Date: Thu 08-Jan-1998

Publication: Ant

Author: CAROLL

Quick Words:

Centennial

Full Text:

A 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 was 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 association's 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 association'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.