3/28/24 – Author Cyndy Bittinger spoke about the women behind Hanover’s Webster Cottage in this talk sponsored by the Hanover Historical Society and Howe Library.
Webster Cottage, built in 1780, resides at 32 North Main Street and is operated by the Hanover Historical Society for tours during the season. The outside plaque states that Daniel Webster, the famous American statesman, and Henry Fowle Durant (born Henry Wells Smith), founder of Wellesley College, once lived there. Yet females also lived in the cottage and they were the ones who saved it for future generations. Who were these women? What did they do? One of them even had a collection of silhouettes so valuable that they are now at the Smithsonian Museum. For women’s history month, Howe Library and the Hanover Historical Society are sponsoring a talk by Cyndy Bittinger on this subject.
Cyndy Bittinger is faculty, The Community College of Vermont. She has taught Vermont History and Women in U.S. History at CCV for over 20 years. She gives lectures for OSHER, the Lifelong Learning Institute of the University of Vermont. She is a member of the Center for Research on Vermont at the University of Vermont. She was a commentator for many years for Vermont Public Radio on Vermont history. She is president of the Hanover Historical Society in Hanover, NH. She wrote Grace Coolidge, Sudden Star, a book about Vermont’s only first lady, and appeared on C-SPAN for their series on first ladies. Her book Vermont Women, Native Americans and African Americans: Out of the Shadows of History continues to be of interest to her students and the public. She is a graduate of Wheaton College (MA) and Teachers College, Columbia University.