"Lady of Fashion," attributed to the workshop of Samuel Robb (1851-1928), circa 1860. Painted wood. The source of the image for "Lady of Fashion" is a satirical print entitled "The Grecian Bend" that pokes fun at the vain, fashion-conscious young women of the period. Carrying a cigar in one hand and tobacco leaves in the other, and wearing a distinctive hat, she is thought to have advertised Squirrel brand cigars.

 

Centennial Celebration

Collections from the New York State Historical Association

By Dr Gilbert T. Vincent

COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. - The New York State Historical Association was founded in 1899 by five New Yorkers who were interested in promoting greater knowledge of the early history of the state.

They hoped to encourage original research, to educate general audiences by means of lectures and publications, to mark places of historic interest with tablets or signs, and to start a library and museum to hold manuscripts, paintings, and objects associated with the history of the state.

It was an ambitious undertaking proposed by the five founders when they held their first official meeting on March 21, 1899, in the village of Lake George. But time has justified their optimism and the association has grown dramatically during the intervening century into a successful and multi-faceted institution.

A major step was taken in 1926 when Horace Moses, another New Yorker interested in the history of the state, donated a permanent abode for the association. The structure was a facsimile of John Hancock's famous house in Boston. In addition to Hancock House in Ticonderoga, N.Y., Moses also gave the association a separate endowment.

In 1939, a second major opportunity presented itself when Stephen Carlton Clark offered the association a new home in the village of Cooperstown. Clark took an active interest in expanding the holdings and turned over Fenimore House, one of his family's properties, in 1944 as a new headquarters and museum.

Fenimore House

Fenimore House, an impressive neo-Georgian structure, was built in the 1930s on the historic site of James Fenimore Cooper's early Nineteenth Century farmhouse. It was large enough to have both extensive exhibition galleries as well as office and library space. The collections and programs continued to expand, and a separate library building was constructed in 1968. In 1995, a new 18,000 square foot wing was added to Fenimore House to hold the Eugene and Clare Thaw Collection, one of the nation's premier collections of American Indian art.

As in any long-lived institution, the vision, dedication and work of individual people have made the association what it is today. Among the most influential during the early years of the association's history is Frederick B. Richards. One of the original members of the board, Richards served as secretary for many years and held the association together throughout its first decade.

Dixon Ryan Fox, the dynamic president of Union College, was also president of the association from 1929 to 1945. He greatly invigorated the activities and led the move from Ticonderoga to Cooperstown.

Stephen C. Clark, a native of Cooperstown and one of the heirs to the Singer sewing machine fortune, was a leading philanthropist and ranks with the greatest art collectors of his generation. He utilized his experience as a founding trustee of the Museum of Modern Art to transform the collection at the association and created its holdings in American fine and folk art.

Louis C. Jones, a folklorist and university professor who became director of the association in 1947, provided the energy and expansive personality to make the association an innovative force among the many historical associations and museums in the state.

To Preserve And Publish

Today, the association functions as a state historical society, fulfilling the founders' original intention of preserving, publishing and interpreting state history. New York History, a quarterly publication, was initiated in 1919 for scholarly research papers. It is the only magazine devoted entirely to the history of New York State and has published such articles as Peter Francis' "The Beads That Did Not Buy Manhattan" and John Hewitt's "Mr Downing and His Oyster House, The Life and Good Works of an African-American Entrepreneur."

To reach a broader audience, a popular history magazine, Heritage, was begun in 1984 and has won several awards for design and printing. The association has always sought ways to encourage individual research and gives annual monetary prizes to the authors of the best article published in New York History and to the author of an unpublished manuscript dealing with some aspect of New York history.

In 1995, Alan Taylor was given the manuscript award and his subsequent book, William Cooper's Town: Power and Persuasion on the Frontier of the Early American Republic, won the Pulitzer and Bancroft prizes. In addition, the Henry Allen Moe Prize, named for a past chairman of the board, is awarded annually to the author of the best catalogue of an art exhibition that was shown anywhere in New York State during the previous year.

The creation of a full service research library was one of the prospective goals at the founding of the association. The original collection, which began with a few periodicals, has grown to over 80,000 titles, of which about 20 percent are very rare or unique to this institution. The holdings of Nineteenth Century New York State periodicals and first editions of James Fenimore Cooper are particularly significant.

The manuscript collection includes important records of many early New York State businesses as well as family papers in the form of letters, diaries and receipts. Among the more interesting are the 34 letters exchanged between Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr and their seconds which led up to the fatal duel. Resources for genealogical research in New York State families are particularly extensive.

Outstanding Americana

The Fenimore House Museum has superb holdings in American folk art and American Indian art that span the entire North American continent. The portrait, genre and landscape painting collection encompasses works that are considered among the very best examples of American art.

The photography collection includes over 120,000 examples with very important holdings of both professional and amateur photographers from the Nineteenth Century.

Other important collections include clothing, furniture, freeblown glass, saltglaze stoneware and patent models. Most have a New York history. To best utilize this collection, the association has an ambitious changing exhibition program. The staff at Fenimore House Museum usually mount between 12 and 15 exhibitions every year.

The association is an educational institution in the broadest sense. Some of the educational programs are statewide, while others are centered on the facilities in Cooperstown.

National History Day in New York State, a competitive program that brings over 300 students from all over the state together for competition in drama, video, lecture and written papers based on a single historical theme, is headquartered at the association. Educational programming in Cooperstown includes daily interpretation of the exhibitions at the Fenimore House Museum, lectures and symposia.

An especially innovative interpretation program can be visited at the Ga-no-sote, a facsimile of a 1750 Iroquois bark house that has been erected on the shores of Lake Otsego. The association also co-sponsors the Cooperstown Graduate Program, one of the nation's premier museum training graduate schools, which grants a master's degree in History Museum Studies. As part of their training, students are actively incorporated into the daily functions of the museum.

Centennial Celebrations

To celebrate the associations' centennial in 1999, the museum is mounting a major exhibition of New York State folk art, an important subject that has never been studied or presented as a unified topic. The exhibition will display works from the Eighteenth Century to the present that are drawn from a wide variety of public and private collections and will demonstrate the extent to which New York State has been a cultural crossroads throughout its history.

Other topics include a loan exhibition of paintings and photographs of Lake George from Thomas Cole to Alfred Stieglitz, and a display from the Thaw Collection of extraordinary ceremonial masks made by the Central Yup'ik people of Alaska. These are the spare, provocative images surrounded by feathers that so inspired the Surrealist artists of the early Twentieth Century, but still remain little known to the American public. In August, the association will host the second Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Art Biennial, which again will be curated and organized by representatives of the Six Nations.

As it enters its second century, the association is secure in the importance of the publications, collections and programs that it has produced, acquired, exhibited or presented over the last 100 years. It stands poised to take stock of the history and culture of the Twentieth Century in New York State, as well as the nation, and to focus attention and resources on gathering the material and preserving the artifacts that will be important 100 years from now.

Dr Gilbert T. Vincent is Vice President and Director of Museums, New York State Historical Association. In celebration of its centennial, the New York State Historical Association will present masterpieces from its collection at the Winter Antiques Show. Featured in the show curated by NYSHA chief curator Paul D'Ambrosio and designed by Stephen Saitas will be 30 objects drawn from the associaton's seminal holdings of American folk art as well as artifacts from the Eugene and Clare Thaw Collection of American Indian art. The Winter Antiques show will open Thursday, January 14, and continue through Sunday, January 24, at New York's Seventh Regiment Armory, Park Avenue and 67th Street.