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This past week our Pandemic Perspectives exhibit traveled to Saranac Lake High School for students to view the exhibit and complete a project documenting their experience with the Covid-19 pandemic. With the help of a presentation by Dr. Arden Hegele of Columbia University's Narrative Medicine Program, students in Eric Bennet's English classes learned about the field of narrative medicine that informed the exhibit's design and created their own exhibit panels, modeled after the museum's exhibit. The Pandemic Perspectives exhibit is available to view on our website now. Please contact the museum if you are interested in having the exhibit visit your school or organization! The statue of Dr. Edward Livingston Trudeau at Trudeau Sanatorium under a blanket of snow. This photograph was taken by Caroline Baisden while she was curing at the San in the 1930s. The Trudeau Statue was a popular gathering spot for patients; it was created by famed sculptor Gutzon Borglum. Today the statue can be found on the Trudeau Institute campus. Who else is hoping for big snow this weekend?
[Historic Saranac Lake Collection, 2020.10. Courtesy of Jan Dudones.]
This week Manuel Benero III visited Saranac Lake for the first time, traveling all the way from Mexico City. Manuel's grandparents, Pilar and Manuel, were two of the thousands of people from all over Latin America who came to Saranac Lake because of tuberculosis. Pilar came from Cuba with her sister who was ill with TB. Manuel came from Puerto Rico for the cure. They met and married in Saranac Lake and settled in a brick house on Virginia Street, where they raised their two boys, Manny and Joe. Pilar was a beloved piano teacher for hundreds of Saranac Lake children. Her husband worked at the Troy Laundry and was a pillar of the community. Our Executive Director, Amy Catania, researched the Spanish-speaking patients of Saranac Lake years ago. Read more on our wiki. She was thrilled to meet Manuel and his friend Susanne Dahl, and to make a connection to another generation of the Benero family. Saranac Lake history is certainly full of fascinating connections!
NOTE: This event is hosted by the Northern New York Library Network (NNYLN) and any registration/questions should go through them. Learn more and register here.
Researchers, genealogists, students, teachers, and the general public are invited to take part in the NNYLN's North Country Showcase on Friday, 12/17 at 11AM! This month, HSL Archivist / Curator Chessie Monks-Kelly will share collections that document the history of research at the Saranac Laboratory. The Saranac Laboratory was built in 1894 for Dr. Edward Livingston Trudeau; it was the first laboratory in the United States for the study of tuberculosis. Although the laboratory’s initial and main purpose was to study TB, the scientists working there examined many related subjects throughout its 70-year history, including the effects of asbestos on the human body. Historic Saranac Lake has recently received two important collections that shed light on the history of the Saranac Laboratory and the work carried out there. First, the papers of Dr. Edward R. Baldwin, who was a close friend and colleague of Dr. Trudeau, and started the Trudeau School of Tuberculosis in 1916. These collections reflect Dr. Baldwin’s personal and professional life in Saranac Lake and shed light on the work at the Saranac Laboratory around the time of Dr. Trudeau’s death. The second collection is the Bristol Family papers. This collection is primarily made up of Dr. Leonard Bristol’s reports, research notes, and more created during his work as a radiologist at the Saranac Laboratory. Dr. Bristol’s radiologic work included a 1940s study commissioned by the Johns Manville Corporation on asbestos; he was often called to testify in asbestos litigation cases. Both of these collections have fascinating research possibilities across many subjects and highlight the legacy of the work conducted at the Saranac Laboratory. In this session, Monks-Kelly will share more about the contents of these two collections and how to use them, and provide a general overview of HSL’s fascinating records of the tuberculosis industry in Saranac Lake. This week we enjoyed visiting with John Fadden at the Six Nations Iroquois Cultural Center in Onchiota. John provided a tour of his family's wonderful museum, and we brainstormed about our upcoming short film about the history of the Saranac Lake region. This project is supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Rescue Act Grant.
Pictured left to right: Kirk Peterson, filmmaker, John Fadden leader of the Six Nations Museum, Amy Catania, Executive Director of Historic Saranac Lake, Lauren Gulbicki HSL winter intern from St. Lawrence University, and Mahala Nyberg, Historic Saranac Lake Public Programs Coordinator. December is here, bringing snowy weather with it! This photograph of a Village snowplow tackling the snow along Moody Pond shows that some things never change. We don't know the date of this photograph - do you recognize anything about the style of this truck that might help us date the image?
[Historic Saranac Lake Collection.] Dear Friends,
On this #GivingTuesday, we hope you will help make history matter with a contribution to Historic Saranac Lake's Annual Fund: https://www.historicsaranaclake.org/annual-fund.html! Your membership dues and other donations made so much possible in 2021. Thank you for supporting the preservation of our museum collection, presentations for school groups, advocacy for architectural preservation, oral history interviews, and more! To find out more about our busy year, see our Annual Report (https://www.historicsaranaclake.org/uploads/1/1/2/1/11219947/hsl_annual_report_2021.pdf)! Please help ensure our programs in the coming year with a gift to the Annual Fund. Together, let’s build a stronger community by making history matter! Best wishes, Amy Amy Catania / Executive Director |
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