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 28 from 2-3:15pm.

Domestic servants. Photo courtesy Greenwich Historical Society

Bush-Holley House dining room. Photo courtesy Greenwich Historical Society

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, click here.

Greenwich Historical Society is located at 47 Strickland Road in Cos Cob.

Frank Mitchell is Committee Chair of CT Humanities. He is a cultural organizer in visual arts and public humanities committed to following the histories shared by monuments, civic spaces, and cultural institutions. As curatorial adviser for the Toni N. and Wendell C. Harp Historical Museum at The Dixwell Community House, Mitchell managed design and planning of gallery and collections storage for the building’s 2021 opening. He is The Amistad Center for Art & Culture’s curator at large, and during his tenure Mitchell managed collections and interpretation for the 2015 site renovation.

Mitchell’s curatorial projects include the exhibitions Freedomways, Love Overflowing: HOME and the Décor of Freedom, Timeless: Telling Our Neighborhood Stories—Chapter 1: Constance Baker Motley, The Nutmeg Pulpit: Hartford’s Talcott Street Church & Black Community Formation, Finding Freeman/s: Wisdom for Contemporary Cornwall from its 19th century Black & Indigenous Neighbors, and Afrocosmologies: American Reflections. Mitchell holds a Doctor of Philosophy degree in American Culture from the University of Michigan, a Master of Arts degree in African American Studies from Yale University, and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Bowdoin College. He began work in museums as a programmer at the Smithsonian’s Anacostia Museum and The Studio Museum in Harlem. He serves as chair of the CT Humanities board, treasurer of the NEFA board, and a member of the Elm Shakespeare Company’s board.

Greenwich Historical Society was founded in 1931 to preserve and interpret Greenwich history to strengthen the community’s connection to our past, to each other and to our future. The circa 1730 National Historic Landmark Bush-Holley House witnessed slavery and the American Revolution and became the site of Connecticut’s first American Impressionist art colony from 1890 to 1920. Its landscape and gardens are restored based on documentation from the site’s Impressionist era. The campus also includes a nationally accredited museum, library and archives, a museum store, café, and a community education center.

Greenwich Historical Society educates thousands of school children annually and connects visitors to the history of this globally influential community through exhibitions, lectures, programs and events. It receives no town funding and relies on donations and grants to continue its work in education and preservation. Learn more at greenwichhistory.org.