November 22, 2011–February 12, 2012
Game Night!
This holiday exhibit will feature late 19th to mid 20th century games including board games, blocks, puzzles and card games from The Heritage Society permanent collection and private lenders. Topics addressed are the increase in leisure time and the resulting boom in entertainment during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries with a focus on the three big makers of games – Parker Brothers, McLoughlin Brothers and Milton Bradley.


February 12, 2012
Heritage Family Day
Game Extravaganza
The Heritage Society Museum Gallery and Plaza
1−4 p.m.
Free admission
Do you know about cat's eyes and shooters? Join us for an afternoon of old fashioned fun at The Heritage Society. Step back in time to try your skill at some of the great games that have entertained generations of families before the days of television and video systems.

February 16, 2012
Jerry & Marvy Finger Lecture Series
Porch Pleasures and Health: Sleeping Porches of the Early 1900s in Houston
by Margaret Culbertson
The Heritage Society Tea Room
12−1 p.m.
Free for members, $5 for non-members
The Staiti House sleeping porch represents a widespread national phenomenon of the early 1900’s.  Fresh air sleeping emerged as a treatment and prevention for tuberculosis, not for pleasure. Comfort and pleasure, however, led to the continued use of sleeping porches in Texas until the advent of air conditioning. Margaret Culbertson will explore the history of sleeping porches and present illustrations of Houston examples, both popular and architect-designed.

February 21−May 20, 2012
The Historic American Buildings Survey: Preservation's Humble Beginnings
Before America had official National Landmarks or historic districts, we had the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS). The HABS project began in 1933, putting to work thousands of unemployed architects, draftsmen, and photographers to document America's historic buildings. Two of The Heritage Society's structures, the 1847 Kellum-Noble House and the 1850 Nichols-Rice-Cherry House, were recorded during the earliest days of HABS. In the fall of 2011, three more of The Heritage Society's historic structures were added to the archive. This exhibit features the intricate architectural drawings and photographs from those surveys and shows how the information is used to preserve the structures for the future.

February 22, 2012
The Historic American Buildings Survey: Preservation's Humble Beginnings
Opening Reception
The Heritage Society Museum Gallery
5:30 p.m.
Free for members, $5 for non-members

February 22, 2012
Building Arts Distinguished Lecture Series
The Historic American Buildings Survey: Then and Now
by Paul Homeyer
The Heritage Society Tea Room
7:00 p.m.
Free for members, $5 for non-members
Paul Homeyer, AIA, Gensler, will speak on The Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS). HABS is a national project that was first introduced to give unemployed architects, draftsmen, and photographers work during the Great Depression, while simultaneously creating a rich record of measured drawings, archival photographs, and historic reports of America’s significant buildings. The archive now contains over 556,900 measured drawings, large format photographs, and written histories that document over 38,600 historic structures and sites. Two of The Heritage Society’s structures—Kellum-Noble House and Nichols-Rice-Cherry House—were documented during the early days of the program in the 1930s, and three additional structures—Old Place, 4th Ward Cottage, and Yates House—were documented from 2010-2011. This lecture will chronicle the development of the program and its continued applicability today.

March 15, 2012
Jerry & Marvy Finger Lecture Series
Bricks, Beer and Groceries: Stories from the Bayou City
by Louis Aulbach
The Heritage Society Tea Room
12−1 p.m.
Free for members, $5 for non-members
The development of the city of Houston along Buffalo Bayou is told in the many stories of people who came to town to seek their opportunities in life. Many of them were successful. Yet, over time, the stories of these early citizens and businessmen have been obscured. Contrary to the popular belief that the city destroys everything from the past, the banks of Buffalo Bayou hold fragments of the early history of Houston.Tangible remnants of earlier structures and secluded ruins from the past can be the spark that ignites our interest in the stories of the people who made this city what it is today. These three stories have been selected from Aulbach's recent publication, Buffalo Bayou: an echo of Houston's wilderness beginnings, and they highlight the contributions of Nathaniel Kellum, Hugh Hamilton and William D. Cleveland to Houston's history.


 

For more information on these events,
please call The Heritage Society at (713) 655-1912.