Naomi Subotnick
College
Student Voices
A wooden “do not touch” partition usually separates the period room in Pendleton House from the public. But one Monday in June, that partition was removed, and museum staff peopled the room. Two researchers from Yale University had come to study examples of Rhode Island furniture from RISD’s collection. The desk and bookcase in this room, associated with the Goddard/Townsend family of cabinetmakers in Newport, was among the list of pieces they hoped to study in detail. The elegant piece, which usually leaned against the wall, had been pushed into the room’s center.