2012 Exhibitions and Events

Historical Society of Woodstock

Eames House – telephone: 845 679-2256

20 Comeau Drive, PO Box 841, Woodstock, NY 12498

Founded in 1929 by a group of artists, writers, academics, and local citizens, the Historical Society of Woodstock is committed to shaping our future through a shared understanding of our past. In addition to the exhibition space, which is located at the historic Eames House in the center of Woodstock, the Historical Society has an extensive archive consisting of paintings, as well as prints, drawings, and sculpture, textiles, photographs, books and manuscripts, correspondence/documents, film/sound recordings, and antique tools. The archive serves as a resource for a wide range of exhibitions and public programming. In recent years, the Historical Society has organized a number of outstanding exhibitions on the Byrdcliffe and Maverick art colonies – as well as other local themes. Exhibitions and programs are presented during the summer and fall. The Historical Society of Woodstock recently received a grant from the NYS Council on the Arts to begin the process of upgrading storage for the collection.

“Portrait of Hervey White”, 1910

Fall – Winter 2012 Exhibitions/Events:

Exhibition of vintage holiday cards

… a tribute to Maud and Miska Petersham

Opening: Exhibit and Holiday Sale

Friday, December 7, 4-8:00 pm

… featuring note cards with paintings from the Historical Society collection (see above), tins of home-made cookies, the “Historical Society Cookie Cookbook”, hand-made mittens, books and DVDs on local history, vintage postcards, and more.

Please join us for home-made cookies and hot cider!

“Under the North Light”, presentation and book signing

Maud and Miska Petersham at their Woodstock home in the early 1950s. Petersham Reinhard Collection

This event will be rescheduled

Woodstock native Larence Webster is the author of “Under the North Light”, the first book about children’s book authors and illustrators Maud and Miska Petersham.

The book has received much positive attention from historians and collectors of children’s literature. For this talk Lawrence will focus Maud and Miska’s lives in Woodstock and their contributions to the creative, social, and cultural life of the town we find so engaging.

Woodstock History: Thanksgiving Morning Walk – Thursday, November 22, 9:30 a.m.

The Historical Society of Woodstock will offer a Thanksgiving morning history walk about the village this Thursday beginning at 9:30 a.m. The walk will begin at the corner of Maple Lane and Deanies Alley by the fleamarket. Janine Mower will offer insights into the evolution of our town and discuss some of the tales and people that make-up our story.

The walk is in support of the Historical Society’s building fund and enhancement of its archival storage facilities.

A suggested donation of $10 is requested.

Comeau Day: Saturday, September 29, 11-4:00 p.m.

Spring – Summer 2012 Exhibitions/Events:

Exhibition: After the War was Over June 29 – August 26, 2012

Saturdays and Sundays, 1:00 – 5:00 p.m.

This exhibition explores the emergence of Woodstock from a small town into a thriving, growing community. As men and women returned from war, Woodstock experienced soaring population, increased property values, increased tourism, and the revival of the art colony as new artists settled into the community. (more below)

(left) The original Deanie’s… the trolley that Deanie Elwyn purchased for $700 in 1934, eventually buried between Wok & Roll & Not Fade Away, formerly Joyous Lake.

After the War was Over – Post WW II Woodstock and the building of a community.

Fundamentally altered by their experiences, the men and women who returned to Woodstock at the end of World War II found a town that had also changed during their absence. Like them, Woodstock had been shaped, it’s path redirected, by the war as well. Fading were the differences and past antagonisms between “old” and “new” Woodstockers.

Woodstock was a town eager to move on; eager to explore a new-found sense of community resulting from the shared experiences of the Great Depression and a World War. Growth was on the horizon, in spirit, size and in Woodstock’s own sense of who we were.

It was both an exciting and challenging era for Woodstock and the Historical Society of Woodstock has captured those times in it’s 2012 summer exhibit: After the War was Over: Post WW II Woodstock and the Building of a Community. Through photographs, art work, newspapers, documents, and other ephemera and artifacts, the Historical Society has pieced together a number of the elements that shaped and moved Woodstock during the post-World War II years.

This exhibition will explore the emergence of Woodstock from a small town into a thriving, growing community. As men and women returned from the war, Woodstock experienced soaring population, increased property values, increased tourism, and the revival of the art colony as new artists settled into this community. With the arrival of Rotron, IBM and other new modern businesses, came the development of such institutions as banks, a supermarket, a new elementary school, new churches, restaurants, bars, and shops, as post World War II Woodstock began to take shape. There was an increase in the number of out-of-towners who came to Woodstock, especially on summer weekends. As the Woodstock “Weekly Window” commented in 1948, many of these people (labelled “trudgers”) “trudged purposefully about the village in search of something or other, which they never seem to find”.

“Table at Deanie’s” with original menus, china, postcards.

HSW Exhibition installation.