Calico Rebellion

Historical Society of Woodstock

Presents

FILM

Calico Rebellion

The Anti-Rent War & the Second American Revolution

Directed by Victoria Kupchinetsky  

Q & A with filmmakers and special guests

Tinker Street Cinema

Sunday, July 19, 2 pm
Doors open 1:30pm

In the lush woods of New York’s Catskill Mountains, a mythical memory lives on. Of a time when men – armed with rifles and pitchforks, disguised in eerie leather masks and calico gowns – descended from the hills to stage the “Second American Revolution”.

Two hundred years ago immigrant farmers in the Catskills, fed up with oppression and exploitation by absentee landlords, staged a rebellion known as the Anti-Rent War. The uprising changed the course of history, paving the way to land rights across America and to the formation of a new political group — Abraham Lincoln’s Republican Party.

Today, although largely forgotten, the historic uprising lives on through direct descendants of those rebellious farmers. CALICO REBELLION explores a pivotal moment in American history, and a community’s unique and enduring connection to the past through the songs, stories and costumes preserved from the 1840s.<

Part historical “true crime” story – part meditation on land and belonging in America – CALICO REBELLION is a meditation on small town American history, identity, idealism and the violence that percolates beneath the surface.

Advanced tickets $20

At the Door $25

The Historical Society of Woodstock was founded in 1929 by a group of artists, writers, academics, and local citizens. In addition to the exhibition space, which is located at the historic Eames House on Comeau Drive in the center of Woodstock, the Historical Society has an extensive archive consisting of paintings, prints, drawings, sculpture, textiles, photographs, books, manuscripts, correspondence, documents, film/sound recordings, and antique tools. The archive serves as a resource for a wide range of exhibitions, public programming, and research.