The Village Beautiful: Sweeping History under the Rug

7/12/2014 - 4:30 pm

Norfolk Library

In an illustrated lecture first presented at the Norfolk 2023 celebration last October, Ann Havemeyer will uncover some of the thorny issues that divided the town as it faced an increasingly diverse population in the 19th century. Recent research has shed more light on the tension between the so-called Irish “semi-barbarous foreigners” and the Protestant “codfish aristocracy.” That aristocracy responded to the threat of social change by stamping their cultural heritage on the Norfolk landscape, transforming it into a Village Beautiful. Lecture will be followed by a book signing. Free and open to the public.