New York Almanack

History, Natural History & the Arts

Furniture

Val-Kill Industries & The American Arts and Crafts Movement

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Roosevelt, O'Day, Dickerman, and Cook In 1926, Eleanor Roosevelt convened with three of her closest friends, Caroline O’Day, Marion Dickerman, and Nancy Cook, to discuss the probability of a bold new venture. The four women, all active in New York’s Democratic Party, agreed to open a workshop that specialized in the production of Colonial Revival furniture.

Their business would be conducted on the Roosevelts’ Val-Kill property in Hyde Park, Dutchess County, NY and appropriately named “Val-Kill Industries.” Two years prior, Franklin D. Roosevelt built a quaint Dutch Colonial cottage on the property for Eleanor, Marion, and Nancy. This came to be called the “Stone Cottage,” and a more industrial building was constructed for the workshop. [Read more…] about Val-Kill Industries & The American Arts and Crafts Movement

Elverhoj: The Arts and Crafts Colony at Milton-on-Hudson

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Elverhoj Summer School 1914 CoverAmong the trio of turn-of-the-century New York State Arts and Crafts communities, Elverhoj is the least-well-known. The recent publication of Elverhoj: The Arts and Crafts Colony at Milton-on-Hudson (Black Dome Press, 2022; distributed by RIT Press), written by William B. Rhoads and Leslie Melvin, resolves the oversight.

Roycroft, in East Aurora (Erie County), and Byrdcliffe, in Woodstock, both began earlier than Elverhoj. Previously, each was the subject of a definitive scholarly text.

Elverhoj was established by Anders Andersen and Johannes Morton on the picturesque west shore of the Hudson River in 1912. Its Danish name loosely translates to “hill of the fairies.” Persisting until the 1930s, well outside of the Arts and Crafts period, it fell victim to the Depression eventually filing for bankruptcy like so many enterprises. [Read more…] about Elverhoj: The Arts and Crafts Colony at Milton-on-Hudson

Traveling Art: Gustav Stickley’s 1903 Exhibitions

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Symbiotic PartnershipContrary to conventional wisdom, the very first modern traveling art exhibition was not the three-venue, 1913 New York City “Armory Show.” Instead, and a decade earlier, Syracuse and Rochester, New York hosted an important art exhibit.

The novelty of a traveling art exhibition in 1903 is matched by the surprising reason it occurred: a furniture maker’s business deal with an educational institution. [Read more…] about Traveling Art: Gustav Stickley’s 1903 Exhibitions

The Cabaret Trail: 1920s Urban Nightlife in New York, Paris & London

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President Emmanuel Macron honouring Josephine Baker’s cenotaph at the PantheonOn November 30th, St Louis-born entertainer and civil rights activist Josephine Baker became the first Black woman to be inducted into the Pantheon in Paris, the highest honor that France bestows.

Baker had started her career as a young dancer in Vaudeville shows where her exuberant talent was quickly spotted. When she moved to New York City she joined in the festival of black life and art now known as the Harlem Renaissance, but segregation and racism drove her away from home. [Read more…] about The Cabaret Trail: 1920s Urban Nightlife in New York, Paris & London

Nancy Cunard, Modernism and the Private Press Movement

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The Kelmscott ChaucerThe history of the modern private press can be said to have started in early 1891 with William Morris’s foundation of the Kelmscott Press at 16 Upper Mall, Hammersmith, and the publication of his own work The Story of the Glittering Plain.

There had been forerunners of course. Horace Walpole’s Strawberry Hill Press, established in June 1757, set a precedent by producing splendid books, pamphlets, and ephemera, but it was Morris who succeeded in establishing a cost-effective press for high quality publications. His initiative gave birth to a host of similar undertakings. He initiated the Private Press Movement which was closely associated with the rise of modernist ideas. Morris also had a remarkable following in New York. [Read more…] about Nancy Cunard, Modernism and the Private Press Movement

Modernist Architecture, Literature, and the Adirondack Cottage Sanatorium

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First page of an 1887 BrochureEdward Livingston Trudeau was born in 1848 in New York City to a family of physicians. During his late teens, his elder brother James contracted tuberculosis (TB) and Edward nursed him until his death three months later. At twenty, he enrolled in the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia College (now Columbia University), completing his medical training in 1871. Two years later, he was diagnosed with TB too.

Following current climate-therapeutic theories that promoted the relocation of patients to regions with atmospheric conditions favorable to recuperation, he moved to the Adirondack Mountains. Seeking as much open air as he possible could, almost continuously living outside, he subsequently regained his health. In 1876 he settled in Saranac Lake and established a small medical practice. It was the beginning of a remarkable career and a new chapter in American medical history. [Read more…] about Modernist Architecture, Literature, and the Adirondack Cottage Sanatorium

Lifeways of the Yellow Birch

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TOS_YellowBirchOne summer, I took a nature drawing class, and we hiked up Vermont’s Stowe Pinnacle to sketch in the cool, mountain forest. I chose to draw a big yellow birch that had established itself on the steep slope. For a couple of hours, I stared at the base of the tree, trying to capture its intricate detail: the way the trunk leaned to the right and its large, supporting roots spread over the ground; the variable colors, patterns, and textures of its bark; a hole at the base that might be home to a mouse or chipmunk. I wondered how old the tree was and what it had witnessed in its lifetime from its perch on the mountainside. [Read more…] about Lifeways of the Yellow Birch

Shaker Museum Gets $550k For Climate-Controlled Collections Storage

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Shaker box courtesy Shaker MuseumThe Shaker Museum, which stewards an extensive collection of Shaker material culture and archives, has been awarded a $550,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH).

The Infrastructure and Capacity Building Challenge Grant will be used to construct and outfit a climate-controlled collections storage facility within the new museum building planned for downtown Chatham, Columbia County, NY. [Read more…] about Shaker Museum Gets $550k For Climate-Controlled Collections Storage

A Modern Art Historian’s Hanoverian Inspiration

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Alexander Dorner’s Landes museum Hanover 1928 On November 8th, 1929, ten days after the Black Tuesday stock market crash, New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) opened its doors to the public.

The idea of establishing an institution devoted to the collection and display of contemporary art was controversial. Artists feared that creativity would become institutionalized. If paintings and sculptures were taken out of the living environment, the museum would merely serve as a mausoleum or dumping ground.

As modernists defined art in terms of continuous movement and change (innovation was the new permanency), the idea of a “museum of modern art” seemed an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms. It needed clarification. [Read more…] about A Modern Art Historian’s Hanoverian Inspiration

Electropathic Cure: Quackery in the Electric Era

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A Galvanized Corpse What historians now describe as the Victorian Age, was then referred to as the Electric Era. Electricity lit up city centers and transformed the means of communication. Constant availability of power led to automation which, in turn, allowed for the mass production of goods. Electricity gradually entered the home and convenience stores were filled with new household devices. Even the death penalty went electric. [Read more…] about Electropathic Cure: Quackery in the Electric Era