The Friends of the Owens-Thomas House, or FOT, is a group of Telfair Museums members especially interested in architecture, decorative arts, and history. Their contributions support continued preservation and interpretation efforts at the Owens-Thomas House & Slave Quarters, public programming, and emerging scholarship. Members enjoy special access to tours and lectures, invitations to events like the annual Champagne Garden Party, and exclusive visits to museums, historic homes, and private collections.
Upcoming Events
Join us for these exciting FOT events!
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With generous support from the Friends of the Owens-Thomas House, the northwest bed chamber at the Owens-Thomas House & Slave Quarters was reinterpreted in the spring of 2023 as the Boys’ Bed Chamber.
In February 2022, Owens-Thomas House & Slave Quarters saw the completion of its first major room restoration since 2014 with the opening of the Girls’ Bed Chamber. Generously supported by the Friends of the Owens-Thomas House, the southwest bed chamber on the home’s upper level has been beautifully reimagined as the primary space for George and Sarah Owens’s three daughters, Mary, Sarah, and Margaret.
The Friends of the Owens-Thomas House (FOT) is proud to present a fascinating lecture on masculinity in the low country during the early 19th century with Dr. Sandy Slater.
The Friends of the Owens-Thomas House (FOT) is proud to present a fascinating lecture on masculinity in the low country during the early 19th century with Dr. Sandy Slater.
Elite Women’s Education at the Turn of the Nineteenth Century with Dr. Lizzie Rogers
The historic house, in town or country, was a perfect resource to a girl, or woman, wanting to learn or gain an education during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Libraries, collections, art, wealth, and people were all at their fingertips: but of course, how accessible were these things to women? This period saw a shift, through the intellectual movement of the enlightenment, in ideas and knowledge practices that led some philosophers, like John Locke, to effectively argue that women were held back by poor education, not by their own state of being. What could a woman learn? What should or shouldn’t she know? Through the words of women from this period, and published writers such as Jane Austen (from whose Pride and Prejudice the title quotation is taken), Mary Wollstonecraft and Maria Edgeworth, this talk explores some of the ways ideas about women’s education in this period were reshaped, how elite women learned and accessed knowledge, and their experiences of doing so.
Elite Women’s Education at the Turn of the Nineteenth Century with Dr. Lizzie Rogers
The historic house, in town or country, was a perfect resource to a girl, or woman, wanting to learn or gain an education during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Libraries, collections, art, wealth, and people were all at their fingertips: but of course, how accessible were these things to women? This period saw a shift, through the intellectual movement of the enlightenment, in ideas and knowledge practices that led some philosophers, like John Locke, to effectively argue that women were held back by poor education, not by their own state of being. What could a woman learn? What should or shouldn’t she know? Through the words of women from this period, and published writers such as Jane Austen (from whose Pride and Prejudice the title quotation is taken), Mary Wollstonecraft and Maria Edgeworth, this talk explores some of the ways ideas about women’s education in this period were reshaped, how elite women learned and accessed knowledge, and their experiences of doing so.
