Author: clermontstatehistoricsite
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Get Set: A Set of Girls\' Petticoats in Clermont Collections
Part of our pursuit as a museum is to recapture the day-to-day of people\’s lives, and one of the most common experiences for parents is getting their children dressed every morning. Dressing children throughout history has been fraught with issues practical, moral, emotional, and financial. What is appropriate for their age and gender? How well…
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Like Mother, Like Daughter: Looking for a Livingston Family Resemblance
One of the first questions people want to know about a baby is \”Who does it look like: the mother or the father?\” With babies, this can be a hard call. How do you compare a baby\’s face to a grown-up\’s? But photography gives us a great tool for comparing people at the same age,…
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A Summer Retreat: The Livingstons and Bar Harbor
While she was paging through some files, Clermont\’s Education Assistant Emily discovered a little photocopy of Alice Livingston\’s 1964 obituary. Let me just explain the \”files.\” People have done a lot of research here over the years, and it\’s all kept in 4 drawer filing cabinet full of photocopies and hand-written transcripts. Or sometimes it\’s buried…
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5 Things You Should Know About the Livingston Family
The Livingstons were an extremely prominent family in early American history, but lots of people today have never heard of them. Here are seven facts you can whip out at a party to show that you know your American history: 1. Robert R. Livingston did not sign the Declaration of Independence(But he did help to write…
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2015 Sheep & Wool Showcase
Clermont\’s Arryl North field is usually a quiet place, the first spreading field you see at Clermont when you park your car and get out to stretch your legs. But not next weekend. On April 18th, it\’ll come to life with with 24 small businesses, sheep, ducks, dogs, kids, the savory smells of fresh food…
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Button it Up!
Aaahh buttons. They can be nostalgic. My grandmother used to cut the buttons off old clothes and save them in a jar. They can be showy. Amongst other reasons, the Amish do not wear buttons on their clothes because they are to proud. And Laura Ingalls Wilder remembered some buttons from her earliest childhood, describing…
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6 Livingston Babies We\'d Like to Sqeeze
A big part of our interpretation at Clermont is home life. The Livingstons were, by definition, a family. Their lives were filled with the giggles, cackles, and cries of babies–especially when many generations had large families. Here are just a few of the Livingston children who can help put a face on that aspect of…
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It was NOT Alice\'s Wedding Dress: or Just Because it\'s White, Don\'t Make Assumptions
Nobody likes to be wrong in public, but I\’ve done it this time! Quite some time ago, I posted this blog, wondering if the creamy Parisian designer dress in our collections was Alice\’s wedding dress. I was a little over-excited because–quite honestly–it\’s a pretty fabulous gown. Aaand today history shot me down. To be fair,…
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Margaret Howarden Livingston: A Long-Lost Livingston Wife
It is a sad fact of seventeenth and eighteenth history that women\’s lives all-too-often lost behind the identity of their husbands. In rare cases, where letters or diaries may have been preserved, you can get to know some of the women of history–one of the most famous being Abigail Adams. Well the Livingstons lost the…
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Is it Really Necessary? Of Corset is!
Corsetry often proves to be a problem for museums that do costumed interpretation. Volunteers and museum staff who are eager to teach history to the public may or may not be eager to lace up a garment that\’s been demonized for centuries. It can be a little unnerving, and it can take some getting used…
Clermont State Historic Site 