John Brown House Museum
The John Brown House Museum, the premier 18th century house and museum in the state, presents important aspects of the social and cultural history of the period when our country was new. It is located at 52 Power Street in Providence. For more information about our school tours, which cover topics such as the slave trade, the China trade, the War for Independence, and women's history in the 18th and 19th centuries, please select the link in the menu to the left.
Bring your lesson plans to life at the John Brown House Museum!
One House, A Thousand Stories...
Visit the museum with your students and open a door to Rhode Island's extraordinary history! See the world of the Brown family members come alive as you walk through their impressive home. Connect to the past with several hands-on-history objects.
Choose one of five unique programs, or choose our standard museum tour, which includes elements of all tours listed below. Each special tour will focus on notable eighteenth or early nineteenth century topics and events.
For more information or to schedule a tour, call Dalila Goulart, Education Manager, at 401-273-7507 x60
Manufacturing Success
From chocolate to cannon balls, John Brown's businesses produced many goods used locally and around the world. Learn about 18th century processes to turn raw materials to finished products, and see how people used these goods in their everyday lives.
"That Unrighteous Traffick"
This program concentrates on the Brown family's involvement in the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Walk through "The Voyage of the Slave Ship Sally 1764-1765" exhibit and relive the debates between John Brown and his brother Moses, an ardent abolitionist.
Outfitting the Slave Ship Sally: This link leads to a short in-class activity suitable for middle and high school students, though easily adapted for older and younger groups-in and out of the classroom. The objective of this lesson is to (1) familiarize participants with many of the people and materials needed to prepare a ship for a slave trading voyage in the eighteenth century and (2) to illustrate in a physical way the web of complicity from farms to the sea in the global enterprise of the slave trade.
For All the Tea in China
In 1787, John Brown's ship the General Washington was the first to sail from Rhode Island to trade with China. Learn about the Rhode Island products sent to China and the treasures and trinkets that came back.
A Matter of Life and Death
From fantastic fetes to devastating diseases, the Brown family experienced the joy and pain of life...and they wrote about it. Mannequins wearing eighteenth and nineteenth century clothing illustrate the everyday stories of both celebrations and tragedies from Rhode Island's past. Learn about 18th century games and entertainments, as well as the terrible effects of epidemics such as small pox and yellow fever.
Pens, Pies, and Pincushions-Her-story of the New Republic
The lives of American women living in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries were as varied as they are today. From servant to seamstress to socialite, occupations differed, but all women were often constrained by the same legal and social limits. Learn about women's education, domestic activities, and social life during your tour through Sarah Brown's mansion.
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