The Devoted Tomb

February 17, 2025

Steven Baltsas, WPAMC '25 Lady Jane Waller's tomb in the south transept of Bath Abbey. Photo by the author. Bath Abbey’s walls are crammed with memorial plaques. The milky, pale marble contours are classical: perfect white figures feigning ancient sculpture. There are sumptuous swags, urns, and pudgy cherubs, most dating to the eighteenth century. However, a tomb of darker materials beckoned me closer; a tomb more impactful in ...

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A Tale of Two Henrys: Writing About Beauport to Think About Winterthur

September 02, 2024

Dorian Cole, WPAMC '24 Arriving back at Winterthur after a week-long voyage to “the North” that involved a stop at Beauport, a forty-room masterwork of architectural salvage and immaculately eccentric interior design choices, I couldn’t help but see our own 175-room chimera-house with new eyes. The similarities are no coincidence, nor am I the first to observe them. After assisting with the decoration of Henry Francis du Pont’s Chestertown ...

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There Was Once a Basket from Nantucket: A Modern Global Commodity

August 26, 2024

Laini Farrare, WPAMC '24 Figure 1: Nantucket Windsor Chair, Nantucket Whaling Museum. Photo Courtesy of Laini Farrare. It was a sunny crisp day to visit the island of Nantucket, when the WPAMC Class of 2024 and our leaders boarded the fast ferry from New Bedford, Massachusetts to the “The Little Grey Lady of the Sea.” Visiting the island felt like going back in time, as it was the whaling capital of the world before New Bedford took the title ...

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Exploitation or Education? Modern Cabinets of Curiosity and Haunted Tourism

August 19, 2024

Lyric Lott, WPAMC '24 What is the key to a frightfully good haunted house? One’s mind might jump to dark corridors and crowded interiors scattered with dusty human skulls, creepy masks, and the sense of being watched by glassy-eyed, taxidermied beasts. Intriguingly, this is not far off the mark from what one can currently find in the basement of the Armour-Stiner Octagon House in Irvington, New York. From now until October 31st, 2023, visitors may ...

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