Event Calendar
NOW ON VIEW: Community Stitches: Quilt Designs & Stories
HOURS: Exhibition Galleries & Museum Store Wed-Sun 12-5 pm | Research Library Fri-Sun 1-4 pm
Friday, March 10, 2023 | 6-10PM
ArtNight Pasadena
Admission: FREE
ArtNight is an ongoing partnership among many cultural institutions and the Cultural Affairs Division of the City of Pasadena.
Enjoy a free evening of art, music and entertainment as Pasadena’s most prominent arts and cultural institutions swing open their doors from 6-10pm.
At PMH, Explore the complex history of quilts made by and for the Pasadena community with the new exhibition, Community Stitches: Quilt Designs & Stories – featuring more than 60 quilts representing over 180 years of quilt-making in America. Food truck: Dina's Dumpling
Sunday, March 5, 2023 | 2PM
Location: Shakespeare Club of Pasadena, 171 South Grand Avenue, Pasadena, CA 91105. Free parking in the Shakespeare Club lot and on the street.
Tea with Louisa May Alcott
Admission: General: $25 | PMH & Shakespeare Club Members: $20
Beloved American author Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888) will return to life in a special Living History presentation. Performance artist, author, and educator Valerie Weich will portray Alcott, whose novels Little Women and its sequels continue to win new generations of fans. As the famed author, Weich will speak on Alcott’s views about her fame, as well as discuss women’s inequality and the struggle for women's rights, her experience as a Civil War nurse, her father's progressive ideas on education and transcendental philosophy.
This program is presented by Pasadena Museum of History. Funding is generously provided by the Living History Centre Fund.
About the Performer
Valerie Weich made her debut as Louisa May Alcott for Pasadena Museum of History in April 2003, in an original, one-woman presentation, The Late Louisa May. She subsequently developed the performance into an educational outreach program (Literary Lives) and has since performed for more than 8,000 students in the Glendale, Pasadena, Burbank, Alhambra, and Los Angeles Unified School Districts. She has also made numerous appearances in a variety of venues for audiences of all ages.
Weich has also portrayed Pasadena arts patron Eva Scott Fényes (1849-1930) for PMH and is developing a one-woman presentation, Frankenstein’s Mother: An Evening with Mary Shelley. She curated her first art exhibition at the South Pasadena Public Library in October 2018, Frankenstein Meets Little Women: A Monster Mash that included eleven artists celebrating the 200th anniversary of Frankenstein and the 150th anniversary of Little Women.
A member of the Horror Writers Association (HWA), Weich was a Bram Stoker Award® nominee in the Short Non-Fiction category in 2020. Her article titled “Lord Byron’s Whipping Boy: Dr. John William Polidori and the 200th Anniversary of The Vampyre” was published in Famous Monsters of Filmland, No. 291 (October 2019). She was also a nominee for a Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Award.
Tuesday, March 28, 2023 | 7PM
Location: Via Zoom
Ellen Garrison: Her Life and Legacy from Concord to Pasadena
Admission: General $15; PMH Members $10
Learn about Ellen Garrison, a 19th-century African American activist, who lived her final years in Pasadena. Join us as Executive Director of The Robbins House, Jen Turner, discusses Ellen’s life from her birth in Concord, Massachusetts in 1823 to her work with several abolitionist campaigns in Concord and Boston as a young adult, her dedicated teaching career at American Missionary Schools in the Reconstruction South, and her pioneering protest against segregation at a Baltimore train station.
The Robbins House Museum in Concord, Massachusetts, is a museum that showcases the history of African American experience in Concord and beyond. It was the home where Ellen was born in 1823. For more information, please visit https://robbinshouse.org/.
This program will be on Zoom. Link to the program will be sent to all participants the day before the program.
Sundays, March 26, April 23, and May 7, 2023
11:00 to 12:30 pm
Exclusive Fényes Mansion Tours
Admission: General $25; PMH Members $20.
Advance reservations required.
Tour the historic 1906 Beaux Arts Fényes Mansion! Join this 90-minute guided tour and travel back in time to 1910 to discover what life was like when museum benefactors, Eva Scott Fényes and her husband Dr. Adalbert Fényes lived in Pasadena.
The elegant home was designed by architect Robert Farquhar with a later (1911) addition by Sylvanus Marston. It is largely unchanged from when the family was in residence, featuring the family’s original décor, antique furnishings, and art collection, as well as the later transformation of one room as the Consul General’s office when the Mansion doubled as the Finnish Consulate (1948-1964). Your tour guide will discuss early 20th century Pasadena history, specifics on the art, architecture, and items throughout the home, and share the fascinating lives and legacy of the Fényes family.
Image: Fényes Mansion. Photo by Lizzie Steidel
Thursday, April 27 | 7:00 pm
Charles F. Lummis and Boosterism in Pasadena
Admission: General $15; PMH Members $10
Charles F. Lummis (1859-1928) was a writer, journalist, photographer, civic booster, and culturally prominent figure at the turn-of-the-century in Southern California, as well as throughout the Southwestern United States. Join Christian Rodriguez, curator of El Alisal - The Charles F. Lummis Home and Garden, to learn about Lummis’ significant but complicated contributions to preservation, his impact on the historiography of the Southwest, and the friends and benefactors in Pasadena, including Eva Scott Fényes, he harnessed in creating a network of support for his vision of Southern California and the Southwest.
Image: Photo of Charles F. Lummis, circa 1897. Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, (LC-DIG-ppmsca-194610)
