Molly 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…

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…

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…

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….

At the Molly Brown House Museum we have more than 100 active volunteers who help by conducting our guests on tours through the Museum, working with school groups, assisting at events and sorting through our archives. It is not an exaggeration to say that we could not open our doors on a daily basis without their…

The following information was taken from Titanic Survivor: The Newly Discovered Memoirs of Violet Jessop Who Survived both the Titanic and Britannic Disasters, by Violet Jessop. Sheridan House Inc., New York 1997) Travel was a huge part of the lives of most wealthy Victorian families. While at sea, they expected a high level of service. Life for ship stewards and stewardesses was not much easier than their counterparts on land. One stewardess who served on Titanic wrote in her memoirs about life serving at sea. Violet Jessop decided on a life at sea when her mother became ill. Violet was around 20 at the time and at least one shipping executive was concerned that she was too young and pretty for the job. Despite those concerns, Violet began her career that year, 1908, on a Royal Mail Line ship sailing to the…

Once the Carpathia docked in New York City on April 18th, the reality of 1,500 lost crew and passengers devastated those waiting for news. The Halifax, Nova Scotia office of the White Star Line spent weeks recovering those lost at sea. From the Library of Congress The SS Mackay-Bennett was the first ship ready to…