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HISTORIC SARANAC LAKE
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HSL Awarded IMLS Inspire! Grant

8/17/2020

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We are thrilled to announce that we have been awarded an Inspire! Grant for Small Museums from the Institute of Museum and Library Services! The $48,300 award will support our work to catalog and rehouse a portion of our image collections. The project will enable us to gain intellectual and physical control over our collection in preparation for a major expansion into the historic Trudeau Building adjacent to the museum. Over two years, we will create catalog records for photographs, postcards, and photo albums, and implement long-term archival storage. The project tackles a major next step identified in the museum's recently completed Collections Preservation Plan, also funded by a grant from IMLS.

Read the IMLS announcement and see a list of all of the awardees here.

Read our press release here.

Image: HSL Museum Administrator, Chessie Monks-Kelly, examines a recent donation to our collections.
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Museum Monday: Native American History

7/27/2020

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On July 22, Historic Saranac Lake staff met with Historian and Artist, John Fadden of the Six Nations Indian Museum and SUNY Potsdam Archeologist, Tim Messner to brainstorm ideas for an exhibit in the new museum about Native American history in Saranac Lake. Once the restoration of the Trudeau building is complete, the building will offer much more space for us to present much more history of the region. We look forward to highlighting the long history of Native American peoples in the area, and we are thrilled to have expert advice from John and Tim. A Vision Grant from NY Humanities is supporting this project. Contact us to find out more or get involved!

Image: A socially distant group photo. (L to R) Kayt Gochenaur, Oral History Coordinator, John Fadden, Tim Messner, and Amy Catania, Executive Director.
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Museum Monday: Family Collections

6/22/2020

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If you're like us, you've done a bit of spring cleaning while you're spending more time at home. If you're also like us, you may be thinking about the best ways to store and care your historic photographs, letters, books, and more that document your family and community history. We hope that you're also thinking about the final home of your family's papers. Donating them to an institution such as Historic Saranac Lake can ensure their preservation and use for generations to come!

No matter what's on your mind about historic objects, we're here to help! Do you have a question about how to store a particular object, or want to ask how to donate or bequeath materials to our collection? You can contact us here on Facebook, or email our Museum Administrator/Archivist, Chessie.

[Photograph: Barbara Baldwin Knapp and Gunnar Knapp meet with Chessie Monks-Kelly to donate papers from the Baldwin Family to Historic Saranac Lake in 2019.]
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Museum Monday: Post Office Pharmacy

3/23/2020

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It's Museum Monday, so we're excited to share a project we've been working on behind the scenes. We were all saddened by the closure of Post Office Pharmacy in December, but we are happy to share that we've been working with Jim Bevilacqua to preserve the history of the last of our historic independent pharmacies in Saranac Lake. Over the last couple of months, our Museum Administrator Chessie and Museum Assistant Nathan have been working to survey, select, and rehouse items from the decades of pharmacy history in the building.

We have selected hundreds of items to add to the collection at Historic Saranac Lake, including bottles, prescription logs, pharmacy tools, photographs, correspondence, and more. These objects document the history of pharmacies, patient care, and daily life in Saranac Lake since the 1880s, including trends and innovation in the treatment of TB patients. We still have a lot of work to do on this collection, but we are already planning ways to display items from and do research with this historic collection. Stay tuned for more updates as we work with these items and make interesting discoveries! And a HUGE thank you to Jim for his enthusiasm and support in preserving our history.

In the mean time, you can learn more about the history of Post Office Pharmacy on our wiki.

PS - Did you know that P.A.S. was the second antibiotic found to be effective against tuberculosis? Check out that label!

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Museum Monday: Sam Senseney

12/9/2019

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This Museum Monday, we're sharing another story from our Annual Meeting. This one came from our Oral History Coordinator, Kayt:

"A few months ago I had the opportunity to interview Denny and Erlene Senseney. They came to Saranac Lake to see Will Rogers; Denny’s father, Sam Senseney, had taken the cure at Will Rogers Memorial Hospital. While at Saranac Village at Will Rogers, they happened to hear about the museum and came to pay us a visit. We were lucky to get to talk to them while they were here, and ended up sitting down for a last-minute oral history interview!
While curing Sam learned ceramic and leather work. When he returned home to Kansas, Sam brought these new skills with him. He got a job at a TB Sanatorium teaching patients the ceramic and leatherworking skills he learned here in Saranac Lake!"

You can hear a snippet of Denny and Erlene's interview here.

[Photograph of Sam Senseney, courtesy of Denny Senseney]

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Museum Monday: Baldwin Family Papers

4/15/2019

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It’s Museum Monday, so we want to share the news of an exciting collections donation we received this week! On Thursday, we were honored to receive six boxes of materials from the Baldwin Family. You may recognize the Baldwin name from last week’s Tuberculosis Thursday post about Dr. Edward R. Baldwin, but the collection also contains papers, photographs, journals, correspondence, and more from Mary Ives Baldwin, Ernest H. Baldwin, and Anne Leonard.

As we shared on Thursday, Dr. Baldwin was a close friend and colleague of Dr. E.L. Trudeau, and was the Director of the Saranac Laboratory. Mary Baldwin was the wife of Dr. Baldwin, and was active in local civic and philanthropic organizations, including the Village Improvement Society. Mary was also a talented photographer. Ernest Baldwin was Dr. Baldwin’s brother, and together with his wife, Anne Leonard, founded the Baldwin School in 1907. Ernest was also the first director of the Saranac Lake Free Library in 1907.

The collection was donated by Barbara Baldwin Knapp, Dr. Baldwin’s granddaughter, with assistance and accompaniment by her son and daughter, Gunnar and Tina (pictured in front of the Baldwin House). This donation is a thrilling addition to the collections here at the Saranac Laboratory Museum, and we can’t wait to share the contents (and future additions!) with you as we process them!

We want to share just a few snapshots of items from the collection, starting with photographs of Dr. Baldwin as a scientist, father, and outdoorsman; correspondence from Dr. Baldwin to his son Henry and his membership certificate for the Stevenson Society of America; travel medicine kits (including this one with Dr. Baldwin’s handwritten instructions); photographs and pamphlets from the Baldwin School; a travel diary from Mary Baldwin’s (pictured) trip to Europe in 1924; and photographs of Saranac Lake life (including Winter Carnival scenes) from a scrapbook from the 1910s.

Thank you to the Baldwin Family for their generosity and hard work in preserving (especially Gunnar!) and sharing this fascinating material with us!

To learn more about the Baldwin Family, visit our wiki!
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Learn more about the Baldwin Family!
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Women's History Month: Nurses

3/25/2019

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For Museum Monday we want to share this nurse's cape from our collection to highlight the work for nurses in Saranac Lake for Women's History Month! This particular cape belonged to Juanita "Nita" Hayman Worthington, who trained at Bellevue School of Nursing and came to Trudeau Sanatorium for her health. Following her cure, she began a nursing career in the area that saw her serve first at the Trudeau Sanatorium, where she met her husband-to-be Ed when he arrived as a new patient. Later she worked as doctor's nurse for Drs. Woodruff, Merkel, and Decker.

Worthington was one of many hundreds of nurses who worked in the TB industry in Saranac Lake. Many of these nurses were patients who stayed to care for patients following their own treatment for TB. To read more about the fascinating and inspiring stories of Worthington and many other nurses, as well as about the history of the D. Ogden Mills Training School for Nurses at Trudeau Sanatorium, visit our wiki!

[Historic Saranac Lake collection, courtesy of Jan Worthington Dudones.]
Learn more about nurses!
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Women's History Month: Katherine E. McClellan

3/11/2019

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[Historic Saranac Lake Collection.]
It's Museum Monday, so we want to use a recent addition to the collection to tell a story about a Saranac Lake woman! This 1899 calendar and undated advertisement were created by Katherine E. McClellan. McClellan was an accomplished photographer and began her career in Saranac Lake after she moved to the area when her sister was diagnosed with tuberculosis.

In Saranac Lake she produced and sold photos of the Adirondack landscape, operating out of her Highland Park studio on the corner of Park Avenue and Old Military Road (see ad). She later became the official photographer of Smith College, her alma mater.

McClellan was connected with John Brown farm, as she produced and sold artistic booklets of John Brown's grave, but she had another unusual connection to the men killed at Harper's Ferry. Click over to our wiki to read the strange story, and learn more about her photographic career and see examples of her work!

Stay tuned for more posts in honor of Women's History Month all month long!
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Historic Saranac Lake at the Saranac Laboratory Museum
​89 Church Street, Suite 2, Saranac Lake, New York 12983
​(518) 891-4606 - mail@historicsaranaclake.org ​
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© 2020 Historic Saranac Lake. All Rights Reserved. Historic photographs courtesy of the Adirondack Room, Saranac Lake Free Library, unless otherwise noted. Copy and reuse restrictions apply. Made possible, in part, by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. Also supported by an Essex County Arts Council Cultural Assistance Program Grant supported by the Essex County Board of Supervisors.
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  • Visit
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  • About
    • Visit
    • Historic Saranac Lake
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  • Research
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    • Oral History Project
    • Local Wiki
    • Resources
    • HISTORY MATTERS Blog
  • Projects
    • Trudeau Building
    • Architectural Preservation
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    • Oral History Project
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    • School Outreach
    • Art of the Cure
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