You Can Celebrate International Women’s Day at the Nichols House Museum

The Nichols House Museum photo via Wikimedia/Creative Commons

What better way to celebrate women across the globe than by spending this Saturday afternoon in the home of a suffragist? To honor International Women’s Day, the Nichols House Museum will admit female visitors free of charge on Saturday, March 11.

Beacon Hill’s Bulfinch-built house museum was once home to suffragist, landscape architect, and female force Rose Standish Nichols. Among her many accomplishments, she was a founding member of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom in 1915, which has a mission to unite all women for peace, disarmament, and gender equality.

Nichols inherited the Federal-style home on Mount Vernon Street from her father in 1935, and ruled the roost until her death in 1960. She never married, but often hosted salons at the house, gathering intellectuals to discuss and debate progressive ideas over afternoon tea. Nichols intended for the house to be left as a museum after her death, and since then, it’s shown Bostonians what life was like in Beacon Hill at the turn of the century.

Saturday’s tours will highlight the lives, careers, and activism of Rose Nichols and her sisters, Margaret and Marian. The three women combated the social climate of the early 20th century to push for women’s suffrage, education reform, and labor rights. In addition to their political and social achievements, the Nichols sisters paved career paths in design, education, and carpentry.

Free for females, Saturday, March 11, Nichols House Museum, 55 Mount Vernon St., 11 a.m.-4 p.m., nicholshousemuseum.org.