Cooperstown: Dinner at A 19th Century Tavern

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Escape to the 1800s with The Farmers’ Museum’s &#8220Evening at the Tavern&#8221 and experience music and merriment topped off with an authentic period dinner. Evenings at the Tavern will be offered on Saturday, April 10 and 24 from 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.

Guests will enjoy a dining experience featuring a four-course candlelit meal, period music and games, and old-fashioned hospitality in the Museum’s historic Bump Tavern. The menu is designed and based on foods that were served in rural 19th-century New York taverns. Dinner includes soup, vegetables, roast meat, fresh bread, and dessert. During the evening, guests will be offered a tour of the historic tavern with the Museum’s interpretative hosts, learning about the history of taverns and travel in the 19th century.

Bump Tavern was built by Jehiel Tuttle in the late 1790s in the village of Ashland, Greene County, New York. Strategically located on the Catskill and Windham Turnpike, the resting spot served cattle drovers and other travelers passing through the area. The tavern was purchased in 1842 by Ephraim Bump, who expanded the building and updated the Federal period architecture with Greek revival porches. In 1952, Bump Tavern was moved to Cooperstown, where it became part of the collection of historic buildings at The Farmers’ Museum.

Space is limited- reservations are required and are filled on a first-come, first-served basis. Full payment is required in advance by check or credit card. The fee, which includes the complete meal and an unforgettable experience, is $60- $55 for members of the New York State Historical Association. Wine and beer will be available for an additional fee. For more information or to make reservations, please call The Farmers’ Museum at 547-1452.

Celebrating Women of the Hudson River School

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The Thomas Cole National Historic Site will present “Remember the Ladies: Women Artists of the Hudson River School”, believed to be the first exhibition ever to focus solely on women artists associated with the 19th century landscape painting movement. The exhibition, which opens on May 8, 2010 is co-curated by Jennifer C. Krieger, of Hawthorne Fine Art in Manhattan and Nancy Siegel, Associate Professor of Art History at Towson University, Towson, MD.

“Remember the Ladies: Women Artists of the Hudson River School” will feature approximately 25 works including paintings, embroidered landscapes, photography, and drawing manuals by artists, such as Julia Hart Beers (sister to William and James Hart), Evelina Mount (niece to William Sidney Mount), Susie Barstow, Eliza Greatorex, Harriet Cany Peale, and Josephine Walters among others. The paintings of Thomas Cole’s sister, Sara Cole, and her daughter Emily Cole will also be on view.

By the turn of the 19th century, schools, seminaries, and private instructors were already providing artistic education for young women, particularly in the art of landscape painting. Women traveled in increasing numbers to experience the American landscape and wrote of their adventures poetically. “Remember the Ladies” seeks to increase awareness of a previously little-celebrated but highly-talented and accomplished group of women artists associated with the well-known Hudson River School.

Following its stay at the Thomas Cole National Historic Site the exhibition will travel to Hawthorne Fine Art in the fall of 2010. Plans are underway by Siegel and Krieger to develop a more extensive version of the exhibition to travel nationally.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a printed catalogue with full-color illustrations co-written by Krieger and Dr. Siegel. The title of the exhibition is taken from a letter from Abigail Adams to John Adams in 1776: “I desire you would Remember the Ladies… if particular care and attention is not paid to the Ladies we are determined to foment a Rebellion.”

The Thomas Cole Historic Site is located at 218 Spring Street in Catskill, New York. For information regarding the exhibition and directions, call 518-943-7465 or visit www.thomascole.org.

Illustration: Mary Blood Mellen (1817-1882) &#8220Field Beach, c1850s&#8221 Oil on canvas on board, 24 x 33 15/16 in. Cape Ann Museum, Gift of Jean Stanley Dise, 1970.2019-2

Farmers Museum Offers Spring Craft Workshops

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Beginning April 3, The Farmers’ Museum will offer a series of workshops based on 19th-century trades and crafts with topics ranging from blacksmithing to beekeeping. All workshops are held at The Farmers’ Museum in Cooperstown. Registration is required. For more information and reservations, call Karen Wyckoff at (607) 547-1410. Information on future workshops can be found on their website at www.farmersmuseum.org.

Farm Family Meal (parent/child)
April 3, 10 am – 2 pm / Fee: $50
Learn what it took to create a meal during the 19th-century. Participants will cook a simple meal over the fire while learning about daily chores of parents and children during the 1840s.

Heritage Vegetable Gardens
April 10, 10 am – 2 pm / Fee: $40 per family
Spend the day learning about historic and current practices for planting and maintaining heritage vegetable gardens. Participants will discuss layout of gardens, cultivation and pest control, and storage of vegetables. They will also have the opportunity to build a hot frame and plant seeds and will leave with packets of heritage seeds.

Farm Chores
April 12, 19, and May 3, 8 – 11 am / Fee: $50 per family or $20 per person
Spend the morning with the farmers preparing the farm for a day’s work: open the barns, clean stalls, feed the animals, thresh wheat, etc. Each day will bring different tasks, just as it does on any farm. A perfect &#8220morning out&#8221 for a family or adults.

Growing a Taste of Yesterday: an Heirloom Gardening Workshop
April 17, 10 am – 2 pm / Fee: $40
This hands-on workshop will focus on starting and maintaining your own supply of heirloom vegetables. Participants will have the opportunity to plant a selection of vegetable varieties for their home gardens. In addition the process for starting a hot frame and composting for your garden will also be discussed. There will also be a discussion and demonstration of propagation methods for saving your favorite vegetable varieties.

Happy Healthy Hen House
April 24, 9 am – 1 pm / Fee: $40
This half-day workshop will introduce participants to techniques and information about the care and housing of chickens. Learn both about historic and contemporary methods of breed selection, nutrition, housing, management and general care for raising your own backyard flock. Come prepared to work in The Farmers’ Museum’s barnyard.

Spring Beekeeping
May 15, 9 am – 1 pm / Fee: $40
Are you interested in learning about the ancient art and science of beekeeping? This hands-on workshop will introduce you to the fundamentals of keeping bees. We will discuss the different ways to get started as a beekeeper and prepare you for the tasks involved. You will also learn some of the history and folklore of beekeeping.

In the Medicine Cabinet
May 15, 10 am – 1 pm / Fee: $40
This workshop will cover growing, harvesting, and wild crafting of about fifteen herbs. In addition, instruction will be given for producing medical preparations from the various herbs. Preparations will include oils (hot and cold infused), ointments, compresses, tinctures, infusions, and decoctions.

Udder to Butter
June 12, 8 am – 12 pm / Fee: $40
Join the farm staff in a unique opportunity to participate in the process of transforming milk into butter. We will start in the barn where you will try your hand at milking the cow and end in the kitchen enjoying our freshly made butter on toast. Participants will separate cream and churn butter using historic and contemporary methods.

Blacksmithing 1
June 12 and 13, 9 am – 4 pm / Fee: $150
This class covers the core skills of blacksmithing. Try out blacksmithing for the first time, or expand your existing skills under the supervision of our master blacksmith. Practice managing a coal fire and forging skills such as drawing out, bending, twisting, and punching. Projects include making decorative hooks, fireplace tools, nails, and hanging brackets. No previous experience is necessary. (Fee includes materials and information packet.)

Blacksmithing 2
June 26 and 27, 9 am – 4 pm / Fee: $150
This class requires students who already have core blacksmithing skills. Work with more complex forging projects. Skills practiced include hot punching, mortise and tennon joints, forge welding, and reproduction of historic ironwork. Students should have taken Blacksmithing 1 or have prior permission of the instructor. (Fee includes materials and information packet.)

NY Folklore – Textured Stories: The Works of Denise Allen

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The New York Folklore Society will be presenting &#8220Textured Stories: The Works of Denise Allen&#8221 at its gallery at 113 Jay Street, Schenectady through March 26th. I asked the Folklore Society to describe Lisa’s work for us and this is what they sent:

She lived for many years in Bedford-Stuyvesant (in Brooklyn), her hometown. Her mother was a seamstress in the sense that she made a lot of the family cloths, etc. Denise, however, was not a trained seamstress. She worked as a legal secretary, and had no intention of becoming an artist. After her mother died, however, she became very depressed. She walked into a Woolworth’s store one day, saw the embroidery kits there, which reminded her of her mother, and felt &#8220called&#8221 to take that up to feel a connection with her mother. She has been doing needlework ever since.She does a unique kind of textured embroidery, not only involving needlework, but layering and adding material onto the fabric, such as wood, cardboard, wire, etc. She also creates dolls from the original design to the finishing touches. Her signatures pieces are her story cloths, textured artwork that often tells specific stories from her own life, as well as fictional stories that otherwise capture an expressive truth.

Her work focuses on themes of African-American life, particularly in the colonial period in America, and country living. She addresses themes of slavery, traditional life, life in the country, and so on.

After her son was killed in 9-11 (he worked in Tower 1), and her husband barely escaped (he worked on the 97th floor as a drafter for the Port Authority), she became extremely despondent. Because she had always been fascinated with country life after seeing a county fair event that had come to Brooklyn when she was a little girl, she and her husband decided to move up to upstate NY and live on a farm. She moved up to Palatine Bridge, and has been living there among the Amish for the past several years. She has a wonderful relationship with her neighbors, some of whom contribute wooden frames for her art. She has been working on a 9-11 story cloth, and recently completed it. It is now under consideration to be placed at the 9-11 Museum that is scheduled to be completed in 2012.

Artists of the Mohawk-Hudson Region Deadline Near

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The entry deadline for the 2010 Artists of the Mohawk-Hudson Region Juried Exhibition, which will be held at The Hyde Collection this fall, is Friday, March 26, 2010.

Founded in 1936, the exhibition is one of the longest running annual juried exhibitions in the country. The Artists of the Mohawk-Hudson Region highlights the finest work by contemporary artists working along the Mohawk-Hudson corridor. This is the first year that The Hyde Collection will host the exhibition, which will be on display from October 1 through January 2, 2011.

Artists of the Mohawk-Hudson Region rotates among three venues. The other two hosts are The Albany Institute of History and Art and the University Art Museum, University at Albany, State University of New York.

Juror for the 2010 exhibition is Charles Desmarais, Deputy Director for Art at the Brooklyn Museum. Desmarais leads a staff of eighteen curators and manages the collection, conservation, education, exhibition, and library departments at the Museum. He previously served as director of the Contemporary Art Center in Cincinnati and was director of the Laguna Art Museum and the California Museum of Photography at the University of California.

Works in a variety of media may be entered and approximately fifty will be selected for the exhibition. Eligible artists include those who reside within a 100-mile radius of either Glens Falls or the Capital Region. Awards will be announced at the exhibition’s opening reception scheduled for October 1, 2010 and a color catalogue will be produced for the exhibition.

Links to entry forms and additional information are available on the Museum’s homepage at www.hydecollection.org.

Reminder: 2010 Adirondack Donegal Beard Contest

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A quick reminder that tomorrow (Wednesday, March 17th) is the day for this year’s Adirondack Donegal Beard Contest. A Donegal Beard (also called a chin-curtain or Lincoln) is a particular style of Irish beard that grows along the jaw line and covers the chin — no soul patch, no mustache.

In order to take part in the contest (and all are welcome) contestants should have a Donegal Beard grown since January 1st. Judging will be tomorrow (St. Patrick’s Day) at the Black Mountain Inn at the corner of Peaceful Valley Road and Route 8 in Johnsburg (North Creek), 4 to 7 pm.

Contestants are judged on the following criteria:

1. Length
2. Fullness
3. Style and Sophistication

To see pictures from last year’s contest, and to join the Facebook group, go here.

Photo: 2009 Adirondack Donegal Beard Contestants.

National Archives at New York City Planning Move

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The National Archives at New York City has announced that within the next two years they will move their office to the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House at One Bowling Green in New York City. Their new home will be located in the same building as the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian. The building is currently known as the Custom House building, designed by Cass Gilbert in the Beaux Arts style and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

After extensive renovation, the new space will be ready in the fall of 2011. They will announce the exact dates of the move as soon as possible.

According to an Archives Press release, &#8220At One Bowling Green our patrons will continue to receive the same great service they have come to expect from the experienced National Archives staff. We will continue to provide access to all of our holdings. An increase in our public and outreach programs, and our new proximity to other important New York cultural institutions including the Museum of the American Indian and Ellis Island, will enable us to reach a wider audience.&#8221

According to the Archives, at One Bowling Green they will:

* Occupy space on the 3rd and 4th floor of this historic building.

* Store our most used original records and most popular microfilm holdings.

* Provide access to all of our records (including records stored offsite).

* Continue to provide certified copies of National Archives holdings.

* Increase the number of public access computers so that patrons can access online resources.

* Continue to make available online subscription services including Ancestry, Footnote, Heritage Quest, ProQuest, free of charge.

* Provide additional outreach programs to increase awareness of National Archives resources in New York, the Northeast Region, and nationwide.

Two public meetings will be held on May 4th to discuss these and additional details about the move. Times and locations of these meetings will made available shortly.

For questions, contact Nancy Shader, Director of Archival Operations, National Archives at New York City by phone: 866.840.1752, fax: 212.401.1637, or email at [email protected].

Website Offers Free Access to Census Records

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Footnote.com, one of the web’s most popular genealogy websites, is opening all of their U.S. census documents for free to the public for a limited time. Footnote.com’s &#8220Interactive Census Collection&#8221 has the ability to connect people related to ancestors found on the historical documents.

Clicking the “I’m Related” button for a name on the document will identify you as a descendant and also list others that have done the same. To learn how to get started with the Interactive Census, visit: http://go.footnote.com/discover.