Margaret Brown

On April 20, 1914, violence broke out in Ludlow, Colorado as miners on strike were fired upon by the Colorado National Guard and the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company. The event came on the heels of months of contention between the two sides. Since the beginning of 1914, miners in Ludlow had been on strike…

Picture this: you are an archeologist exploring an ancient tomb in Egypt. You are navigating dark tunnels painted with inscriptions of Gods and the afterlife, until suddenly, you find yourself in the heart of the pyramid itself. The tomb of a long-forgotten elite of the Egyptian world. How do you know that you have found…

Simply visiting the Molly Brown House Museum is one way you can learn about Margaret “Molly” Brown’s incredible life, however, to gain a deeper understanding of how she lived and even what she held dear, you can view her private collections, The Brown Family Collection, online on the museum website. Looking into Margaret’s life, she…

Stained glass, prior to restoration Like many historical houses, the Molly Brown House Museum has restored many aspects of the home to its original beauty. In 2018, Phil and Jane Watkins, of Watkins Stained Glass, restored the original stained glass on the north façade of the house. As noted in a previous blog post, the…

Everyone who comes to the museum undoubtedly has their favorite room, favorite picture, or favorite artifact.  But what about the staff? We challenged our curator to answer this for Ask a Curator Day. We decided that our curator shouldn’t be the only one who got in on the fun, so we asked several members of…

In 1932, after Margaret Brown’s death and during the Great Depression, what we know today as the ‘Molly Brown House Museum’ was sold to a private buyer. Throughout the years, various owners altered the house dramatically, including creating twelve separate rooms for renters and redesigning the appearance of the house to reflect modern styles.  In…

Wanda S., museum volunteer since 2008 When you meet Wanda, our spotlight volunteer, you will immediately be taken in by her warm personality and gracious manner. A volunteer with the Museum for almost 13 years, Wanda and her husband moved to Colorado to retire after time spent in Houston and their native Minnesota. Wanda spent…

Volunteering in America has a history almost as long as our country. Benjamin Franklin is generally credited with starting the trend by instituting a volunteer firehouse in Philadelphia in 1736. But volunteering likely predated him since people who cite Franklin’s gusto for communal fire fighting clubs say that he likely got the idea from similar organizations he…

Christmas in Hannibal, Missouri-Margaret’s Childhood Margaret Tobin (later Brown) celebrated her very first Christmas in Hannibal, Missouri. She was born in 1867, just after the Civil War, to hard working Irish immigrants John and Johanna Tobin. When Margaret was three years old, Christmas became a United States holiday. Christmas trees became popular in England and…

While the Molly Brown House Museum, aka the House of Lions at 1340 Pennsylvania Avenue in Denver, is undeniably the most famous residence of Margaret Brown, this was not the only house which she spent her time in. After she separated from J.J. in 1909, Margaret not only traveled even more than she had before,…

Fifty years ago, on December 11th, 1970, a non-profit officially incorporated as Historic Denver, Inc.  Concerned citizens had watched the demolition of several iconic Denver buildings in years prior, so this group banded together and started with saving 1340 Pennsylvania Street.  Designed by William Lang and occupied by Titanic survivor and social activist Margaret Tobin…

Armistice Day, 1918. Courtesy of Denver Public Library 102 years ago, a powerful strain of the flu swept the globe, infecting one third of the world’s population. Despite being called the Spanish Flu, is believed to have begun at US Army Camp Funston in Kansas earlier in 1918, and spread across the world via troop…

Giving thanks for a special event, for home and for family has a long tradition in the cultures across the world, but the American idea and tradition of Thanksgiving Day for Margaret Brown’s family and for many of us has evolved from simple proclamations of thanksgiving to God to an event centered around the home,…

Throughout 2020, we have been commemorating the centennial of the passage of the 19th Amendment which made it possible for most women to vote. Did you know that this year Colorado women will be celebrating 127 years of voting? On November 7th, Colorado marks the anniversary of the 1893 referendum which gave the women of…

Victorians were curious people interested in nature, the sciences, anatomy, botany, and morbidity. For upper-class citizens, collecting scientific objects showed that they were sophisticated and educated. The Victorians were interested, some even to the point of obsession, in beauty, death, and finding rare items that were visually appealing. Some collections were so extensive that they…

It is a well-known fact that Margaret Brown traveled to many places throughout the world. From New York to India, Paris to Moscow, she visited dozens of places over the course of her life, often picking up artifacts, art and inspiration along the way. One of the most striking and prominent examples of this in…

“A lady explorer?  A traveler in skirts? The notion’s just a trifle too seraphic: Let them stay and mind the babies Or hem our ragged shirts; But they mustn’t, can’t and shan’t be geographic.” Letter to the Royal Geographic Society, June 1893 Who was the Intrepid Woman Traveler? By the 19th century, a new…

When Historic Denver, Inc. bought the Molly Brown House in 1970, it had been emptied of Brown-owned objects and was being used as a boarding house. With restoration efforts and donations from descendants, Margaret’s renters, donors and others who had bought the objects in the house, museum curators have been able to verify and replace…

Like any progressive reform movement, the women’s suffrage movement was met with opposition from both men and women who believed that it would destroy the traditional order of the family. While many people, both men and women, were avid supporters of the movement to give women the vote, there was a very large movement against…

In Margaret Brown’s era, “Pink tea politics” suggested a frivolous engagement with political change, particularly among women of the upper classes of society. Progressive-era gatherings known as ‘pink teas’  were a socially acceptable way for women to organize and strategize in the pursuit of women’s rights, particularly the right to vote without the oversight or…

“Servants of Mrs. Brown Poisoned”, reads a headline on page one of the May 7, 1904 edition of the Denver Times. “Five of the servants seriously ill from eating contaminated food but the family escaped any issues,” it continues. Sam Gleason, stable boy, Mary O’Fallon, cook, Annie Schleining, second girl, Sadie Johnson second girl, and…

Throughout its existence, the Brown’s home, which has come to be known as the House of Lions, has had many different lives. After Margaret Brown died in 1932, the house and everything in it was sold in an estate sale. The house became apartments and, later, a boarding house. By 1952, it was under the…

When asked what kind of Senator she would make, Margaret Brown dealt a “crushing blow to the anti-suffragists who solemnly maintain that the vote will break up homes and spoil women as wives and mothers” when she proclaimed herself a mother of fourteen. She explained that she not only mothered her own children, but twelve…

One of our wonderful volunteers recently won the Denver Women’s Press Club’s Unknown Writers Contest for Non-Fiction. She graciously agreed to write a guest blog for us on Margaret Brown and her involvement in the Press Club. We are happy to present it below: __________ The late 1800’s marked a sea change for the women’s…

The Women’s Suffrage movement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries began as a smaller group of women looking for the right to vote and grew into a massive cross-country campaign. However, the movement itself was not just made of women. In fact, from the beginning, some men took part in the fight for…

Illustration Andrea Gatti, Oceangate.com   “It was just midnight as we dropped down to the water, perhaps a minute or so after. It did not seem long before there was a great sweep of water which went over us all. A great wave rose once and then fell, and we knew that the steamer was…

It started small, with one person. Adam P. came to volunteer for the Molly Brown House Museum in the summer of 2018 as a Page. Pages assist our docents on tours during their summer break. Adam helped by shepherding guests through the House, answering questions, checking tickets, and helping those who needed to leave the…

Captain Edward Smith is most famous for his role at the helm of the Titanic, the disastrous last voyage in his successful career at sea. Rumors about Captain Smith and his final hours have circulated since that fateful night, leading many to blame the captain for the sinking of the ship. Let’s explore who Edward…

Margaret Tobin Brown is known as the “Unsinkable Molly Brown,” famous heroine of the Titanic. Although she was never called Molly (the name first appeared in an obituary, written by a man who had never met her), Margaret’s story has been shaped by myth and legend. At Historic Denver’s Molly Brown House Museum it is…

 Walter Reed Hospital Flu Ward [1910-1920]. Courtesy of Library of Congress It begins with a headache and tiredness followed by a dry, hacking cough. Loss of appetite and stomach problems develop; on the second day, excessive sweating. The symptoms are so severe that it is misdiagnosed at first as cholera, typhoid and dengue. The majority…

“An Iraqi woman prepares to cast her voting ballot” courtesy of Wikimedia Commons  In the United States, the fight for women’s suffrage began in 1848 at a meeting in Seneca Falls, New York.[1] In 1869, Wyoming became the first territory to grant women the right to vote and in 1893, Colorado became the first state…

The Museum recently began the undertaking of compiling all of Margaret and J.J. Brown’s quotes. Along the way, we asked one of our Museum Specialists to write about the project and here is what she had to say: For the past few months I have been chipping away at what feels like an insurmountable task….

In the United States, Europe, and many other parts of the globe, St. Nicholas, Santa Claus, and Father Christmas bring gifts to all the good children on Christmas Eve. The book, T’was Night Before Christmas, was written by Clement Clark Moore in 1823. This was the first time St. Nick appeared in America in a…

Located about two hours southwest of Denver is the town of Leadville, Colorado. Leadville holds the title of the highest elevation of a city in the United States at an impressive 10,152 feet. Established in 1877 by Horace Tabor, propelled by a silver boom, Leadville became one of the fastest growing communities in the country….

Just 10 miles southwest of the Molly Brown House Museum, at Wadsworth and Yale, is the Browns’ summer retreat, built by J. J. Brown in 1897. The Molly Brown Summer House, which the Browns dubbed “Avoca Lodge,” was a peaceful getaway for Margaret and J. J. to escape the hustle and bustle of city life….

For our current exhibit, “Everyone but the Browns – Through the Years at 1340 Pennsylvania St,” we are revealing some of the untold stories about the other occupants of the house. We know that the Browns occupied the house fulltime from 1894-1910. After 1910, the Browns lived elsewhere across the country and traveled abroad, and…

Irish immigrants came to the United States in droves during the Irish Potato Famine (1845-1852) seeking a better life. Once they reached America however, they were met with discrimination and back breaking labor. Faced with the challenges of discrimination, the Irish fought hard to work their way up the socioeconomic ladder in America. The first-generation of immigrants did their utmost to pave a path to a better future for their children. Their efforts made it possible for second and third generation Irish to obtain positions that once had often been out of reach. Many Irishman helped lay down tracks for the growing railroad industry and built roads and ditches for the growing infrastructure of the United States. Margaret Tobin Brown’s own father, an Irish immigrant, was a ditch digger. The booming mining business brought many Irish to Colorado in the…

The following is an excerpt from the Chicago Tribune, February 20, 2000: Did you know that the Titanic included black passengers? Joseph Laroche, a Haitian-born, French-educated engineer left France with his family in 1912. Like Margaret Brown, they did not intend to travel on the Titanic. Joseph Laroche was born in Cap-Haitien, Haiti, and traveled to France to study engineering when he was 15. His wife, Juliette, who grew up in a prominent privileged family, met her husband when she was 15. However, they were not allowed to marry until Joseph finished his degree. They were wed in March of 1908. Laroche was unable to find “fair wages” in France as an engineer due to his race. He was bringing his family to Haiti where his family prospered. He had worked on the building of one of the early Metro…

“PASSENGERS SAFELY MOVED AND STEAMER TITANIC TAKEN IN TOW” (Christian Science Monitor, April 15, 1912) “ALL SAVED FROM TITANIC AFTER COLLISION” (New York Evening Sun, Monday April 15, 1912). “2,000 LIVES ARE SAVED OFF WRECKED TITANIC BY WIRELESS: VESSEL IS REPORTED SINKING.” (Denver Times, Monday evening April 15, 1912). These are just three newspaper headlines from Monday, April 15, 1912. In a world full of instant communication, it is hard to believe that for several days the true fate of the Titanic and all those onboard were not known by the public. Many confusing headlines, such as these, illustrate the lack of communication to the press from the rescue ship Carpathia and White Star Line. In fact, it was not until 6:16pm on Monday April 15 that the Olympic, the sister ship of the Titanic, confirmed that it…

“I am a woman who has traveled all over the world, who has eaten with chopsticks and sat tailor fashion.” –Margaret Brown By the 19th century a new class of solo women travelers appeared in the United States and Europe. These women traveled not to accompany husbands but to please themselves, venturing beyond destinations considered…

This summer’s exhibit at the Molly Brown House Museum, following the 2010 memorialization of Judge Ben Lindsey as part of the dedication of the new Lindsey-Flannigan Courthouse in Denver, is The City and the Children: Denver’s Juvenile Justice System. This exhibit focuses on the work of Judge Ben Lindsey and his efforts to champion a…