The history of the United States has been defined by a series of cultural encounters along a constantly shifting, ever-expanding border. From the earliest European settlement in the 16th and 17th centuries to the westward expansion movements of the 19th century, America was shaped by these places where cultures came together; a multi-ethnic and multi-lingual society grew out of the ravages of conquest.

This lecture will explore a brief history of Colonial and 19th century America through ten fascinating objects that tell the story of life and artistic production along the border. From objects of Native American culture, to extraordinary trade goods, to furniture made by culturally diverse settlers in the hinterlands of America, Mr. Carr will show that more than being a simple political boundary, the borderlands of the Americas were a liminal zone of contact, creativity, and exchange.

First installed at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in 1928, the Oak Hill Rooms remain among the most historically significant Federal-style period rooms in any American museum. Built in 1800–1 in South Danvers (now Peabody), Massachusetts, Oak Hill is distinguished not just by its distinctive architecture but the fact that the rooms survive with most of their original furnishings, each object a masterpiece of the American neoclassical style. The MFA owns three rooms from Oak Hill—the parlor, dining room, and bedroom—a testament to the wealth and fashionable tastes of the home’s original owners, Elizabeth Derby West and her husband Capt. Nathaniel West. Samuel McIntire (1757–1811), the renowned Salem, Massachusetts, craftsman and the architect of Oak Hill, was also the carver of many of the exquisite pieces of furniture on display.

Join curator Dennis Carr as he discusses the remarkable history of Oak Hill and its original furnishings and learn about the extensive conservation and research that went into the reinstallation of the rooms in the MFA’s new Art of the Americas Wing, which opened in 2010.

Dennis Carr is the Carolyn and Peter Lynch Curator of American Decorative Arts and Sculpture in Art of the Americas at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. He is the co-curator of the MFA’s 53-gallery Art of the Americas Wing, and is a contributing author to the books A New World Imagined: Art of the Americas (2010); Painting a Map of Sixteenth-Century Mexico City: Land, Writing, and Native Rule (2012); Made in the Americas: The New World Discovers Asia (2015); and Art and Industry in Early America: Rhode Island Furniture, 1650–1830 (2016), which won the Charles F. Montgomery Book Prize and the Historic New England Book Prize. His recent exhibitions at the MFA include Made in the Americas: The New World Discovers Asia (2015); Collecting Stories: Native American Art (2018); and Cecilia Vicuña: Disappeared Quipu (2018). He holds graduate degrees from Yale University in the History of Art and from the Winterthur Program in Early American Culture. Prior to joining the MFA in 2007, Carr served in the departments of American Paintings and Sculpture and American Decorative Arts at the Yale University Art Gallery.