SHAKER MUSEUM AND LIBRARY
News and Events
Preview
Highlights from this years
"Sowing the Seeds!"
2009 Benefit Party
Click the image to preview
Link
to our Summer Events Calendar HERE (Pdf file)
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June 4, 2009
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: David Stocks, Museum President, 518-794-9100 ext 218
Shaker
Museum
Celebrates Stone Barn Legacy with Public Exhibit and Films
NEW LEBANON – The Shaker Museum and Library invites the public to learn more about the history and significance of the Great Stone Barn at Mount Lebanon Shaker Village during a limited engagement exhibition opening June 13.
“The Great Stone Barn: Built, Burned & Beyond” celebrates the 150th anniversary of the historic barn’s construction through the use of the Shaker Museum’s extensive archival materials. The exhibit includes photographs, original drawings and plans, rare film footage and artifacts documenting the Great Stone Barn’s history from conceptualization to the 1972 fire that destroyed much of the structure, to future plans for the stabilization of the remaining structure.
The Great Stone Barn was great because of its size, notes Jerry Grant, director of Research and Library Services at the Shaker Museum, and had many uses for the Shakers. The Barn housed nearly 100 animals. The haymow could hold nearly 3,000 cubic yards of hay, and there was a corn crib, grain room and three interior silos. The Barn had a small railroad track to move manure, sheds for farm equipment, and a ladder room for the 40-foot maintenance ladders.
“Just before the Shakers left Mount Lebanon for good in 1947, a young reporter visited, and as they toured, Sister Jennie Wells said ‘Shakerism can’t be told, it must be lived. Still, you can learn a lot about it just from that barn,’” said Grant. “That seemed true until someone decided to burn it up one cold September night. I hope the information in this exhibit will light another fire -- one of enthusiasm to preserve this monumental treasure.”
The exhibit will be open on Saturdays and Sundays from June 13 to 28 and again from Sept. 5 to 27, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., at The Granary building on the grounds of the North Family, Mount Lebanon Shaker Village, New Lebanon. Admission is $5; free to Museum members. The village is located at 202 Shaker Road, next to Darrow School. A special preview opening party will be held Friday, June 12 from 5 to 7 p.m., and will include wine and hors d’oeuvres. This event is free and open to the public.
In conjunction with the exhibit, two films will be shown at the Forge building on the North Family site. On Saturday, June 20, at 2 p.m., the film “Medicinal Wetlands” will be featured. In this film, New Lebanon filmmaker Ted Timreck documents one of the defining features of the Lebanon Valley – the unusual and huge Shaker Swamp at the base of Mount Lebanon, used by Native Peoples, the Shakers and Tilden Pharmaceutical Company as a source of medicinal plants. Running time is 34 minutes; admission $5 or free to Museum members, Darrow School alumni and exhibit ticket holders.
The second film, “Jocasta,” will be shown on Sunday, June 28 at 2 p.m. in The Forge. This experimental movie by Elise Kermani was filmed on location at the Great Stone Barn in 2006. Inspired by Euripides’ “The Phoenician Women” (ca. 400 BC), the movie touches on themes of exile, sacrifice and the creative act of writing a narrative. Run time is 52 minutes, and admission is $5, free to Museum members and exhibit ticket holders.
“Built, Burned & Beyond” is one of several projects and activities happening at the Mount Lebanon site this summer. A timber frame workshop, Landscape Volunteer Program, and July 11 summer celebration and fundraiser are some of the other activities designed to involve the public in the site. The Shaker Museum and Library purchased the North Family at Mount Lebanon Shaker Village in 2004, with plans to move the Museum to the site. The Shaker Museum closed its Old Chatham site to concentrate on the relocation, and stabilization of the Great Stone Barn is set to begin in 2010.
For more information on Shaker Museum and Library events, visit their website at www.shakermuseumandlibrary.org.
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Historic
Timber Frame Construction and Restoration Workshop
August
3 to 13, 2009
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For
Workshop Brochure (pdf file) click
here.
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The
Shaker Museum and Library,
owner of the North Family at Mount Lebanon Shaker Village, in New
Lebanon, NY,
and North Bennet Street School of Boston announce the formation of a
model
program integrating preservation trades training into a large,
multi-year
restoration effort at a National Historic Landmark site.
This project has been made possible by a
grant from the 1772 Foundation.
The
first year of this program
will include a two-week public workshop to be held at the historic
site, August
3 to 13. During the first week,
participants will build and erect a timber frame for a small building
using
hand tools. The second week will be
devoted to timber frame restoration in one of Mount Lebanon’s early
nineteenth-century buildings.
North
Bennet Street School,
founded in 1885, offers one of the nation’s most respected 2 year
programs in
preservation carpentry. The Shaker
Museum and Library was the first institution devoted to Shaker history
and
holds a comprehensive archive and object collection.
Mount Lebanon Shaker Village, a World
Monuments Watch site in 2004 and 2006, was the home to the central
ministry and
governing community for America’s Shaker movement, renowned for the
quality,
ingenuity, and design of its objects and buildings, from 1787 to 1947.
Tuition
for the two-week
workshop is $1,100. Participants will
receive a certificate of completion from North Bennet Street School.
Limited workshop scholarships for local
residents are available thanks to funding from the World Monuments
Fund.. The scholarship application period has now closed.
For more information on the workshop or the
scholarship program, click here or
contact Geoff Miller at the Shaker Museum and Library,
518-794-9100 x 220, miller@shakermuseumandlibrary.org
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An interesting link to videos taken during the 2007
Field School at Mount Lebanon Shaker Village, showing work on the Great
Stone Barn: click here
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
30 April 2009
CONTACT: David Stocks, Museum President,
518-794-9100 ext
218
Shaker Museum’s Mount Lebanon Site Chosen for
Historic American Landscapes Survey by National
Park Service
NEW LEBANON – Another respected national
organization has
recognized the historical significance of the Mount Lebanon Shaker
Village site
in New Lebanon, future home of the Shaker Museum and Library.
The National Park Service will send a team to the
site this
summer to study the landscape and document significant features with
photographs and mapping. The North Family at the Mount Lebanon site was
one of
only a few chosen for a 2009 Historic American Landscapes Survey
(HALS). The
HALS will become part of the Library of Congress. The project is being
funded
by the National Park Service and World Monuments Fund.
Of particular interest to the Park Service is the
site’s
elaborate waterworks systems, which include mill dams, reservoirs and
underground aqueducts the Shakers used to fuel their many business
ventures, such
as chair and oval box making. The Mount Lebanon site was the first
organized, largest,
and most successful Shaker communal society in America, and the seat of
the
sect’s leadership for more than 150 years.
“The elaborate waterworks were what caught the
attention of
the Park Service and what interested them in this project,” explained
David
Stocks, Shaker Museum and Library president. “This is part of a larger
project
by the Museum to document, restore and open to the public the Mount
Lebanon
site.”
Mount Lebanon Shaker Village was named to the
World
Monuments Fund list of 100 most significant endangered historic sites
in the
world in 2004. The same year, the Shaker Museum and Library purchased
the site,
comprising 30 acres and 11 extant Shaker buildings, with the plan of
merging
its premier collection of Shaker artifacts with the Shaker movement’s
most
significant historic site.
The National Park Service said it is interested in
doing the
HALS here because the Shakers at Mount Lebanon led the largest and most
successful
utopian communal society in America for 160 years, contributing greatly
to
America’s agricultural, industrial, commercial, and institutional
activities.
“The innovative design of Mount Lebanon’s North
Family
Village epitomized the group’s distinct aesthetic principles and
material
culture, harnessing the land’s topography and water flow to operate as
a finely-tuned
machine,” according to the Park Service.
The survey will be conducted by a team of
professionals and
interns in preservation architecture and landscape architecture.
Through
measured and interpretive drawings, written histories, and large-format
photographs, they will document the landscape. The Prints &
Photographs
Division of the Library of Congress will in turn preserve this
documentation
for posterity and make it available to the general public.
“We will have three people working full-time
during June,
July and August,” said Stocks. They will be aided by existing
photographs and
documentation available through the Library of Congress website. “They
will be
working to document the existing conditions of the landscapes and
features, and
the photographers will try to recreate the perspectives of old
photographs for
comparison.”
A three-dimensional map will be created using GIS
(geographic
information system) technology, and the maps will also be accessible
online.
“We are excited about the GIS piece, which the
Park Service
will use to thoroughly map the waterworks system,” said Stocks. “This
is a
relatively new technology the Park Service is using.”
The HALS is just one of several projects and
activities
happening at the Mount Lebanon site this summer. The Shaker Museum is
holding a
timber frame workshop in partnership with the North Bennet Street
School in
Boston from August 3-13; a Landscape Volunteer Program will begin this
summer;
the Museum is assembling a consortium of public institutions with major
Shaker
archive collections to coordinate the description, organizing, and
digitizing
of these materials on the Internet; and major restoration and
stabilization of
the Great Stone Barn continues.
The public will be welcomed to view the site
during periodic
tours, exhibits and at the July 11 Summer Celebration, which will kick
off the
Museum’s 60th anniversary year. To keep up to date on Museum
events,
visit the website: www.shakermuseumandlibrary.org.
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
8 APRIL 2009
Shaker
Museum &
Library to Offer Summer Timber Frame Workshop;
Scholarships
Available for Two-Week Program
NEW
LEBANON, NY – The Shaker Museum & Library is partnering with the
North
Bennet Street School of Boston, Mass., to offer a two-week, hands-on
course in
timber frame construction and restoration. The course will be held at
the
historic Mount Lebanon Shaker Village in New Lebanon, and a limited
number of
scholarships are available.
The
class will be held August 3 to 13, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through
Thursday. Tuition is $1,100. The World Monuments Fund is offering five
full
tuition scholarships for local workshop attendees. The scholarship
application
deadline is May 8. In addition, Shaker Museum members receive a 10
percent
discount on tuition.
The
workshop is designed for anyone interested in timber frame construction
- young
people considering a career in historic preservation, those pursuing a
second career,
or even owners of historic homes.
“Timber
framing is the structural system of most historic 18th
century
homes. So a homeowner may want to know timber framing to know how his
own home
is built,” said Miguel Gomez-Ibanez, executive director of North Bennet
Street
School.
North
Bennet Street School is one of the few institutions in the country
offering a
two-year training program in preservation carpentry. Finding historic
structures to work on can be difficult, noted Gomez-Ibanez, so the
school welcomed
the opportunity to partner with Shaker Museum & Library.
The
Shaker Museum welcomed the opportunity as well, for several reasons.
The museum
recently announced the closing of its Old Chatham site, and plans to
relocate
its extensive collection of Shaker artifacts to New Lebanon in the next
few
years. All of the site’s eleven structures and various landscape
features need
repair, and the work must be done in a manner that preserves their
historic
nature.
“Our
goal is to improve the level of historic preservation trades training
in the
area, and to help the community connect to our new site,” said David
Stocks,
president of Shaker Museum & Library.
“By
involving local residents in teaching them skills, the Shaker Museum is
both
creating a support group for the institution and creating a highly
trained workforce
in the area,” added Gomez-Ibanez.
The
first week of the workshop will be spent learning how to construct a
small
timber frame that will be erected at the New Lebanon site. The second
week,
participants will work on restoration of an actual historic structure,
the
Shaker Brethren’s workshop.
The
World Monuments Fund supports the project because the site will be an
important
and vital part of the community and local economy.
“We want
the local community to see Mount Lebanon as both an historic resource
and an
opportunity for their community,” said Amy Freitag, WMF’s program
director for
the United States. “Community members can gain valuable experience and
help
with the restoration of this historic asset.”
For more
information on the scholarship program, contact Geoff Miller at the
Shaker
Museum and Library, 518-794-9100 x 220,
miller@shakermuseumandlibrary.org or
visit www.shakermuseumandlibrary.org .
Program
and scholarship applications are also available through the website.
Follow the
links on the home page to access the applications.
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MARCH 29, 2009
CONTACT: David Stocks, Museum President, 518-794-9100 ext 218
Shaker Museum and Library Closes Old Chatham Site
In Order to Concentrate on Mount Lebanon Project
OLD CHATHAM, NY – The Shaker Museum and Library has announced plans to close its Old Chatham museum buildings in preparation for the future move to the historic site at Mount Lebanon Shaker Village in New Lebanon. The Museum will continue to foster the preservation and dissemination of the Shaker heritage through a variety of projects, programs and exhibits beginning this summer at the New Lebanon location.
“This has been a bittersweet decision for us, as we carry a deep appreciation for the beautiful farm we have inhabited for 59 years,” said Museum president David Stocks. “But we are excited about the next phase of activity and restoration at Mount Lebanon and are dedicated to creating a vibrant community and institution there.”
The decision to close the Old Chatham location, which has housed the museum’s extensive collection of artifacts since 1950, was difficult and was not made lightly or quickly, added Stocks. The Museum began plans to restore the existing historic structures at Mount Lebanon eight years ago, and has undertaken several stabilization projects in the intervening years.
In order to make the best use of limited resources, plus plan for the sale of the Old Chatham property and prepare a suitable space for the Museum’s vast collection of Shaker artifacts, the Museum board and staff felt this was the best course.
The Mount Lebanon site was the first organized, largest, and most successful Shaker communal society in America, and the seat of the sect’s leadership for over 150 years. The centerpiece of the North Family at the village was the unique Great Stone Barn. Mount Lebanon Shaker Village was named to the World Monuments Fund list of 100 most significant endangered historic sites in the world in 2004. The same year, the Museum purchased the North Family, containing 30 acres and 11 extant Shaker buildings, with the plan of merging its premier collection of Shaker artifacts with the Shaker movement’s most significant historic site.
The Museum will launch the next phase this summer with a series of exciting projects centered on the New Lebanon site, and the public will be welcomed to view the site during periodic tours, exhibits and at the July 11 Summer Celebration, which will kick off the Museum’s 60th anniversary year.
Because of Mount Lebanon’s historic significance, the Museum has obtained significant grants that will help launch several new programs using the site as an educational tool.
An Historic American Landscapes Survey will be conducted through the National Parks Service, documenting Mount Lebanon’s extensive waterworks. The Museum will begin a collaboration this year with the North Bennet Street School of Boston by hosting two projects, a summer long preservation carpentry internship program and a two-week Historic Timber Frame Construction and Restoration Workshop open to the public. A Landscape Volunteer Program to help uncover historic features and restore views will begin this summer as well.
And beginning this spring, the Museum is assembling a consortium of public institutions with major Shaker archive collections to coordinate the description, organizing, and digitizing of these materials on the Internet.
Additionally, major restoration and stabilization of the Great Stone Barn is well under way, and will proceed toward a goal of construction beginning in 2010.
“The next several months are filled with
innovative
programming and growth,” commented
Stocks. “We welcome the support and
participation of our members and those visiting this beautiful area of
New York
and look forward to an enriching summer as the programs and
restorations get
under way.”
Stay tuned for more detailed information on each of the Museum’s upcoming projects.
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