Historic New England

Historic New England, previously known as The Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities (SPNEA), is a charitable, non-profit, historic preservation organization in Boston, Massachusetts. It is focused on New England and is the oldest and largest regional preservation organization in the United States.

Related Topics:
Boston, Massachusetts - New England - United States

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William Sumner Appleton founded SPNEA in 1910 for "the purpose of preserving for posterity buildings, places and objects of historical and other interest." Accession records for 1910 list 19 items. Appleton considered everything from the mundane to the singular worth preserving, and so Historic New England's collection today ranges from everyday cakes of soap to extraordinary specimens of fine furniture.

Related Topics:
William Sumner Appleton - Soap - Furniture

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Historic New England currently owns and operates 35 house museums and landscapes across New England, representing nearly 400 years of architecture, as well as a wide-ranging collection of more than 100,000 objects of historical and aesthetic significance (the largest assemblage of New England art and artifacts in the country). It also archives more than 1,000,000 items documenting New England architectural and cultural history, including photographs, prints and engravings, more than 20,000 architectural drawings and specifications, books, manuscripts, and ephemera.

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