2012: Focus on Programming

The Tusculum Institute has always had a varied and interdisplinary mission, serving historic interests on campus and within the broader community. Unfortunately, one of our original goals - to reconstruct the historic house - will not be realized in the near future due to the difficult economic climate. However, the Institute remains dedicated to environmentally sustainable historic preservation. We are also happy to report that our partnership with the Department of Historic Resources continues and, tapping into the expertise of its staff, we will be able to offer several distinctive lectures in 2012. The first in the new year will be March 28 when Calder Loth returns to campus to lecture on "Palladio and the American Architectural Image."

One of the most exciting initiatives of the Tusculum Institute in 2012 will be a focus on the 19th-century Sweet Briar Plantation. Every undergraduate and alumnae knows part of the story: a grieving mother founds a college in honor of her dead daughter. We will expand the focus to include the dozens of individuals who worked on the farm, befriended the young girl, dreamed of creating a college for women, and built the College buildings. This intitiative will include an online database about Sweet Briar history that students will contribute to, a virtual reconstruction of the Federal/Georgian-style Tusculum home, an historical blog and a variety of lectures and walking tours of Sweet Briar's historic campus and landscape. We will also be studying the slave cabin.

As always, this reseach will be an interdisplinary effort, with support from faculty in the sciences, social sciences and humanities. In addition, the Tusculum Institute Advisory Council has been exapnded to include members of the local community and will focus on ways to take our message into the surrounding environs.


College employees, c. 1900-1935. L to R: unnamed gardener, Lewis Chambers, Mattie Rose, "Ernest," and Signora Hollins (a childhood friend of Daisy's).

Students Study Ancient Construction Techniques, Brick by Brick

This spring students have an opportunity to take Professor Lynn Laufenberg's history class, "Building the Past." In this popular course, students learn about the construction techniques used in ancient cathedrals, aqueducts, roads, bridges and city walls. As with many Sweet Briar courses, it combines displinary approaches, covering both the history of ancient building technology and engineering principles. Beyond this core focus, Professor Laufenberg explains that it will include "short side trips into medieval hydraulics, cathedrals and Renaissance engineering. ... All built around core notions of sustainability." In their final projects students apply what they have learned in class to buildings from a more recent era, such as Colonial America or post-Katrina New Orleans.

Tusculum Building Materials Stabilized and Repaired; New Exhibits Open

Last December, the Tusculum Institute received a grant from the Roller-Bottimore Foundation. The money, along with matching donations, was used to curate the historic, wooden materials from the Tusculum house. Jon Cesafsky and his crew from LoneJack Construction began work on the materials this past fall. They anticipate wrapping up the repairs in February 2012.

Last term, as part of her arts management practicum, Maddie Hodges '13 learned restoration techniques from the crew and created a 10-minute video that explains some of the steps that are required to repair 250-year old wood and 18th-century window panes. Her video is accessible through the Tusculum website. A second arts management student, Ann Roach '13, is working with Professor Karol Lawson and Nancy McDearmon to design a new exhibit about Tusculum, which opens March 7 in the Sweet Briar College Museum. A third student, recent graduate Vera Schooler '12, assisted archaeologists with a new exhibit titled "Everyday History: Archaeological and Historical Artifacts from the Sweet Briar Collections," also opening in March. In the fall, Schooler cataloged artifacts exacavated from Tusculum's lawn in the 1990s by Professor Claudia Chang and in 2006 by a team of archaeologists from the College of William & Mary (just before the house was dismantled and moved).

Above: Dave Smith, LoneJack Construction, demonstrates techniques for restoring historic building materials. L to R: Applying penetrol to protect wood; checking for termite damage (seen in the beam) and preparing the beam for replacement pieces; cleaning window sashes and repairing broken glass.

Cemetery Guardians: Crawford Descendents Restore Tusculum Sites

For the third year in a row, Lionel Mitchell and his son, Daniel, returned to the Crawford/Fletcher graveyard on the grounds of the former Tusculum Plantation to help maintain and restore the stones and fences. They repaired a gate and cut back weeds, saplings and boxwoods. One of the most dramatic efforts was the restoration of the iron gate. Mr. Mitchell, drawing on years of experience with his hobby as an antique car restorer, applied a rust conversion chemical in 2010 to arrest the progress of the rust. One year later, the gate had started to rust again (photo on the upper left), but a top coat of flat black rust conversion paint (seen in the photo at the upper right) will convert the rust permanently. The Mitchells also stabilized the fence post that the gate hangs from so that it would not fall over.

With a map provided by Lynn Rainville, the Mitchells also visited the Slave Cemetery associated with Tusculum and cut down small trees and bushes. The burial site is covered in periwinkle and contains unadorned stones (faintly visible in the photo on the lower left). Except for the historic image in the lower right corner, the photos were taken by the Mitchells.

About Tusculum Institute

Tusculum Institute is a historic preservation resource center on the campus of Sweet Briar College providing education and outreach to students, faculty and the wider community and region. Using the rich historic and intellectual resources of the College and working in partnership with the Department of Historic Resources, the Institute supports the preservation of the region's historic assets in a context of environmental stewardship and promotes the use of Virginia's historic legacy as a learning resource.

Growing our membership

Let us know if you have friends or colleagues who might enjoy this newsletter.