dickinson’s life, family, creative work, times, and enduring relevance, and to preserving and interpreting the Homestead and The Evergreens as historical resources for the benefit of scholars and the general public. Not only do visitors learn about Emily, they also learn about the lives of upper middle-class Americans during the 19th century and into the 20th. Emily's niece, Martha [known as Mattie to her family and friends], also became a writer of some notoriety and eventually made her mark as the editor and protector of her aunt's work. Martha was the last survivor of her family and as such, she owned both the Homestead and the Evergreens. Financial difficulties led her to sell the Homestead but the Evergreens was her primary residence until her death in 1943. The Homestead became a faculty residence for Amherst College faculty by the 1960s while the Evergreens was owned by Martha's heirs: Alfred Leete Hampson, who died in 1952, and his wife Mary, who died in 1988. Alfred and Mary carefully preserved the contents of the Evergreens, which are little changed from the 1880s. Through an arduous but worthwhile process, the administration of the two houses is now under a single office and the houses function as one museum. The Homestead is a premier destination for anyone inspired by Emily Dickinson's work and the Evergreens is an amazing surprise, a treasure-trove that gives anyone a unique insight into a world few people alive have ever seen.

The Homestead was listed as a National Historic Landmark in 1963 in response to the popularity of Emily Dickinson's poetry.^[2]

[edit] Museum today

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Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion. (January 2008)

The Museum is a member of Museums10, an association of ten noteworthy museums in Massachusetts' Pioneer Valley.