A Trip Back to Ruth Benjamin’s Home, Sweet Home

The East Hampton Library’s Long Island Collection will present a free talk, titled “Ruth Benjamin Finds Her ‘Home, Sweet Home’” on Thursday, June 29, at 5:30 p.m. The program will be presented by Andrea Meyer, head of the East Hampton Library’s Long Island Collection and East Hampton Historian Hugh King, the Historic Site Director in charge of the Home, Sweet Home Museum.

The program will take place at the library and cover the life of Ruth Benjamin (1882-1957), who served as the first director of the Home, Sweet Home Museum, starting immediately after East Hampton Village bought the building in 1927. In the presentation, Meyer will discuss Benjamin’s life before her tenure at Home, Sweet Home and historian Hugh King will focus on Benjamin’s life after her stewardship of the museum began.

“Ruth’s life story is fascinating,” said Andrea Meyer. “As a military wife who came from ‘away’ she devoted her life to East Hampton Village’s Home, Sweet Home Museum, working as its main tour guide, curator, promoter, fundraiser, and event planner for 27 years.”

Ruth Sterling Benjamin was born in Elmira, New York in 1882. She came to Amagansett when her husband, Walter Adams Benjamin, was stationed in Montauk during World War I. She moved to East Hampton in 1924 and became the first “hostess” and curator of Home, Sweet Home Museum in 1927, where she served for 27 years, retiring in 1954, three years before her death.

For her first four years there, she was a working woman in an era of housewives known by their husbands’ names. Walter died in 1931, and Ruth’s life thereafter revolved around Home, Sweet Home. During her long tenure at the museum, she received visitors from around the world, and marketed Home, Sweet Home in a way that continues to influence modern tourism in East Hampton. Ruth’s marketing efforts made Home, Sweet Home and East Hampton synonymous with all the comforts of home, tying East Hampton to that “longing” for home from John Howard Payne’s song, regardless of the accuracy of the story. Ruth’s era as curator oversaw the sort of branding that was far ahead of her time, creating an idealized image of Home, Sweet Home that became America’s cultural touchstone for the nostalgic joys of country living. Ruth’s branding abilities made her a forerunner to modern influencers, long before the dawn of social media.

Admission to the talk is free. East Hampton Library is at 159 Main Street, East Hampton. Advanced reservations are requested but not required. Register online via EventBrite.com, by phone at 631-324-0222 ext. 4 or by email at andrea@easthamptonlibrary.org.