August/September 2006

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VSA Events

Rhinebeck: Tour of the Mid-Hudson Valley 2006
A reprise of the 2005 tour

Our group hotel booking this year for the Delamater Arms is slightly restricted owing to other conflicting events, Autumn being a particularly busy time in the Rhinebeck area. The VSA group rate is only available for a limited number of rooms. Other rooms are available at different rates. Please contact Caroline at the Delamater Arms if you have any difficulties.

We apologize for this restriction, and also if you have experienced any other reservation difficulties beyond our control when our coordinator at the Delamater Arms cannot be reached.

Members

ATTENDEES AT THE VSA SUMMER SCHOOLS 2006
Summer Schools Pages
 

THE NEWPORT SCHOOL

THE LONDON SCHOOL

Bach, Debra Schmidt
Brooklyn, New York

Bamberg, Angelique
Pittsburgh, PA

Dikas, Christina
Charlottesville, VA

Ferry, Kathryn
London, UK

Frey, Gordon
Montclair, NJ

Garrett-Cox, Katherine
Richmond, VA

Glenn, Charles
Derby, UK

Ho, Carrie & Kaplan, Morton
New York, NY

Killian, Jacquelann
Bronx, NY

Miller, Lauren
Charlottesville, VA

Murphy, Patricia
Council Bluff, IA

Peckler, Danae
Lexington, KY

Perry, Valerie
Charleston, SC

Peters, Helena & Jerry
Silver Spring, MD

Phipps, Paula
Washington, DC

Pilat, Magdalena
Siedlce, Poland

Roberts, Mary
Wausau, WI

Varner, Elizabeth
Spencer, NC

Wheeler, Elizabeth
Denver, CO

Whittingham, Sarah
Bristol, UK

Zalewski, Leanne
Boston, MA

Bailly, Lis
Victoria, BC

Bennett, Kathleen
Upper Montclair, NJ

Brunner, Larry
Abilene, TX

Cellauro, Louis
Saint-Fons, France

Davies, Bruce
Victoria, BC

Demetriou, Judith
Evanston, IL

Desmith, David
Kinnelon, NJ

Hartwell, Pamela
Bonita, CA 

Iordachi, Eva
Budapest, Hungary

Laster, Margaret
New York, NY

Mayfield, Deborah
Omaha, NE 

Miller, Mary
Evanston, IL

Moore, Josephine
Somerset, UK

Phillip, Hannah
Nuriootpa, Australia

Pollack, Meredith
New York, NY

Puckett, Ryland
Richmond, VA  

Rettig, Robert
Penobscot, ME 

Simonelli, John
Paterson, NJ 

Smith, Quentin
New York, NY 

Strauss, Tina
Deerfield, IL

Svehlak, Joseph
Brooklyn, NY  

Tigerman, Bobbye
New York, NY 

Tucholska, Justyna
Cracow, Poland 

Wheeler, Elizabeth
Denver, CO 

Wiles, Peggy
Minden, IA

Business Members

Member Organizations

    CHAPTER NEWS

A sampling of Chapter notices and newsletters
Click on links to read | PDFs open in a new window

Falls Church Apr/May Newsletter
Falls Church June/July Newsletter
Falls Church August/September Newsletter  NEW
Greater Chicago Lecture
Michigan Spring Meeting
Michigan Newsletter
New York Metropolitan Spring Newsletter  NEW
Washington DC  Events  NEW
Northern NJ Newsletter  NEW
North Star May Newsletter
North Star July Newsletter
St. Louis August Newsletter  NEW

To be featured in this section, please send your Notices or Newsletters in document form to the VSA webmaster.  This may either be the original draft format, e.g. MS Word, or a finished PDF.

  TOWER GROVE HOUSE

VSA members, especially those who attended the Annual Meeting in St. Louis, will be dismayed to hear of the storm damage to scores of trees at Tower Grove Park, St. Louis.

The hurricane-strength winds of July 19 knocked over 114 trees and hacked off thousands of branches in the 289-acre park.

As many as 100 severely damaged trees may need to be chopped down. Tower Grove suffered more storm damage than any other park in the region, and it lost about as many trees as the city's other 105 parks combined.

Read local news story

Contact Tower Grove Park

 New England Chapter - Preservation Efforts

The New England Chapter of the VSA has a long history of dedication and commitment to the preservation of New England’s Victorian past. One manifestation of this is their Preservation Awards program.

The New England Preservation Awards committee annually honors people and institutions whose projects represent a notable effort in the protection or preservation of some aspect of our Victorian past. Categories include buildings, public spaces, and aspects of social history.

Also, each year, a Lifetime Achievement Award may be presented to an individual whose devotion and dedication to preservation has helped maintain the Victorian Era.

Nominations with documentation are always welcomed by the committee. If you would like to submit a Nomination for the New England area, kindly contact Jack Grinold at (617) 373-2691.

For a full list of the New England awards dating back to 1973, please click here.

 Falls Church Chapter

“Called on the Carpet”
An Illustrated Lecture on 19^th Century Floor Covering

Saturday, September 23, 2006: 3:00 p.m.
at the Falls Church, Virginia, Community Center
223 Little Falls Street
Falls Church, VA

Victorian-era expert Dan Cooper will present “Called on the Carpet” an illustrated lecture on the history of 19^th century floor coverings, focusing on the evolution of pattern and its role in interiors. In addition to the slide presentation, carpet samples will be on display.  Covering mainly the years from 1830-1900, Dan will trace how styles and tastes changed through the Victorian era.

Dan Cooper is the director of J. R. Burrows and Company, a firm specializing historic carpets, Arts and Crafts wallpapers, and Victorian laces, and is also a regular contributor to Old House Interiors magazine.    

Free
Contact Linda Lau, 703-425-0292, to RSVP no later than September 20.

 Northern NJ Chapter

THE GRAPHIC DESIGNS OF WILL BRADLEY
September 18, 2006 - 8:00 P.M.
Montclair Women's Club, 82 Union Street, Montclair

Presented by David Lowden

The NNJ September 18th program will be a lecture by member David Lowden on influential turn-of-the-century poster artist and book designer Will Bradley. (1868-1962).

Early in his near 100-year life (1868-1962), Bradley was famous as one of the premier American poster artists, working in the Art Nouveau style (for which he earned the sobriquet “America’s Aubrey Beardsley”).

At the turn of the century, he shifted his design approach to utilize Colonial-era woodcut-style images after rediscovering what he viewed as the purity of early American printing.  Like William Morris and Gustav Stickley, he saw his role to be a designer in many media, from books and magazines, to posters and wallpaper, to furniture and furnishings. He broke new ground in taking the principles of craftsmanship and applying them to the commercial marketplace. At his death, he was well recognized as the "grand old man" of American printing.

For more information contact Christina Mayer:
christina.mayer@fmglobal.com
973-744-5916

 Christmas at Victoria Mansion

Victoria Mansion, Portland ME
Hark the Herald Angels Sing

Now in its 22^nd year, Christmas at Victoria Mansion - has become a time-honored tradition of the Portland holiday season, and the beginning of the city’s Victorian Christmas celebration.

Each year area designers, decorators, and florists volunteer their time and talent to transform the Mansion - a VSA member - from a summer palace by the sea, to a Christmas wonderland with beautiful holiday decorations and arrangements. Hark the Herald Angels Sing is the theme for 2006, to celebrate both the joyous 19^th-century holiday tradition of singing Christmas Carols, and the profusion of angels throughout the décor of the Mansion.

What makes this year’s celebration dramatically different from all that have come before is the spectacular transformation of the stair hall, which is now resplendent with reproduction carpeting. In both color and design, the carpet closely interprets the original 1860s carpeting evident in historic photos of the space. 

For more information visit:
www.victoriamansion.org
207-772-4841.

 New York Metropolitan Chapter

METROPOLITAN CHAPTER OF THE VICTORIAN SOCIETY IN AMERICA
P.O. Box 1629, Gracie Station, New York, NY 10028 Telephone (212) 886-3742

Free Lecture Series Announced

Four free illustrated lectures are offered by the Metropolitan Chapter of the Victorian Society in America in coming months. No reservations are needed for the lectures at the Donnell Library Auditorium, 20 W. 53^rd St., New York City, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. The nearest public transportation is the Fifth Avenue stop on the E and V subway lines. The series includes:

Tues., Sept. 12, 6 PM:
Flouting Convention: The New Woman in Nineteenth-Century American Art by Mary-Kate O'Hare, Ph.D., assistant curator of American Art, Newark Museum and co-curator of the traveling exhibition Off the Pedestal: New Women in the Art of Homer, Chase and Sargent. Portraits of women as professional, athletic, intelligent and self-reliant were rare until the late nineteenth century. As social limitations on women were challenged, a number of artists, including John Singer Sargent, William Merritt Chase, Winslow Homer and Augustus Saint-Gaudens, played pivotal roles in raising awareness of the distinctive traits of the nineteenth-century New Woman.

Tues., Oct. 10, 6 PM:
Brooklyn's Civil War Monuments, by Elmer Sprague, D.Phil., professor of philosophy emeritus, Brooklyn College, who has written a forthcoming guidebook to Brooklyn public monuments. Public monuments commemorating the Civil War took a number of forms. In Brooklyn, major themes of such sculpture include emancipation, abolition and the Union. Also portrayed are a number of the war's generals and the ships, Monitor and Merrimac. These diverse monuments engaged the talents of a variety of sculptors and architects.

Tues., Nov. 14, 6 PM:
Boss Tweed: The Ultimate New Yorker by Kenneth Ackerman, author of Boss Tweed: The Rise and Fall of the Corrupt Pol who Conceived the Soul of Modern New York (2005). Boss Tweed was the most corrupt politician who ever served in America. During his reign atop New York's Tammany Hall after the Civil War, he and his circle stole an estimated $45 million from the public trough—billions in modern money. He died in prison, a disgraced man. Still, he is touted as a champion of immigrants and democracy. No other city could have created him—or was big enough for him. Tweed was the ultimate New Yorker, a bold and brassy visionary who built as big as he stole.

Tues., Dec. 12, 6 PM:
The Cooper Union Building and Architectural Terra Cotta in the 1850s by Jay Shockley, staff member, Research Department, New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, and Susan Tunick, president, Friends of Terra Cotta. The Cooper Union of the Advancement of Science and Art in New York City was constructed in 1853-58 for industrialist Peter Cooper to the design of Prussian-born architect Frederick A. Petersen. Surviving architectural terra cotta in the building marks the singular importance of this material in the first phase of its American manufacture in New York in the 1850s, decades before its widespread use.

Further information on any of the programs may be obtained by calling (212) 886-3742 or visiting the website www.metrovsa.org.  

Contacts: events@metrovsa.org
Hilda Regier (212) 242-2622

  NEW INSTITUTIONAL MEMBERS

We are pleased to welcome to the VSA two new institutional members:

Belle Meade Plantation

The "Queen of Tennessee Plantations" is a National Historic Place covering 30 acres and includes the superb ante-bellum Greek Revival mansion, the huge carriage house and stables, the smokehouse, garden house, creamery, and the original 1790 log cabin.
http://www.bellemeadeplantation.com/

Historic T.R.R. Cobb House

After languishing for almost 20 years at Stone Mountain, 70 miles from its original location on Prince Avenue in Athens, the T.R.R. Cobb house is moving home to Athens. Its new address is only about two blocks from its original site. The house will be renovated and restored to reflect the style of 1860, when Thomas Reade Rootes Cobb was at the peak of his short-lived career.

T.R.R. Cobb left an indelible mark on the history of Athens and Georgia. He was one of Georgia's greatest lawyers, an advocate for education and health, and an officer in the Confederate army.
http://www.trrcobbhouse.org/
 

Click here for a full list of Institutional Members.

Miscellany

And finally..

At the end of Summer, after three and a half years, your staff of one at the email newsletter is leaving the post of Business Manager of the Victorian Society in America.

I wish to thank the VSA for the opportunity to serve the Society, and to thank the members for their many kind words.

I am sorry to go - but it is not a clean break: I stay on to administer the web site and this email newsletter, I shall be attending the Fall meeting in New Bedford in an official capacity, and I hope to return as a participant on future events.

Cheers!

John Cooper

The fitful breeze sweeps down the winding lane
With gold and crimson leaves before it flying;
Its gusty laughter has no sound of pain,
But in the lulls it sinks to gentle sighing,
And mourns the Summer’s early broken spell,—
      “Farewell, sweet Summer,
      Rosy, blooming Summer,
      Sweet, farewell!”

So bird and bee and brook and breeze make moan,
With melancholy song their loss complaining.
I too must join them, as I walk alone
Among the sights and sounds of Summer’s waning.…
I too have loved the season passing well.…
      So, farewell, Summer,
      Fair but faded Summer,
      Sweet, farewell!

Farewell To Summer (extract)
George Arnold (1834–1865)

Let us know what you think of the e-newsletter and what you like to see in it.

UNTIL NEXT TIME
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The Victorian Society in America
205 S. Camac Street
Philadelphia, PA 19107
info@victoriansociety.org

The VSA is pleased to promote its Business Members but does not bear responsibility for nor necessarily endorse their products or services.

© 2006 Victorian Society in America. All rights reserved.
Third party material used for scholarly purposes only.