Symposium: Wesleyan in the 1830s – New Perspectives

The symposium “Wesleyan in the 1830s: New Perspectives” will focus on the domestic structures built in the 1830s and interrogate the relationship between high and vernacular building styles and the oppositional ideologies underlying the Triangular trade, the Colonization movement, Abolitionism, and free Black community formation with which they affiliated.

Building on the successful symposium “Wesleyan in the 1830s: Historic Preservation and the Stories We Choose To Tell” in April 2024, this event presents new discoveries related to the Alsop House and the Leverett Beman Historic District. Together, these sites, both created around 1830, provide a lens onto some of the most influential and controversial developments in early 19th-century America and lend insight into the University’s founding decade. We invite consideration of how these properties and histories might be better preserved, represented, and integrated into the cityscape of Middletown and the campus of Wesleyan today.

PROGRAM

10am: Welcome and opening remarks by Katherine Kuenzli, Professor and Chair, Department of Art and Art History, Wesleyan University

10:10am to 10:40am: Arlene Palmer Schwind (Victoria Mansion, Portland, Maine), “Nicola Monachesi and the Italian Style in 19th-Century American Interiors”

10:40am to 11:10am: Franny Hutchins (University of Pennsylvania), “A Technical and Historical Investigation of Monachesi’s Decorative Murals in the Richard Alsop IV House”

11:10am to 11:40am: Jesse Nasta ’07 (Assistant Professor of the Practice in African American Studies, Wesleyan University), “Entwined Histories: The Beman Triangle, the Alsops, and the Aftermath of Connecticut Slavery”

11:40am to Noon: Roundtable discussion with speakers and Shakur Collins ’26, moderated by Alain Munkittrick ’73, President of the Board of the Middlesex County Historical Society

Noon to 12:15pm: General discussion

1:30pm to 2:30pm: Site visits, Alsop House murals and Leverett Beman Historic District

2:30pm to 2:45pm: Remarks on adaptive re-use by Joseph Siry, Kenan Professor of the Humanities and Professor and Program Director for Art History, Wesleyan University

2:45pm to 3pm: Closing remarks by Elizabeth Milroy, Professor of Art History Emerita, Wesleyan University; Professor Emerita, Drexel University; Lecturer in Historic Preservation, University of Pennsylvania

This event is sponsored by the Virgil and Juwil Topazio Fund of the Department of Art and Art History, the Center for African American Studies, the Department of American Studies, and the Theater Department.

Admission is free, and everyone is welcome. Registration required. Please RSVP by Friday, April 24, 2026. 

While you’re on campus, we encourage you to visit the Center for the Arts to explore current art exhibitions and other programming.