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Announcement | Holly Snyder Presents at RISD Museum Event on Gorham Company
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On Friday, May 3, 2019, the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) Museum hosted a one-day symposium in conjunction with its exhibit Gorham Silver: Designing Brilliance 1850-1970, at which Holly Snyder, Curator Curator of American Historical Collections and the History of Science at the Brown Library, presented. Holly spoke about the history of the Gorham Manufacturing Company.
The symposium was videotaped and can be viewed on YouTube.
Exhibit Catalog
As part of their preparation for the exhibition, the RISD Museum asked Holly to write an introductory chapter for the exhibit catalog about the history of the company and the making of the Gorham Company Archive. Holly co-wrote the chapter with Gerald M. Carbone, an independent writer and journalist, who had previously published a book on Brown & Sharpe.
Symposium Presentation
The presentations at the symposium were intended to recapitulate some of the material in each of the chapters of the exhibit catalog. Holly’s talk, “The Gorham Company Archive in the Historical Context of Providence, Rhode Island,” focused on how the Gorham records ended up at the John Hay Library and how this collection is nestled within the larger collections at the Hay.
Samuel J. Hough
The late Samuel J. Hough, a former librarian at the John Carter Brown Library who became an independent bookseller, appraiser, and researcher, played a key role in rescuing the Gorham records from imminent destruction and bringing these materials to the attention of John Hay Library staff. The transfer of these records to the Hay took place during the rapid downsizing of the company in the mid-1980s, when Gorham was owned by Textron and the decision was made to abandon the plant complex on Adelaide Avenue in Providence in favor of smaller manufacturing sites elsewhere. Sam Hough worked closely with the Brown Library on the Gorham records and helped sort and organize the Gorham materials that the Library ultimately received from Textron. Sam Hough passed away in early March 2019, and Holly framed her talk as a tribute to his work, on which all of the symposium participants had relied.
Gorham Company Archive and Providence-based Photography
Holly also spoke about the way in which the Gorham Company Archive intersects with other aspects of Brown’s special collections holdings, specifically that the Gorham records enhance the Library’s holdings related to the technical innovations in photography in Providence–innovations on which the Gorham Company relied heavily in building its marketing and its customer base.
Photography was a consumer-oriented business in Providence, which Holly illustrated by showing various examples from the special collections, starting with a Poe daguerrotype and moving through images of The Arcade Providence, to advertising from 19th century business directories. All of these items represent technological evolution that made photography popular with the masses and useful to Gorham’s business. She also showed broadsides from Brown’s holdings that portray the pre-existing popular taste for entertainment on which Gorham was effectively able to capitalize.
Exhibition
The Gorham Silver: Designing Brilliance 1850–1970 exhibition will runs through December 1, 2019 at the RISD Museum.
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Exhibit: Street in Verville-Sur-Mer, June 1944
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June 4 – 30, 2019
Colleville-Sur-Mer, June 8, 1944
Alexander P. Russo (born 1922 in New Jersey) enlisted in the United States Naval Reserve in 1942 after studying art at Brooklyn’s Pratt Institute. Though he began his service as an apprentice seaman, his artistic talent was quickly recognized, and he was transferred to the US Navy Recruiting Bureau in White Plains, NY, where he worked as a Navy artist. After a year or so of illustrating naval publications, Russo sought a more exciting assignment and was tasked with making shoreline sketches of Sicily for use by the assault forces of the Amphibious Force, Atlantic Fleet. He then was sent with a Naval Task Force to London to serve aboard a landing craft during the D-Day Invasion, which he captured in a series of sketches and later translated to finished paintings.
After reaching shore on the following day (D-Day plus 2), Russo continued his sketches of beach activity and views of neighboring towns, including Colleville-Sur-Met and Verville-Sur-Mer, which he likely visited on June 8, 1944 (note the “D+3” inscription at the bottom left). Following the war, Russo was awarded two Guggenheim Fellowships, one of which was for his depictions of the D-Day ivasion. He continued to work as an artist and teacher in New York and the Washington, DC area until his retirement in 1990. His work is widely collected, and the Navy Art Collection contains over 84 of Russo’s World War II watercolor sketches.
Entry re-created from archive.org, 5/14/24
Anne S.K. Brown Collection Update
https://web.archive.org/web/20220529125546/https://blogs.brown.edu/askb/2019/05/17/colleville-sur-mer-june-8-1944/ -
Event | Exhibit Opening Reception for “Learning through Play: British and French Tabletop Games from the 18th and 19th Centuries”
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Dissected puzzle, The British Sovereigns from William the Conqueror to George IV [1825] William Darton, London, England On Friday, May 24, 2019 from 4 – 6 p.m. at the John Hay Library, the exhibit, Learning through Play: British and French Tabletop Games from the 18th and 19th Centuries,” will officially launch with an opening reception. This exhibit was created through a gift of Georgian and Victorian games, along with jigsaw puzzles and other related items, from Ellen Liman ’57, P’88, as well as a loan of 19th and 20th century French board games from Doug Liman ’88.
At 5 p.m., Ellen Liman and her son, celebrated filmmaker Doug Liman, will deliver remarks.
This event is free and open to the public.
More information about the exhibit.
The games join the John Hay Library’s rich collections of material on popular culture, and will be available online in May, and in the John Hay Library special collections reading room following the exhibition.
Date: Friday, May 24, 2019
Time: 4 – 6 p.m.; remarks at 5 p.m.
Location: John Hay Library, 20 Prospect Street, Providence, RI
