Past Exhibitions At RCHS

This page includes descriptions and links to more information on some of RCHS's past exhibitions. Click here for details on current Events & Exhibitions

A Fugitive Slave Rescued:
Paintings of Charles Nalle by Mark Priest 
February 27 to June 19, 2010
Opening celebration, Saturday, February 27, 5-8 pm

Faces from Rensselaer County History

Since its inception in 1927, RCHS has collected portraits of people from Rensselaer County. This exhibition showcases portraits of county residents from 1721 to the present day and includes works in a variety of media. Some of the artists are well-known today, some were better known in their own day and others have yet to be identified. Research has helped to answer many questions about these images and raised more new questions. More work will help to bring the stories of these faces more clearly into focus and help us to identify additional faces that should be added to the collection.

NEW EXHIBITION: Art of Labor - Our Story: Opens September 9, 2009

Kathy Breda, Music Box

Twelve women from the Capital Region took a free course in photography and writing at the Workforce Development Institute in Troy, NY. They learned about art, themselves, and new ways to use their voices. Their pictures, words, and audio portraits will be on display at the Rensselaer County Historical Society from September 9, 2009 - December 19, 2009. The opening reception will be held on Wednesday, September 9, 2009 from 6 to 8 pm and is free and open to the public.

The women who participated in the course shared a common need to be seen and heard. Their time together was rich with stories of family, tradition, travel, reflection, motherhood, strength, and healing. Their photographs and writing show they have triumphed through brain injuries, disabilities, and illness. The class gave them a place to bring their lives into the light. It awakened something in each of them that won’t ever be extinguished.

Our Story was sponsored by the Workforce Development Institute (WDI) in collaboration with the NYS AFL-CIO and Rensselaer County Historical Society. It was taught by Victoria Kereszi, Melinda McDaniel, and Erin Shannon at the WDI office on Fourth Street in Troy. WDI supports organized labor and working families across New York State through economic development, education and training, cultural enrichment, family support, and disabled and dislocated workers services.

The women's photographs will hang on the walls of the Robison Family Meeting Room, which until recently contained a long-running exhibition of Rensselaer County portraits from the Historical Society's collection. While the medium and format of the images in this exhibition differ from the oils and pastels of the previous exhibit, both exhibitions speak to the core of the RCHS mission to tell an inclusive story of Rensselaer County's history, recognizing every face and every story. The photographs and writing from the Our Story exhibition will help future generations to understand the lives of today's women and remind us that everyone's story is part of our shared history.

GETTING THERE: Historians in Training Explore Travel Through Time
Wednesday, May 20, 2009 - Fall, 2009

“But Oh! what bliss to steal a kiss on the boat to Albany”

A piece of sheet music, a section of trolley track, an elegant, if faded, carriage, and a rusting horseshoe. All of these objects are among the artifacts from the Rensselaer County Historical Society collection researched by students from Tony Rieth’s and Karen Bechdol’s combined English/Social Studies class at Troy High School. These 25 “Historians in Training” are part of an exciting collaboration between Troy High School, RCHS and The Record.

In early 2009, with the Hudson-Fulton-Champlain Quadricentennial approaching, RCHS staff provided the students with a broad selection of transportation themed objects from which to choose. The Historians in Training then picked the objects they wanted to research and uncovered their stories, writing articles that will appear in The Record. These stories provide an eclectic window into the impact that planes, trains, and automobiles (as well as boats and horses) have had on the history of Rensselaer County

Through this collaborative, the Historians in Training developed research and writing skills and had the opportunity to explore careers in history museums and journalism. Most importantly, they discovered fascinating stories from the past, and through their research and articles, are making local history accessible to our community. Their artifacts and the stories they uncovered make up this exciting exhibition.

Up River: Man-Made Sites of Interest on the Hudson from the Battery to Troy
February 3, 2009 - April 25, 2009

The Up River exhibition features 85 dramatic aerial photographs of man-made sites rarely seen by those who travel along the Hudson's banks. Presented alongside a 20-foot long topographical map of the river, these images illustrate how New York State has shaped - and been shaped by - the Hudson River. Read more about the story behind Up River in the New York Times.

Up River is organized by the Center for Land Use Interpretation. RCHS' presentation of Up River is made possible by a grant from the Hudson River Foundations' s Hudson River Improvement Fund.

The river still hosts a remarkable number of rock and limestone quarries. This quarry, the Haverstraw limestone quarry, is invisible from the eastern shore of the river. CLUI photo.	The first full obstruction on the Hudson River from Manhattan is the Federal Dam at Troy. This marks the end of the river as a tidal estuary. CLUI photo.

Discovering History: What the Heck Is It?

May 15 - November 15, 2008

What do a sausage-stuffer, a hat-trunk and a powder-horn have in common? It sounds like the setup for a riddle, but it's not. These objects are among the artifacts from the RCHS collection researched by students from Tony Rieth and Karen Bechdol's combined English/Social Studies class at Troy High School. These 21 students are "Historians in Training," participating in an exciting collaboration between Troy High, RCHS and The Record. Each student has selected an object from the RCHS collection, researched that object and written an article about it, to be published in The Record. The objects - and the students' articles - are on display at RCHS in the exhibition "Discovering History: What the Heck Is It?"

In these articles, the students reveal the history behind the objects, telling stories that have not been told before and providing others in the community with new access to the history of our community. Through the process of preparing their articles, the students developed their research and writing skills, had the opportunity to interact with professional museum staff and journalists, and ultimately, to contribute a unique gift to their own community. Students selected the objects they wanted to research from a collection of objects assembled by RCHS staff. The artifacts they chose provide an eclectic window into the collection, including items connected to Troy's elite citizens as well as objects whose owners have been forgotten over time.

Hold It! The Amazing, Incredible Box: An Exhibition of Boxes from the RCHS Collection

How many times in the course of a day do you use a box? Whenever we look for our mail, pour our breakfast cereal, send a package to faraway relatives or purchase an article of clothing, the chances are that we will handle a box. Boxes for work and play, boxes used as potent symbols of our interests and beliefs, and boxes that are purely decorative all have a place in our lives.

Using examples from RCHS’s extensive collection, this exhibit will present boxes and containers of all types to illustrate how much they impact daily life. “Once we began looking at the collection for this exhibit, we realized just how many boxes there were and the incredible variety of size, function, and material.” said Stacy Pomeroy Draper, Curator. “This exhibit gives us a chance to show the collection in a way visitors may not have seen it before.” A number of boxes will be shown with their contents to enable visitors to appreciate the often intricate interiors and understand just how different kinds of boxes were made.

That Curious Mr. Cluett: Sanford L. Cluett, Ingenuity and Invention

Drawing upon documents, diaries, photos, patent information and other materials that Mr. Cluett gathered during his lifetime in preparation for an autobiography, the exhibit provides insight into the inquisitive and creative life he led, a life that changed the way we live today. Mr. Cluett's unquenchable curiosity led to accomplishments in a number of fields, including surveying and mapping, navigation, engineering, and business management. At the end of his long life, he held almost 200 patents. His various accomplishments include Bubble Sextant, a form of stretchable paper known as Clupak, as well as a formula for calculating train resistance. His greatest invention was undoubtedly the process and machine for pre-shrinking fabric. Cluett referred to his process as "compressive shrinkage," later known as “Sanforization," which revolutionized the fabric industry and was licensed by the Cluett, Peabody & Co., Inc. to hundreds of manufacturers worldwide. Cluett, an accomplished artist, recipient of various awards, well versed in foreign languages, a world traveler and outdoorsman was inducted into the Rensselaer Alumni Hall of Fame in 1998.

Doodles, Drafts, and Designs: Industrial Drawings from the Smithsonian

Doodles, Drafts, and Designs: Industrial Drawings from the Smithsonian Institution documents two centuries of American ingenuity and industry, from inventor’s hand to investor’s boardroom, from patent office to factory floor. The exhibition opens October 29, 2005 in Troy, NY, at the Rensselaer County Historical Society (RCHS) and will remain on view through December 23, 2005. Troy N.Y. is the only Northeast venue for the exhibition that will continue on an 11-city tour through 2006. Drawn from the rich collections of the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History and the Smithsonian Institution Libraries and organized by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES), the traveling exhibition encompasses familiar domestic and industrial icons as well as ideas that never got off the drawing board. The exhibition is organized into four sections, with interpretive panels addressing how each artifact is used to explore, persuade, record, or explain. Original pencil sketches, ink drawings on linen, notebooks, patent drawings, trade literature covers, and other documents illustrate well-known consumer products such as the Singer sewing machine, the Maidenform bra, and the Crayola crayon. Drawings related to large-scale construction projects ranging from New York’s Grand Central Terminal to a hydraulic plant at Niagara Falls are also featured. Among the highlights of the exhibition are patent drawings for a waterwheel dating from 1838 and an airtight bowl and lid, which later became known as “Tupperware.”

Root for the Home Team: Baseball in Rensselaer County

Rensselaer County has a rich baseball history known worldwide. Local teams such as the 19th century Haymakers and the present day Tri-City ValleyCats are two examples of this engaging history spanning 150 years. Players from Rensselaer County are in the National Baseball Hall of Fame, including Johnny Evers, the pivot man in baseball's most celebrated double-play combination, and William B. "Buck" Ewing, the great 19th century catcher. The exhibit included photographs, uniforms, equipment and loaned objects from regional museums, private collectors and community organizations to compliment RCHS's collection. By using the lens of local history, this exhibit examined "our national pastime" and focused on local contributions made to the sport.

Rensselaer County Goes to War: War and the Home Front 1775-2003

Wars are fought on the front lines and also experienced on the home front. This major exhibition shown in 2004 explored how Rensselaer County responded to life in wartime from the Revolution to current conflicts. Uniforms, civilian clothing, photographs and other objects from the collection told the local stories of struggle, determination, patriotism and sacrifice.

Included two companion exhibitons:
Letters Home/Remembrances
This exhibit, installed in the Library Lobby Gallery, highlighted the extensive archival collections at RCHS and included letters, diaries, and written reminiscences to focus on the impact of different wars on the soldiers who fought and the recipients of the letters at home. This personal perspective was augmented by some of the souvenir objects brought back from wars.

Wartime Stories: The Community Responds to War
Recognizing our community's individuals and groups who played a role during wartime, this exhibit displayed in the Robison Family Meeting Room was composed of biographical panels submitted by the public that added a very personal touch to this story.

Sponsored by the Capital District Civil War Roundtable, the Bert Johnson Charitable Foundation and Michael Halloran.

When Work Stops and Fun Begins: Recreation in Rensselaer County, 1791-1999

Revisit some of your favorite recreation spots in Rensselaer County through historic photographs and objects relating to this growing industry.

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Attic Treasures II: More Intriguing Collections from RCHS

Attic Treasures II explored more of the historical society's collections from the storage areas.  Among the highlights of Attic Treasures II were six early to mid 19th century quilts, children's miniature furniture as well as furniture samples. One of the two "closets" held a wide variety of moving trunks, lock boxes and decorative boxes.  The other closet was filled with children's clothes, toys and other childhood memorabilia. Also included was a selection of early 19th century Milliner's models.

The library collections were represented by the trade card collection. These advertising artifacts show the wide variety of businesses that are in Rensselaer County.

Re-Vision: Art Works With History

Seven visual artists were invited to explore the collections of the Rensselaer County Historical Society and to create new works of art to help RCHS link history with contemporary life. Each artist was to re-view and re-assess the information presented by museum objects. Their art works challenge the notion that there is only one interpretation of history contained in these museum collection pieces.

Participating artists included: Jeanne Flanagan, Gallery Director, College of St. Rose; Tara Fracalossi, Former Gallery Director, RCCA:The Arts Center; Adrienne Klein, Former Gallery Director, Rathbone Gallery, JCA; Ted Lind, Director of Education, Albany Institute of History and Art; Harold Lohner, Gallery Director, Russell Sage College; Corinna Ripps, Assistant to the Director, University Art Museum, SUNY and Mark Schaming, Head, Museum Design & Exhibits, New York State Museum

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Re-Vision: Part I - Interpreting Collections

An extensive sampling from the museum's permanent collections will be used to illustrate how objects are interpreted, and how layers of interpretations can be woven together to understand the contexts in which objects are made and used.

People and Place: Land Use and Landscape in Rensselaer County

An examination of the geographic, economic and social aspects of town development and land use through maps, photographs, oral histories and objects.

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NOW IS THE TIME! / WOMEN MUST WAIT!: Suffrage Activities in Rensselaer County

An exhibit commemorating the passage of the 19th Amendment which documents the pro- and anti-suffrage activity in Rensselaer County.

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Black & White & Read All Over: In the News in Rensselaer County

An exploration of the journalistic tradition of the county, and how gathering and presenting the news has changed over time.

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With Vigorous Enterprise and Concerted Action: Invention and Industry in Rensselaer County and its Neighboring Communities

A look at labor and industry over time including products, child labor, the roles of women and African-Americans in local industry and speculation about the future.

Current Events & Exhibitions:

Click here for a list current Events & Exhibitions

Additional Resources:

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