Crafting Reform: The Saturday Evening Girls and the Paul Revere Pottery with Nonie Gadsden

The Saturday Evening Girls’ club was established in 1899 to provide cultural activities for Italian and Jewish immigrant girls who lived in the tenements of Boston’s North End. In 1908, the reform-minded club leaders founded a pottery to provide the girls with a clean and educational venue in which to earn money. They named the enterprise the Paul Revere Pottery in honor of the patriot’s home which stood near their clubhouse, and to emphasize their own desire to be seen as Americans, not foreign immigrants. The pottery exemplified the ideals of the early twentieth-century Arts and Crafts movement, a design reform movement which sought to alleviate the negative social effects of industrialized society by promoting hand craftsmanship, the integration of art into everyday life, and healthy working conditions for artisans.
Lectures are free to the public and can be watched online via the Forum Network's YouTube page, or in person at Smith Commons (5th floor), Sargent Hall, Suffolk University, 120 Tremont Street, Boston, MA 02108. The lectures will be recorded and available after the fact.
The in-person location is wheelchair accessible and has accessible restrooms. Seating is in free-standing chairs which may be moved. The live-stream and recording will have auto-generated closed captions only. Please contact the Paul Revere House with any questions about accessibility.