Dr. Frank Mitchell, Committee Chair of CT Humanities, will join Greenwich Historical Society to commemorate 100 years of Black History month and the celebration of America’s 250th. His lecture, titled “Service and Celebration”, will explore Black domestic labor and foodways that had a profound influence on boarding houses such as Cos Cob’s Holley House. The program will take place on Saturday, February 28th from 2-3:15pm.
This second installment of the Historical Society’s Peopling Greenwich Winter Lecture Series provides introspective insight into the diverse individuals who made the Holley boarding house a groundbreaking hub of creative expression. Only 100 years after the Declaration of Independence, the Cos Cob area was a true melting pot of people, ideas, and creativity. The unique individuals who found their home in Cos Cob represent the wider cultural diversity of the United States at the turn of the 19th century and their lasting impact on our country’s culture.
Louisa Brooks and Lucy Davis were contract employees who came to the Holley boarding house through the New York Colored Mission’s employment program. With the help of images, recipes, oral histories, and literature, the lecture will consider the history that informs those who worked in hospitality and the service industry; their experiences as lodgers; and their cultural contributions to the diverse Black community emerging in early 20th-century New York City.
“It is a privilege to have Dr. Mitchell at the Historical Society to share compelling stories about the Black women heading to New York in the early 20th century, where they rented rooms, found space in boarding houses, and earned their first wages working in kitchen or parlors,” says Historical Society Executive Director and CEO Carol Cadou. “Integral to our mission is sharing these fuller histories with a broader audience.”
The series complements the Historical Society’s current exhibition in celebration of America’s 250th anniversary, The Holley Boarding House: Inspiring American Impressionism, on view through March 8, 2026. In conjunction with this lecture, the Historical Society will host a special curator-led tour of the exhibition prior to the lecture at 12:30 and 1:15. The tour is an additional cost and can be purchased as a bundle with the lecture.
For more information, visit https://greenwichhistory.org/event/greenwich-centennial-cthumanities
