Admission Tickets

Terms

Admission Tickets
Paper

Dimensions7 × 12 cm (2 3/4 × 4 3/4 in.)

Object number1997.9.4

DescriptionEngraving on paper. One of four admission tickets to Ball & Supper at Agricultural Hall, Concord, April 19, 1875. Three are blue paper and one is white paper. This ticket (.2) is inscribed in handwriting on verso: Gift of Geo. Winthrop Lee Concord January 16, 1938. The celebration of the centennial of the Concord Fight culminated in a ball held at the Middlesex Agricultural Society Hall in Concord. A contemporary account records that for the event "the pillars...were wreathed and draped with trophies of flags, and festoons and rosettes of bunting. Long streamers were stretched from pillar to pillar....Muskets, cutlasses, swords, pistols, and bayonets, were grouped on the pillars, or hung against the walls, in the forms of stars, shields, and sunbursts..." Women were in great demand for the ball, but were discouraged from participating in many ceremonies of the day. Louisa May Alcott noted, the "menfolk" told them the orations were "no place for women." A supporter of women's rights, she wrote: "there will come a day of reckoning...."