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| BB28:
Emerson College Buildings 21 to 23 Commonwealth Avenue  Emerson
College was established as a school of public speaking in 1880. In the early
years, most of its graduates became teachers. With the introduction of radio
production to its curriculum, Emerson began to expand its offerings to a wide
range of courses and experiences in communication. One of its most distinguished
graduates is Elma Lewis, a committed community activist. She founded the Elma
Lewis School of Fine Arts in Roxbury in 1950 in order to bring arts to the African
American community, especially to young people. She expanded her school to become
the National Center of Afro-American Artists between 1969 and 1980. Her production
of Black Nativity by Langston Hughes is still performed in Boston during the
Christmas season. Emerson College awarded Elma Lewis an honorary Doctor of Humanities
degree in 1968. |
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| BB29: Boston Center for Adult Education 5 Commonwealth Avenue Founded in 1933, the Boston Center for Adult Education was the first private, nonprofit adult education center in New England. It offers a range of courses in the humanities, arts, sciences, and professional development. One participant whose course at the Center led to a career in poetry was Anne Gray Sexton (1928-1974). At the age of 28 she took John Holmes's poetry workshop. She began writing poetry as mental therapy, but soon became well known. Suffering from mental depression, she once said, "Poetry saved my life." She was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for her collection, Live or Die, in 1967. Although she committed suicide, many of her poems call out for life. She said, "I say Live, Live because of the sun,/ the dream, the excitable gift." |
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BB30: Home of Sarah Choate Sears One Commonwealth Avenue (now Harbridge House)  Artist
and art collector Sarah Choate Sears (1858-1935) and her husband Joshua Montgomery
Sears lived in this Boston mansion in the first decades of the 20th century.
A graduate of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Sarah Sears painted portraits
and still lifes and later took up photography. A supporter of local artists,
Sears was the only woman incorporator of the Society of Arts and Crafts (see
BB11). She also was active in the work of the Copley Society (see BB13). Sears
was a patron of post impressionist painter Maurice Prendergast, and collected
paintings by the early moderns and impressionists. Among them was her acquaintance,
American-born Mary Cassatt (1845-1926), whose paintings are treasured by museums
worldwide. |
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