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

Four years before Eva Viola Austin Judkins began her illustrious, thirty year career on the Glens Falls Board of Education, she attempted gain a seat through a caucus on April 28, 1914. Nominated by Katharine Bowden, President of the Glens Falls Political Equality Club, of which Mrs. Judkins was a member, she came up five votes short. Interestingly, her husband, Rev. Dr. Charles O. Judkins, pastor of the Methodist Church, nominated J. Ward Russell, who was seeking reelection.

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

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