Ebenezer Maxwell Mansion in Germantown, the only Victorian-era house museum in Philadelphia, is celebrating its 50th anniversary. The historic mansion’s mission — which began in 1964 with neighbors collecting donations door-to-door with a coffee can — is still relevant and vital, said Executive Director George Boudreau.

“We’re all looking for a moment to create relevance but I think Maxwell Mansion has that,” Boudreau said. “It is a critical moment in the history of American society, in the history of the American Constitution, and in the history of American daily life.”

The Ebenezer Maxwell Mansion (EMM) showcases the material culture of the era and imagines daily life for owners Ebenezer and Anna Smith Maxwell, along with subsequent owners William and Rosalie Hunter. Rosalie and Howard Stevenson’s daughter, Augusta was the last occupant until 1956 when the mansion struggled to find an owner before the West Central Germantown Neighbors organization formed and created a museum.

Life in the Victorian era

The interior of EMM, at 200 W. Tulpehocken St. includes 19th-century toys in a recreated children’s bedroom with original decorative wall stencils. The surrounding gardens mimic popular Victorian planting styles, such as monochromatic plots. EMM pledges to “reveal the thoughts and minds of Philadelphia’s rising middle class in the period from the 1860s to the 1910s,” according to the mansion website.

Boudreau joined the museum’s staff in 2023 after decades as a historian researching historic homes, including George Washington’s Mount Vernon and Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello. He’s particularly interested in the history of the domestic workers at Maxwell Mansion, which he attributes to his own working class roots.

The workers were native Pennsylvanians and Irish immigrant women who cooked and took care of the wealthy children of the mansion’s owners: the Maxwells, Hunters, and Stevensons. Early in his career, during conflicts at the National Park Service over telling and revealing the stories of enslaved workers at Mount Vernon, Boudreau pledged to “tell the whole house.” He brought that pledge to EMM.

“I have crawled through attics. I have trudged into basements. I have laid under historic beds,” Boudreau said. “I am just back from the Newport Summer School, where I know more of the lives of 19th-century ultrawealthy and their crazy, expansive idea of architecture and what the super rich live like. But I kept asking people, ‘What about the folks in the basement?’”

Archives and restoration

Boudreau and his staff spearheaded an archives project, looking into past restorations ahead of Ebenezer Maxwell’s celebration. When a chunk of ceiling was removed for repair, they found evidence of a laundry chute boarded up by past restorers. The chute offers a glimpse of what daily life and chores were like for 19th-century servants. Currently, Boudreau is looking at basement pipes to decode the house’s history of running water, which was a luxury at the time.

Other future projects include a new roof and restarting the Philadelphia Chapter of the Victorian Society of America (VSA), an international movement active in the 1960s that restored Victorian homes such as the Germantown mansion. The chapter already has at least 30 interested members, many who live in and restore such sites in Chestnut Hill, Germantown, West Philadelphia, and Montgomery County. “[EMM] is an excellent example of its type (Victorian Eclectic) and will make a fitting home for the revival of the Philadelphia Chapter of the Victorian Society,” said Sue Verzella, VSA business manager.

The mansion’s impact is still alive in other ways in local homes. Northwest Philadelphia residents donate items that were used in the 19th century, or belonged to the mansion’s owners, such as a dresser purchased at an estate auction there in 1956 with “James Maxwell” written in a drawer.

Community connections

Boudreau is also committed to expanding the mansion’s education program, reaching out to nearby schools including Anna L. Lingelbach Elementary and Germantown Friends. The museum also hosts free tours as part of Germantown’s Second Saturdays event series. Past public events included an egg roll popularized during the Victorian era by President Rutherford B. Hayes. The egg roll is an Easter tradition in which children roll eggs down a hill with a wooden spoon in a race. Boudreau believes the museum presents a learning opportunity for all, both in daily life in the Victorian era and empathy about historic figures relevant to the modern day.

“The decision to immigrate was often a lifetime decision. This house is a story of joy and progress, but it’s also loneliness and challenge,” Boudreau said. “What was life like? That’s always our fundamental question in any house museum.”

Boudreau hopes the museum helps others to understand what events such as the Civil War and Industrial Revolution were like for mansion residents. The impacts, Boudreau said, shaped the area today — like the mansions built along Tulpehocken Street following railroad construction — and continue to matter today with the proposed cut to the Chestnut Hill West line. The mansion, unaffected by recent grants to arts and humanities funding, will be impacted if the transportation that staff and visitors use to travel to the area is cut, he said.

“History teaches us times have always been challenging, but we need to think as human beings about ways we can find inspiration and keep going on,” Boudreau said. “Another of my mentors said to me when she went through a terrible experience, you just keep putting one foot in front of the other. House museums give us the opportunity to do that. To learn from the past, to learn from experiences, and to figure out where we need to go.”

The Ebenezer Maxwell Mansion will celebrate 50 years since its founding as a nonprofit organization with a free Coffee with Neighbors event on Saturday, August 9, 9:30-11:30 a.m. More information can be found at ebenezermaxwellmansion.org.