The attached video is the story of Anne DeGarmo VanVranken and her early life growing up on the DeGarmo family farm. The farm is located in Schuylerville, New York and has been in the DeGarmo family for many generations. Throughout this video, Anne shares the events of her young life while living on the farm. She begins with early memories of losing her father at a young age, to growing up with a single mother and three older brothers. With the help of others, Mable Hamm DeGa

Earlier this year, Kevin began the arduous task of delving into one of our newest collections, the Richard M. Bloomer Glass Plate Negative Collection. Thousands of early Twentieth century portraits are encased within 24 boxes. With only 1,000 images scanned and cataloged thus far, we are moving forward with research in the hopes of having an exhibition ready in early 2022. The simplest place to start is the names included on (most of) the negative sleeves. One of the portrait

Every so often, reorganization must occur. The local yearbook collection in the Folklife Center has been arranged by title for many years, but it becomes difficult to browse if one doesn't know that Queensbury's yearbook is called "Orbit". We have been discussing rearranging the yearbooks by city for a few months now, & I decided to take a crack at it today! In the process of reorganizing the yearbooks, I discovered a few with interesting cover art. Plus, a number of the year

After my post about Windfield Designs, Inc we heard from a number of you sharing stories about your own collections. Some folks have one or two, others, like Ginny Combs, have whole villages. Ginny shared on Facebook, "I have a village on top of my china closet with the Finch Pruyn Office (a Christmas gift from the company when my husband worked there) the Delong and Sisson houses and some generic Winfield houses. Also have the high school on Glen St on a table in the livingr

In amongst the institutional & organizational archives, maps, genealogy, and local history books one expects to find in a library research center, The Folklife Center holds some surprising collections. One such collection is the John C. Mannix Magicians Library. This extensive collection currently contains 357 books and 117 videos & DVDs about magicians, card tricks, illusions, and one-liners dating from 1934-2006. It takes up nearly eight entire shelves in the climate contro

Do you remember the scene in the Broadway musical & film "The Music Man" when the mayor's wife, Eulalie MacKecknie Shinn, and the ladies dance committee perform "One Grecian urn"? That small, humorous scene was actually part of a much larger late 19th and early 20th century trend that included elocution & recitation, tableaux, pageantry, the Chautauqua, and exercise for girls and women. Pageants and tableaux viviants (French for living pictures) were very popular forms of ent

Today we had a gentleman from Colorado visiting the area. He is originally from the Glens Falls/Hudson Falls area and came in with his father and sister to look at our collection of banks and flats by Windfield Designs. We pulled the four boxes of artifacts he was most interested in, so that he could have a look as these artifacts are not currently on display. Windfield Designs, Inc. of Glens Falls, NY, made wooden, silk-screened reproductions of 18th and 19th century buildin

Redwork embroidery was one of the most popular forms of art needlework through most of the Gilded Age, the Progressive Era, and into the Great Depression. Because it required only three beginner stitches (stem stich, lazy daisy, and French knot) and one color of thread (red) it was both simple and economical. According to Deborah Harding in her book, Red and White: American Redwork Quilts, “[d]uring the last quarter of the nineteenth century, decorative surface embroidery on

"Set Your Daughters Free" (1912) Lyrics: Eugenie M. Raye-Smith, Tune: "Wait for the Wagon" traditional VERSE 1 Oh, New York with your pride of wealth and luxury untold, What, prize you not a woman's worth as greater more than gold? A mighty call now echoes for you from sea to sea, Oh, leader of the Union, come set your daughters free! CHORUS We're waiting for New York, Waiting for New York, Waiting for the Empire State to set her daughters free! VERSE 2 We do not wish to sham

Study Clubs were all the rage amongst middle & upper class women in the late 19th & early 20th centuries. Glens Falls boasted at least nine different study clubs, with other women's organizations hosting similar activities. The Monday Reading Club formed in 1905, and was like many such clubs around the country. They met bi-weekly at the home of a hostess, and another member served as the presenter of the designated topic. They rotated both positions throughout the club year w

In researching the suffrage movement using local newspapers to uncover the names of women involved in the cause, I came across a small group of women on the other side. Yes, Glens Falls had a contingent of "Antis", or anti-suffragists who I am just beginning to identify. The letter to the editor transcribed below was probably written, at least in part, by Jeannette Roosa Davis (Mrs. Loyal L.), who was president of the Glens Falls branch of the New York State Association Oppos

We have a lot of cookbooks in the Folklife Center. I mean A LOT! When I started compiling artifacts, books, documents, and records together for my exhibit "Beyond Suffrage: Women’s Clubs in Greater Glens Falls, NY" I knew I would include a section of cookbooks. The twenty cookbooks I chose ranged from church groups to sororities, from garden clubs to ladies auxiliaries, and covered over one hundred years from 1882 until the 1990s. Occasionally the cover art featured famous a

Back in the beginning of 2020, I was approached to revisit our slide show presentation of Hometown, USA as a complimentary program to the Chapman Museum's exhibition: LET’S ALL FIGHT, The Linc Cathers Collection of WWII Home Front Posters. Well, COVID-19 forced many changes upon us. The Chapman did mount their exhibit, but few could visit, so it is currently showing online where you can view it now over your morning coffee while still in your pajamas. My slide show was resche

If you are in the Glens Falls, NY area before Labor Day, please stop by the Warren County Historical Society & take a look at their exhibitions. The museum is free & open Tuesdays & Thursdays from 9:00 AM to 3:00 PM this August. The flagship exhibit, Warren County 360° is on permanent display & my co-curated exhibit, in conjunction with the Old Fort House Museum & featuring dioramas by educator Cindy Whitman, Woman Suffrage in Warren and Washington Counties: 1883-1917 is on d

Before the pandemic hit, I was in the throws of curating two sister exhibitions. I did manage to get both of them up right before NY shutdown for four months, but because both exhibitions are on display in Phase 4 organizations (one in a museum, one here in the Folklife Center) very few people have seen them. Therefore with my first few blog posts, I will be discussing & sharing my exhibitions with you. "Beyond Suffrage: Women’s Clubs in Greater Glens Falls, NY" uses collecti