Ellen Swallow Richards House
| Ellen Swallow Richards House | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| National Register of Historic Places | |||
| National Historic Landmark | |||
| Historic District Contributing Property | |||
 The house in 2009 |
|||
|
|||
| location | Boston , Massachusetts , United States | ||
| Coordinates | 42 ° 18 ′ 41.5 " N , 71 ° 7 ′ 11.5" W | ||
| surface | 9,620 ft² (893.7 m² ) | ||
| Built | 1873-1874 | ||
| architect | unknown | ||
| Architectural style | Italianate | ||
| NRHP number | 92001874 | ||
| Data | |||
| The NRHP added | October 11, 1990 | ||
| Declared as an NHL | March 31, 1992 | ||
| Declared as CP | October 11, 1990 | ||
The Ellen Swallow Richards House is the former home of Ellen Swallow Richards in Boston in the state of Massachusetts in the United States . It was entered as a National Historic Landmark on the National Register of Historic Places and is also the Contributing Property of Monument Square Historic District .
architecture
Located in the Boston district of Jamaica Plain , the single-family home was the home of Ellen Swallow Richards from 1876 to 1911 and is named after her to this day. Just one block to the northwest is Jamaica Pond , which was added to the so-called Emerald Necklace in the 1890s . The house consists of a two-story main part and a rear, one-story extension for the kitchen and was built entirely of wood. The rear of the hipped roof of the main part is broken through in the middle by a wide dormer window with three windows.
When Ellen Swallow and Robert Hallowell Richards bought the house around 1875, they had it extensively remodeled using the latest research by Ellen Swallow Richards. She attached particular importance to the irrigation and drainage systems by replacing the existing lead pipes with those without lead. A storage tank on the upper floor, which supplied the bathtub and toilets, was filled using a hand pump in the kitchen. Richards also tried to get the city to expand the canal system to Jamaica Plain.
Historical meaning
The house got its current importance mainly through its owner Ellen Swallow Richards. Her technical innovations in sanitary technology led to considerable improvements in the area of environmental hygiene, and her further experimental research established modern home economics . Her work also expanded the opportunities for women to work in science at the time; Richards herself was the first woman in America to graduate from a scientific college, namely the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology .
In their house they set up a laboratory that they "Center for Right Living" ( German Center for proper housing ) and called for experiments in the field of "house chemistry" - since 1910 called housekeeping - used. She examined practically all items that were available for American households, including furniture, food, household appliances and tools, under controlled and scientific conditions. As a result of her studies, she recommended designs for sauce spoons, for example, to make them suitable for both right-handed and left-handed people. She was one of the first people to have a home phone in their home after Alexander Graham Bell presented his invention in Boston in 1876. Richards replaced coal, wood and oil with gas as fuel for lamps and stoves and made sure that her house was one of the first to be supplied with electricity, so that she could switch from gas lamps to emission-free and comparatively safe electric light. Richards tested products in a way that the manufacturers themselves did not, and always put quality first, while the purchase price was less important.
See also
- List of entries on the National Register of Historic Places in southern Boston
- List of National Historic Landmarks in Massachusetts
literature
- Gail Lee Dubrow: National Register of Historic Places Registration Form. (PDF) United States Department of the Interior , National Park Service , July 1, 1991, accessed June 19, 2017 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Listing of National Historic Landmarks by State: Massachusetts. National Park Service , accessed August 10, 2019.
- ↑ cf. Dubrow, p. 6.
- ↑ cf. Dubrow, p. 7.
- ↑ cf. Dubrow, p. 12.
- ↑ cf. Dubrow, p. 15.