Current Projects
LONG Buildings & Grounds Photograph Collection
Archival Research Fellowship
Call for entires for the 2024 Paterson Research Fellowship. Deadline April 15, 2024.
The Archives
The collections of the National Park Service’s Longfellow House–Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site in Cambridge, Massachusetts, include a significant archive of materials (letters, diaries, photographs, art, books, and material objects) from the 17th to early 20th century on a variety of subjects.
Many relate to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s family, relatives (such as the Dana family), and literary circle. (The poet’s personal papers are in Harvard’s Houghton Library nearby.) These surprisingly diverse materials have the potential to greatly enrich our understanding of literary, cultural, and political history on the local, regional, national, and even international scale.
Access the research archives at Longfellow House–Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site.
Study Conservation Update
This past summer, with the generous help of the Americana Corner Foundation, the Friends and the National Park Service completed another stage in our project of conserving the furnishings in Henry W. Longfellow’s study.
Over the years, the cushions in the room’s window seats had become faded and threadbare. One even had a large round stain on it.
We applied for an Americana Corner Foundation grant to fund the task of reupholstering those cushions to NPS curation standards. The Custom Shop in Watertown handled the job. These photographs show what a difference the new cloth makes.
The seat shown in these photos is one of the first things visitors see on entering Longfellow’s study. In that room he wrote some of his most famous poems; hosted literary colleagues like Emerson, Hawthorne, Holmes, and Dickens; and of course spent time with his family and friends. The restored cushions are helping to make that space look as handsome as its history deserves.
Now on exhibit at the Longfellow House–Washington’s HQ National Historic Site.
NPS Photo/James P. Jones, Photography RI
Ackerly Garden Fund
After the colonial-revival garden behind the Longfellow House was rehabilitated and its pergola restored, the Friends established a fund for future maintenance of that public resource.
The Friends named the fund after Frances and William Ackerly, who had both contributed so much to the garden and to the Friends in general. Frances was a founding board member who took on many tasks, from maintaining the membership list to speaking to elected officials about the site’s needs. Bill and Frances both helped to raise funds for the garden, and enjoyed many events at Longfellow House–Washington’s Headquarters.
Frances died in March 2011, having named the Friends of the Longfellow House as one of the charities for memorial gifts. We are proud to direct those donations to the Ackerly Garden Maintenance Fund, and thus to the future of the garden for all visitors.