Amelia Peabody

Amelia Peabody (July 3, 1890, Marblehead, Massachusetts – May 30/31, 1984, Dover, Massachusetts, age 93). Heir to a founder of the investment firm Kidder, Peabody & Company.

Sculpture

Studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts under Charles Grafly and Bela Pratt; also studied in Paris and New York. Work exhibited at the New York World’s Fair, Whitney Museum, Boston Athenaeum, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Harvard University, and Northeastern University.

Dover estate and experimental houses

Beginning in 1923, Peabody acquired extensive land in Dover, Massachusetts (now including Powisset Farm and Noanet Woodlands). At her farms she raised registered Hereford cattle, Yorkshire pigs, sheep, and thoroughbred horses. She funded three technically innovative experimental houses by architect Eleanor Raymond on the estate:

• Plywood House (1940) — experimental low-cost housing
• Masonite House (1944) — experimental materials
• Dover Sun House (1948) — with Maria Telkes; the earliest heavily publicized American solar house

Raymond also designed Peabody’s sculptor’s studio (1933), a Bauhaus-influenced structure.

Philanthropy

Chaired the Arts and Skills division of the American Red Cross during WWII, promoting art therapy for wounded servicemen. Major donations included the East Wing of the Museum of Science (Boston), an organ for King’s Chapel, and the Eaton Peabody Lab at Massachusetts Eye and Ear. Two foundations bear her name: the Amelia Peabody Charitable Fund and the Amelia Peabody Foundation.

See also

• Dover Sun House
• Eleanor Raymond
• Maria Telkes
• Dover Sun House — the 1948 experimental solar house Peabody funded on her Dover estate