The Nichols House Museum serves to educate visitors about the lives of women during the 19th and early 20th centuries and the history of the Beacon Hill district of Boston. Located in a townhouse that was built in the early 1800s and was home to Rose Standish Nichols from 1885 until 1960. Rose Standish Nichols was a suffragist and pacifist, as well as an accomplished landscape architect. The museum is open year round and offers an abundance of lectures, programs, special events, and tours.
The museum resides within the 4-story townhouse that Rose Nichols inherited from her father, Dr. Arthur Nichols. The historic house was built by Jonathan Mason in 1804 and became a public museum in 1961. The home is furnished with 18th and 19th century European and American furniture, ancestral portraits, American and European art, and Flemish tapestries. Highlights of the museum include exhibits about the life of Rose Standish Nichols, her father Dr. Arthur Nichols, and other prominent residents of this important Boston neighborhood. Visitors should also take time to enjoy works by Augustus Saint-Gaudens, America's foremost sculptor of the 19th century. Many of the sculptures to leading generals were made by Augustus Saint-Gaudens, including the popular local sculpture of Robert Gould Shaw that graces Boston Common.