Comforts, Cures & Distractions: Winter at Fruitlands Museum

With shorter daylight hours, plummeting temperatures, and potentially massive snowfalls, winter is a challenging season in New England. Over the centuries, settlers in the Harvard area have been deeply connected with the land and changing seasons, developing tactics for surviving and celebrating the colder months.

Visionary collector, Clara Endicott Sears, developed Fruitlands Museum as a place for commemorating distinct communities from Harvard’s past: Transcendentalists from the Fruitlands experiment, Shakers, and Native Americans. In doing so, Sears helped preserve some of the history of winter in Harvard, where residents often saw winter as a break after the busy farming season and an opportunity to prepare for the next one.

Here, objects from the Museum’s diverse collections and material from the Harvard Historical Society displayed side by side show that in different times and for different communities, winter in Harvard remained largely the same: cold, snowy, and full of possibilities.

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