History, Natural History & the Arts
A tour Cooperstown’s Historic Hyde Hall Estate, including lunch on the banks of Otsego Lake has been set for Wednesday, August 8th, 2018.
The private tour will grant participants exclusive access to the historically significant neoclassic country mansion and cover the numerous phases of construction, beginning in 1817. [Read more…] about Tour Cooperstown’s Historic Hyde Hall Estate
The Summer Lecture Series at the Old Stone Fort Museum is set to begin at 7 pm on Thursday, July 12 with “Historic Hyde Hall”, a look at the Otsego County estate, its architecture, its numerous and noteworthy inhabitants, and its surprising connections to Schoharie County.
Led by Hyde Hall’s own John Bower, the lecture will introduce participants to the estate’s founder, George Clark, and cover the many phases of construction. Beginning in 1817, the work spanned several years and ultimately resulted in what is considered one of the finest examples of neoclassic country mansions anywhere in the United States. [Read more…] about Hyde Hall Topic Of Old Stone Fort Lecture
John Bower, Hyde Hall Marketing Manager, is set to present an illustrated discussion of the history and preservation of Historic Hyde Hall, a fifty-room mansion in Cooperstown designed by Albany’s celebrated architect Phillip Hooker, on Saturday, May 5th at 1 pm.
This National Landmark and New York State Historic Site was built between 1817 and 1834 by George T. Clarke and served as home to five generations of the Clark Family. Hyde Hall was acquired by New York State for the development of Glimmerglass State Park in 1963 and today is operated by Hyde Hall Inc. as a house museum and regional culture center. [Read more…] about Glimmerglass: Hyde Hall in Cooperstown Lecture
Hyde Hall, the 1817 Regency Mansion of George Clarke in Springfield, will host this year’s Textile History Forum April 29 through and May 1, 2016.
This year’s Forum will be a hands-on working project to identify, date, and catalog the surviving drapery fabrics and trims from the Dining Room and Drawing Room of the Great House. [Read more…] about Textile History Forum Planned For Hyde Hall
Rabbit Goody and Thistle Hill Weavers have announced that a Symposium on Traditional Woven Coverlets will take place May 1-3, 2015, at Hyde Hall in Springfield, NY. Anyone with an interest in coverlets is encouraged to attend. Participants are especially encouraged to bring their own coverlets and images to share and discuss.
The Symposium hopes to bring together historians, collectors, curators, and enthusiasts for a lively exchange of ideas and information. Goody will also bring a selection of coverlets from her own extraordinary collection to share with the group. [Read more…] about Traditional Woven Coverlet Symposium Planned
For those of you who are not familiar with Hyde Hall, I had the greatest treat a few weeks ago: the new Executive Director, Dr. Jonathan Maney, and I perused the textile and trim collections that have survived at this Regency mansion.
Hyde Hall, a National Landmark and a New York State Historic Site, located in Springfield, NY, was built by George Clarke between 1817 and 1834.
Its importance to material culture historians is based on the extraordinary survival of furniture, textiles, textile ornaments, and receipts for the period of its building. Everything is fully documented.
Rarely do we have the opportunity to put so many pieces together to understand both the style and color way for window treatments in a high style Regency mansion circa 1830.
More important to those of us who work in rural areas, Hyde Hall is not located in an urban environment. Rather, it is far afield from the population centers that we normally associate with high style culture. Hyde Hall is perched high on a bluff overlooking the northern tip of Otsego Lake, about 60 miles west of Albany, New York.
We know that the draper/upholsterer came from Albany as did much of the furniture, and we know the exact volume of fabrics, trim, and ornaments that were ordered. We have surviving fragments of the original red damask, tassels, trim, and ornaments for the grand dining room and the drawing room. These great rooms are elaborate, handsome, and very well preserved.
Hyde Hall offers us the opportunity to study, educate, and reproduce the window treatments with more documentation than nearly any other historic site could ever hope to find.
Rabbit Goody is a textile historian and owner/weaver at Thistle Hill Weavers. She is also the director of the Textile History Forum.