Lecture & Lunch: Historic Odessa

Please join us for a special lecture highlighting the diversity of the collections, new findings, and a few surprises!

Dr. Philip D. Zimmerman
Museum and Decorative Arts Consultant
Historic Odessa: New Findings in an Old Collection
The Corbit-Sharp and Wilson-Warner houses in Odessa are two of the finest Georgian structures in the state, containing an engaging mix of furnishings.

Discover highlights of the rich history awaiting visitors to this charming Delaware River community that flourished as a marketing hub from the mid-18th through early 19th centuries. William Corbit and David Wilson, patriarchs of two of the town’s most prosperous families, built magnificent houses and filled them with the outward trappings of their success. Successive generations took particular interest in the preservation of the family history and that of the town itself. The legacy of their endeavors, along with the considerable efforts of 20th-century preservationist H. Rodney Sharp, can be seen in the six remarkable properties now owned and administered by the Historic Odessa Foundation. Included with admission.

Join us for an in-depth look at the objects that tell the Odessa story through design, materials, construction and history.

Program Schedule

10:30 – 12:00pm Bank meeting room. Power point presentation and close up examination of small objects

12:00-1:15pm Cantwell’s Tavern lunch

1:15-2:30pm Wilson-Warner House collection object workshop.

$25 per person includes lecture and lunch.

By Reservation Only.

Philip D. Zimmerman

Dr. Zimmerman is a museum and decorative arts consultant, author, and American antique furniture broker and appraiser based in Lancaster, Pa.  He holds a doctorate in American and New England Studies from Boston University and a masters degree from the Winterthur Program in Early American Culture, and is a nationally recognized authority on early American furniture.  Recent publications include Harmony in Wood: Furniture of the Harmony Society (2010), Delaware Clocks (2006), American Furniture and Decorative Arts from the Watson Collection (2004), and many articles in the Chipstone journal American Furniture, Winterthur Portfolio, Antiques Magazine, and others.  In addition to his various projects, he teaches about American furniture in the Appraisal Studies Program at NYU and material culture at Franklin & Marshall College.  This past year he returned to the Board of Directors of Preservation Pennsylvania.   Previously, he was director of the museum collections division at Winterthur (1986-1992), executive director of the Historical Society of York County (1983-86), and curator of the Currier Gallery of Art, Manchester, N.H. (1978-83).