Museums-Archives-Historic Sites

Ellis Island to Include Native Americans, African Slaves

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The Associated Press is reporting that the Ellis Island Immigration Museum is creating The Peopling of America Center to tell the history of those who arrived in America outside the traditional peak immigration dates of 1892 to 1954:

Exhibits will focus on the arrival of Native Americans, who are believed to have migrated to North America more than 10,000 years ago across the Bering Sea from Asia- Europeans who landed on the Eastern seaboard from the 1600s through 1892- Africans brought here forcibly by slave traders- and today’s immigrants from all over the globe&#8230-

The $20 million, 20,000-square-foot space, designed by Edwin Schlossberg of ESI Design, will be located in an existing gallery that will be redesigned and in an adjoining building that now houses the curatorial staff&#8230-

Work on the new center began in September. Funding has been underwritten in part by Bank of America and the Annenberg Foundation. Briganti said the foundation has attained more than 75 percent of its fundraising goal.

Upon its completion in 2011, the museum will be renamed Ellis Island: The National Museum of Immigration.

NYPL Acquires Papers of Theatrical Legends

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The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center has acquired the papers of renowned performers and acting teachers Uta Hagen and Herbert Berghof. The collection consists of thousands of pages of unpublished correspondence, diaries, scripts and manuscripts, photographs, clippings and other documentation relating to the dynamic theatrical careers of both Hagen and Berghof. This collection of professional and personal papers, spanning nearly 100 years of theater history, is being made public for the first time. To celebrate the bequest, the Library is planning a series of eight free public programs featuring many close friends and colleagues of Ms. Hagen and Mr. Berghof’s including such figures as Harold Prince, Edward Albee, David Hyde Pierce and Eli Wallach.

The collection consists of 99 boxes of papers totaling 49 linear feet and provides in-depth insight about Ms. Hagen and Mr. Berghof’s personal life, their working processes in various theater productions, and their renowned acting school HB Studio, and includes correspondence from esteemed personalities such as Katharine Hepburn, Tennessee Williams, Jose Ferrer, David O. Selznik and Thornton Wilder.

Ms. Hagen’s papers include correspondence to and from her family, as well as other Hagen family papers. Her letters to her father Oskar Hagen – whom she playfully refers to many times as “papalop” – reveals new details of her personal and professional life. Of particular interest are various letters mentioning segregation during the Othello tour (1943-1945) with Paul Robeson and her then-husband, Jose Ferrer, and her diaries and notebooks which detail character studies for many of her roles. A notebook Hagen kept during rehearsals of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is overrun with a range of notes and observations regarding character motivation and psychology. In one section, she writes: &#8220Attacking George for being a failure all the time. Motive- ashamed of his dependence on my father&#8230-.aware of his subservience.&#8221

Mr. Berghof’s papers document the many productions which he performed in, directed, adapted, translated, or developed. The productions and projects span his entire career from the late 1920s to his final project in 1990. Included are materials and correspondence with Samuel Beckett regarding Waiting for Godot.

The collection, entitled the “Uta Hagen/Herbert Berghof Papers” was bequeathed by Uta Hagen to the Billy Rose Theatre Division in 2007. It will be housed in the Billy Rose Theatre Division of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center.

A tour de force in the theater world for over seven decades, Uta Hagen’s numerous leading roles included Martha in the original Broadway production of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? in 1962 (for which she won a Tony Award), Desdemona opposite Paul Robeson’s Othello, and Blanche DuBois opposite Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire. She taught at the tremendously influential acting school HB Studio, where her students included Matthew Broderick, Robert DeNiro, Liza Minnelli, Al Pacino, Amanda Peet, and Jason Robards. Ms. Hagen married its founder, the actor, director and writer Herbert Berghof in 1957.

Mr. Berghof, who died in 1990, remains one of the most revered acting coaches in theater history. During the years he presided over HB Studio, the roster of alumni included – in addition to the ones mentioned above – actors such as Anne Bancroft, Geraldine Page, and Fritz Weaver. Mr. Berghof also had immense success outside of the school, and garnered much praise for directing the American premiere on Broadway of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot in 1956 and the first all-Black cast version of the play in 1957.

Free Public Programs for Uta Hagen/Herbert Berghof Papers will take place in the Bruno Walter Auditorium in The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center located at 111 Amsterdam Avenue (between 64th and 65th streets). Admission to all programs is free and first come, first served. For information, please call (212) 642-0142 or visit www.nypl.org/lpaprograms. Programs are curated by Alan Pally, Manager of Public Programs at the Library for the Performing Arts.

Expanded Brooklyn Children’s Museum Reopens

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The Brooklyn Children’s Museum reopened Saturday after a year-long closure for an expansion and redesign. According to the New York Times:

The museum doubled the size of its city-owned building — with $48 million in city money and $32 million raised by the museum — to 102,000 square feet. As Robin Pogrebin reported in The Times in February, the project struggled through financial hardships. The museum itself lacked a strong physical identity, because most of its space has been underground since a 1977 design by Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates created two lower levels. The greatly enlarged museum now hopes to improve its annual visitor total to 400,000 by 2010, from about 250,000 before the museum closed last September for the final stage of the renovation.

A pioneer in education, the Brooklyn Children’s Museum was the first museum created expressly for children when it was founded in 1899. Its success has sparked the creation of 300 children’s museums around the world. It is the only children’s museum in New York City, and one of few in the country, to be accredited by the American Association of Museums. The Museum encourages children to develop an understanding of and respect for themselves, others and the world around them by exploring cultures, the arts, science, and the environment.

The just-completed expansion features eco-friendly design in hopes of attaining LEED certification &#8211 it’s said to be the first &#8220green&#8221 museum in New York City. In keeping with the Museum’s commitment to preserve and protect the world’s natural resources, it uses environmentally advanced, sustainable, renewable and/or recyclable materials and systems in the building’s design and construction.

Brooklyn Children’s Museum is one of the few children’s museums in the world with a permanent collection, including nearly 30,000 cultural objects and natural-history specimens. The cultural collection contains both ancient and present-day objects, including musical instruments, sculpture, masks, body adornments, and dolls, as well as everyday household and personal items. The natural-history collection contains rocks, minerals, and fossils, as well as mounted birds, mammals, insects, and skeletons (highlights include the complete skeleton of an Asian elephant, dinosaur footprints, and a whale rib).

For years, much of the collection has been inaccessible to the public simply because of space limitations. Now, an expanded collection study area allows the Museum to display more of the collection and to offer more hands-on activities—so children learn by touching as well as by looking.

Fort Ticonderoga Appeals to Public for Help

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Although it is apparently, no longer up, two local newspapers have reported (1, 2), that Fort Ticonderoga is asking the public to keep the fort from shutting down. According to Fred Herbst of Denton Publications:

You have probably seen the headlines. Fort Ticonderoga is in a very difficult financial situation. We don’t want to sell assets. We don’t want to lay off staff. We don’t want to curtail our education programs. We don’t want to close. Without the help of our friends and supporters, however, we may be faced with having to take one or more of these measures.

Fort Ticonderoga’s financial troubles began when benefactors Deborah and Forrest Mars Jr. withdrew their support &#8211 it’s been covered at length here.

The original statement continues:

Fort Ticonderoga needs its army of defenders now more than ever. The new Mars Education Center is 95 percent paid for. We have raised and borrowed more than $22 million, but we still need $700,000 to settle the outstanding bills and an additional $3.5 million to repay the loans and replenish our endowment fund.

Herbst revealed more about the details of Forrest Mars conflict with Executive Director Nick Westbrook.

“The ride is over,” he wrote in an Email to Westbrook that was provided to the Times of Ti.

The Email said Westbrook would not listen to new ideas and had stopped communicating with Mrs. Mars, when she was president of the fort board of trustees.

“We will not be writing any further checks,” Mr. Mars wrote. &#8220Your performance as a manager is lacking. As a historian and archivist, etc., you excel. You have not given proper supervision and leadership to the staff.”

Mr. Mars said he and his wife paid for most of the Mars Education Center.

“As far as the new center, I would think that besides not communicating with your president (Mrs. Mars) regarding the opening of it, the exhibits to be in it, the budget for operating it and a program for the future use, you might have been nice enough and polite enough to communicate with the major donor (Mr. Mars),” the Email reads. “Not a word from you to either of us. We do not even know if you can fund it.”

The Email also said Mr. Mars had paid for one of Westbrook’s sons to attend a private school and had paid for vacations for Westbrook and his wife.

The Fort is under threat to close next year or sell off some it collections- Westbrook will be resigning. The fort closes for the season October 20th.

“The fort is running through its available endowment funds to pay the Mars Education Center bills, and, in the absence of a major infusion of funds, the fort will be essentially broke by the end of 2008,” Paine said in the memo.

Adirondack Museum Celebrates Hunting and Fishing

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The Adirondack Museum is planning to celebrate National Hunting and Fishing Day tomorrow Saturday, September 27, 2008. The museum is planning &#8220A Sportsman’s Paradise,&#8221 a day-long extravaganza of programs, demonstrations, and music &#8211 just for outdoor enthusiasts. Activities are scheduled from 10:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. All are included in the price of general admission.

Demonstrations will include &#8220Casting a Line&#8221 with licensed guide and fly-fisherman Patrick Sisti, &#8220Fly Tying&#8221 with Geoff Schaake co-owner of the fly-fishing and fly-tying web site www.theanglersnet.com, and &#8220Fish Decoys and Lures&#8221 from mother-of-pearl as made by Peter Heid.

Members of the American Mountain Men will return to the museum campus, creating a living history camp that will feature the traditional equipment and gear that would have been typical of a nineteenth century hunting excursion in the Great North Woods. The group will discuss historic hunting and trapping techniques and demonstrate target shooting with Flintlocks as well as knife and tomahawk throwing.

An Author’s Corner and Book Signing will be held in the museum’s Marion River Carry Pavilion from 10:00 a.m. until 2:00 p.m. Participants will include: Dan Ladd, whose book Deer Hunting in the Adirondacks serves not only as a guide to public lands open to hunting, but also looks at the history and lore surrounding hunting in the Adirondacks- Robert Elinskas, author of A Deer Hunter’s History Book &#8211 a collection of tales from the Blue Ridge Wilderness Area- and Donald Wharton whose collection of Adirondack outdoor stories about trout fishing, bush pilots, deer hunting and more is entitled Adirondack Forest and Stream: An Outdoorsmen’s Reader.

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation booth will provide information and answer questions about hunting and fishing in the Adirondacks throughout the day.

Adirondack musician and storyteller Christopher Shaw will delight audiences of all ages with music celebrating the great Adirondack outdoors at 1:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m.

At 2:00 p.m. an illustrated presentation, &#8220Images From Trail Cameras,&#8221 will be held in the Mark W. Potter Education Center.

The day will conclude with &#8220Adirondack Pond Fishing 101&#8243- with Patrick Sisti. Sisti specializes in fly-fishing, fishing trips on the Indian River and Adirondack ponds in central Hamilton County as well as hiking camping, canoeing, and nature walks. His presentation will take participants through the steps taken to locate an Adirondack pond, get there, and fish. Handouts will be provided.

&#8220A Sportsman’s Paradise&#8221 visitors should not miss the exhibits &#8220Woods and Waters: Outdoor Recreation in The Adirondacks,&#8221 the &#8220Buck Lake Club: An Adirondack Hunting Camp,&#8221 and &#8220The Great Outdoors&#8221 &#8211 an interactive space that is perfect for family adventures.

The Adirondack Museum tells the story of the Adirondacks through exhibits, special events, classes for schools, and hands-on activities for visitors of all ages. Open for the season through October 19, 2008. For information call (518) 352-7311, or visit www.adirondackmuseum.org.

Free Admission to Nearly 100 NY Museums Sept.

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This Saturday, September 27, 2008, nearly 100 museums in New York State will participate in Smithsonian magazine’s fourth annual Museum Day. Museum Day is an opportunity for museums and cultural institutions nationwide to open their doors free of charge. A celebration of culture, learning and the dissemination of knowledge, Smithsonian’s Museum Day reflects the spirit of the magazine, and emulates
the free-admission policy of the Smithsonian Institution’s Washington, D.C.
– based museums.

Last year, nearly 100,000 people attended Museum Day. All fifty states plus Puerto Rico were represented by 651 participating museums. Established New York institutions like the New York State Museum, the Adirondack Museum, the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, Museum of the City of New York, National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame, and more, will all take part this year. A complete list of New York museums that are participating is located here.

Museum visitors must present Smithsonian magazine’s Museum Day Admission Card to
gain free entry to participating institutions. The Museum Day Admission
Card is available for free download at Smithsonian.com.

A Call for Quilts from the Adirondack Museum

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From Blue Mountain Lake in the Adirondacks comes this &#8220Call for Quilts,&#8221 forwarded here for your information:

Blue Mountain Lake, N.Y. Do you have an exceptional quilt, comforter, or pieced wall hanging made after 1970 that was used in, inspired by, or depicts the Adirondack region?

The Adirondack Museum at Blue Mountain Lake, New York is seeking six to ten contemporary quilts to borrow for a new exhibit, &#8220Common Threads: 150 Years of Adirondack Quilts and Comforters,&#8221 scheduled to open in May 2009.

The Adirondack region has nurtured a vibrant pieced-textile tradition for over a century and a half. From bedcovers, plain or fancy, meant to keep families warm through long Adirondack winters, to stunning art quilts of the twenty-first century, the quilts and comforters of the North Country mirror national trends and also tell a unique story of life in the mountains.

&#8220Common Threads&#8221 will combine the scholarly approaches of social history, art history, and material culture studies to explore themes of women’s work, domestic life, social networks in a rural area, generational continuity among women, and women’s artistic response to life in the Adirondacks.

Curator Hallie Bond will develop the new exhibit that will include quilts from the museum’s textile collection that are rarely on display. Bond has identified the historic pieces, but now needs help in collecting modern examples of pieced work to bring the exhibition up to the present time.

A panel of three quilters and quilting scholars &#8211 Lee Kogan, Edith Mitchell, and Shirley Ware &#8211 will select pieces for the exhibit. For additional information please contact Hallie Bond at the Adirondack Museum, Box 99, Blue Mountain Lake, N.Y. 12812 or (518) 352-7311, ext. 105.

Those interested in the project will receive a complete description of the exhibition, details about the themes that contemporary quilts should illustrate, and an entry form. Submissions will be by photograph and must be received by the Adirondack Museum no later than October 1, 2008.

The Adirondack Museum tells the story of the Adirondacks through exhibits, special events, classes for schools, and hands-on activities for visitors of all ages. Open for the season through October 19, 2008. Introducing Rustic Tomorrow &#8212- a new exhibit. For information about all that the museum has to offer, please call (518) 352-7311, or visit www.adirondackmuseum.org

Fort Ticonderoga Executive Director to Step Down

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North Country Public Radio is reporting this afternoon that Fort Ticonderoga’s longtime executive director Nick Westbrook will step down (Post Star says next year). According to the report board president Peter Paine says Westbrook will remain &#8220affiliated with the historic site in a scholarly and advisory capacity&#8221 and described the move as &#8220part of a planned transition.&#8221

Ongoing controversy over the loss of the Fort’s most important benefactor has been covered at length on the New York History Blog before.

This weekend the New York Times covered the story:

This summer, the national historic landmark — called Fort Ti for short — began its 100th season as an attraction open to the public with two causes for celebration: the unveiling of a splashy new education center, and an increase in visitors, reversing a long decline.

But instead of celebrating, its caretakers issued an S.O.S., warning that the fort, one of the state’s most important historic sites, was struggling for survival, largely because of a breach between the fort’s greatest benefactor — an heir of the Mars candy fortune — and its executive director.

The problem is money: The fort had a shortfall of $2.5 million for the education center. The president of the board that governs the fort, which is owned by a nonprofit organization, said in an internal memo this summer that the site would be “essentially broke” by the end of the year. The memo proposed a half-dozen solutions, including the sale of artwork from the group’s collection.

AASLH Annual Meeting in Rochester September 9-12, 2008

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The American Association for State and Local History Annual Meeting in Rochester beginning September 9th is geared toward &#8220history professionals, historical sites, historical societies, history museums, military museums, libraries, presidential sites, students, suppliers, and more.&#8221

According to their website:

This is your chance to share your passion, ideas, and knowledge with over 800 of your peers in the field of state and local history. You’ll have an opportunity to learn from over 80 sessions and 17 pre-meeting workshops that directly relate to the latest issues and trends that you face. And, you’ll also have an opportunity to have fun while you explore Rochester’s amazing history through the evening events and tours.

Although apparently they’re keeping the costs of the conference pretty quiet (good luck finding it on the website), you can apparently register here.

Tammis Groft and Museum and History Advocacy

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One of New York’s museum leading lights, Tammis Groft, was recently mentioned over at Suzanne Fischer’s Public Historian blog in a post calling for more blogging about museum and history advocacy:

Among AAM’s projects is museum advocacy on a national level. Recently, they sent Tammis K. Groft, deputy director of collections and exhibits at the Albany Institute of History and Art [above], to Washington as a “citizen-lobbyist” to speak to a committee about the importance of NEH Preservation and Access Grants. She wrote a few blog posts on the subject on the AAM’s advocacy blog. PAG grants are a major way museums of all sizes fund collections stewardship projects, and the funding for the program is slated to be cut by 50% next year. Contact your elected officials to advocate for NEH conservation programs!

The Humanities Advocacy Network is also a great resource for humanities advocacy, including preservation and history programs. You can sign up to get action alerts and email your representatives from the page.

I’d love to see more blogging from AAM or other organizations on museum and history advocacy issues. The wrangling over appropriations can be very opaque, and a human voice really helps to clarify issues and make advocacy work seem much more possible for small museum professionals and those without much lobbying practice. (My occasional posts about Minnesota cultural legislation don’t cut it.)