Get out of the house & into some history

I don't know about you, but February & March can get me down. Waiting for the leaves to burst open in that pretty spring green. Willing the crocuses, snowdrops & daffodils to push their way up through the gray snow & dead leaves. Then you get days like today, snow on top of mud.

Snowfall in Greenwich March 8, 2013

So, how about you get out of the house & go visit some local museums.

Here are just a few of my favorites:

 The Hyde Collection on Warren Street in Glens Falls. It is a world class art museum right in our own backyard.

The Old Fort House Museum on Broadway in Fort Edward. They are only open by appointment during the winter & spring so get a group together & give them a call to set up a time. Executive Director & Town of Fort Edward Historian R. Paul McCarty is also presenting a program on Solomon Northup at the Courthouse Community Center in Salem on Thursday, March 21 at 7:00 p.m.

The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs. I think I might just take my daughter there this weekend. The student curated exhibit Crowded looks particularly interesting.

The Chapman Historical Museum in downtown Glens Falls. I love house museums. Need I say more?

The New York State Museum in Albany. They have a great Civil War exhibit on until September titled An Irrepressible Conflict: The Empire State in the Civil War. I am still fascinated by the Cohoes Mastodon & the cadence of the woman's voice telling stories in the Native American section. (Note: The museum will be closed this Saturday 3/9 for a test of their emergency system.)

The Museum of Innovation & Science in Schenectady. The Planetarium is never a disappointment, plus they have a new butterfly exhibit up only through April 6.

Historic Cherry Hill in Albany. Another amazing house museum worth a look. Their current tour focuses on their restoration project, so it is great for preservationists & DIYers. There is also a family tour.

Saratoga National Historical Park in Stillwater. Don't think that because it is winter & the tour road is closed that you can't visit the park. The Visitor Center is open year round, plus they have a great bookstore & an exhibit on 18th Century female artists! Also, Ranger Jennifer Morrow will be presenting a program called Foodways of 18th Century Women & Camp Followers on Sunday, March 10 from 1:30-3:00 p.m.

In honor of Women's History Month there is a new exhibit up in the War Room on the 2nd floor of the Capitol Building in Albany. Some of the women featured in the exhibit are: Dr. Mary Edwards Walker, only woman to earn a Congressional Medal of Honor, Belva Ann Lockwood, pioneering female attorney and political activist, Rose Schneiderman, Triangle Shirtwaist Factory workers’ advocate, Kate Mullaney, founder of the Collar Laundry Union in Troy, Luisa Moreno, immigrant workers’ rights advocate, Mary McLeod Bethune, African American community rights activist. But what I am most interested in seeing is one of the artifacts on display, a sewing machine from the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in 1911.

Another event to check out this month is at the Cambridge Public Library on Thursday, March 14 at 7:00 p.m. Historian Michael Russert will present For the Liberation of Ireland: Last Battle of the Civil War? regarding the  unsuccessful attempt of Irish-American veterans, both Union & Confederate, to attack Canada & gain independence for Ireland in 1866.

There are so many other museums & events going on that you are sure to find something of interest to you & your family.

Climb Aboard the Suffrage Wagon!

The New York State Museum in Albany has an amazing piece of history... The Suffrage Wagon!

The what? Yes, you read right, the Suffrage Wagon! A Long Island suffragist named Edna Buckman Kearns hitched a horse to a wagon she dubbed "The Spirit of 1776" and campaigned for "Votes for Women" while riding around in it.



Suffrage Wagon on display 2010



& the NY Sate Museum has it. I was so excited to see it on display during Women's History Month (March) 2010. I went down with my daughter specifically to see the exhibit, if you could call it that. She loves the State Museum more than I do and would gladly go every week as long as I don't make her look at old furniture. As soon as I saw it in the front lobby of the building I knew two things;

1.) it was an amazing artifact &

2.) it was on temporary display. So, now it is in storage. Why, you may ask? Who knows? The fourth floor where the carousel is has any number of random artifacts on display from Teddy Roosevelt's car to Roycroft furniture to stuffed bats. Can't the curatorial staff find room up there at least?

What I would really like to see, & what Marguerite Kearns, granddaughter of Edna Buckman Kearns, would like to see, is the Suffrage Wagon on permanent display with other artifacts from special collections chronicaling the Suffrage Movement on the main exhibit floor. We would like this to be a reality prior to 2017 which will be the Centennial of New York State granting the right to vote to its female citizens. If you would like to see this happen as well, Marguerite has launched a postcard campaign. I have sent my postcards out. Will you help? I have some postcards to pass out, or you can contact Marguerite at suffragewagon@gmail.com.

http://suffragewagon.wordpress.com/

http://www.nysm.nysed.gov/