From the Director...

As 2017 comes to a close, there is cause for reflection about this amazing year in the life of the Robbins Hunter Museum.

Much of the winter was spent restoring the upstairs offices of the Avery-Downer House. As we celebrated the houses’ 175th birthday this year, the walls and floors received new finishes for the first time since the 1930’s. In April, the popular Mark Twain exhibit opened with the marvelous collection of our board member, Tom Wortham, noted Twain Scholar. The exhibit attracted people from all over the state and enjoyed a full-page feature in the Columbus Dispatch.  Additionally, Wortham’s lectures saw a full house of avid learners who enthusiastically applauded his lessons and either read again or for the first time, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

In June, who can forget the very successful Granville Garden Tour and “It’s All Greek to Me” flower show?  Five generous garden owners opened their property for the benefit of the museum.  The flower show, hosted by the Little Garden Club of Columbus was attended by more than 550 people and was commended by the Garden Club of America.

October brought Scarecrows, this time literary figures in reference to Mark Twain.  A Halloween exhibit on the second floor amazed young and old alike. For the first time, Robbins Hunter Museum was a beneficiary of the Big Give, a central Ohio fundraising campaign.  We were pleased to realize a total of $8,584.

Then an army of volunteers moved in to install Experience the Magic. Record crowds and viewing the decorations for Christmas as well as the newly added Hanukkah display on loan from a local family.  A generous grant from the Granville Community Foundation supports the exterior light display.  The Granville Recreation Commission partners with us to mount the Gingerbread House display and the Granville Chamber of Commerce makes sure that kiddies have the opportunity to visit with St. Nick and Mrs. Claus during the Candlelight Walking Tour.

We look forward to 2018 and to the return of some of our more popular programs.  When spring arrives, daffodils will be spilling over the walls. New garden programming as well as an exhibition of the Oese and Hubert Robinson Underwear Collection is in the works. Stay tuned…..

Victoria Claflin Woodhull: Phoenix Rising

In 1976, the country was celebrating the bi-centennial of its founding. Robbins Hunter, a passionate Licking County historian, and the namesake of today’s Granville museum, felt strongly that something was missing in this national celebration, a monument to Victoria Woodhull.

Woodhull, you see, had carved out a place in history, but few knew much about the Licking County native or what she had accomplished in a time when women’s activism went largely unacknowledged. Hunter knew, and according to Director Ann Lowder, made it his project to build a memorial to Woodhull in the garden, complete with a statue likeness of her that made an entrance from a clock tower on the hour as bells rang.

Victoria Claflin Woodhull, circa 1870

Perhaps it was the 2016 election where the country might have witnessed its first woman president. Perhaps it’s the passion of volunteers who admire Woodhull and think it’s time for her to be better understood and recognized for her achievements, notable today, and utterly unimaginable for the Victorian times in which she lived.

Whatever the impetus, the museum is taking Hunter’s lead. Thanks to the efforts of board members Judith Dann and Christina Gray, and former board member and Denison University Gender Studies Dept. chair, Gill Miller, along with a planning grant from the Ohio Humanities Council and the partnership of Denison, RHM begins a multi-year project that will focus on the multi-dimensionality of Woodhull’s legacy.  

In a series of round-table discussions over three years beginning in 2018, each session highlights one of the many areas of interest that Victoria Woodhull advocated in her life.

The Victoria Claflin Woodhull: Phoenix Rising series begins on February 8 with a roundtable titled Courageous Voices, an introduction to Woodhull and her historical context as well as to the organization and rise of social reform in the 19th century.

The second roundtable is set for April 19. Scandalous Voices, Journalistic Truths, Standing in the Face of False Rhetoric, is a discussion of women in the media, journalistic truth and “fake news.” And finally, on September 14, the roundtable Dangerous Voices, Women Who Speak the Truth, brings the first year of Victoria Claflin Woodhull: Phoenix Rising to a close. More details on location and how to register will be forthcoming.

“It is our goal to foster, through these roundtables, an educated, thoughtful discussion of her life and ideas as well as create a website of vetted primary sources and scholarship that would be a resource for those interested in studying her,” said Dann.  Dann, Professor and Classics Lead in the Humanities Department at Columbus State Community College, lives in Homer, Ohio, Woodhull’s birthplace, and has taken both a personal and academic interest in Woodhull.  “I have been researching her life for nearly 20 years and giving lectures around Ohio about her.  Also as a board member of the Homer Library, I advocate for her memory there,” she said.

“Scholars and professionals from across the nation are expected to participate in the roundtables in order to exchange ideas and speak on the identified themes from their discipline’s perspective. These will become the platform for discussion on how these issues might inform intellectual pursuits and policy making in our own time,” she added.

Supporting the partnership is English professor Liz Weiser of Ohio State University in Newark. Weiser, who acted as project evaluator for the Ohio Humanities Council, offered the services of an intern from her department to assist the project. Senior Kyle Smith, who is interested in 19th century feminism and women’s rights, will work alongside the committee. “It’s a natural fit,” Gray said.

Thus through combined efforts, Victoria rises again at Robbins Hunter Museum. The original figure of Woodhull disintegrated, the delicate works of the clock sold off, and the shambles of a balcony hanging precariously are now all repaired or replaced. Computer chips perform the clock mechanics, a new statue of Victoria makes her entrance on the hour again thanks to local carver Larry Nadwodney, and the entire façade was repaired and restored, Lowder said.

“Our project seeks to be her next rise from historical obscurity to the center stage where her ideas and reforms can take root again and drive contemporary change to challenges that still plague our society,” Dann said.  “Scholars and professionals from across the nation are expected to participate in order to exchange ideas and speak on the identified themes from their discipline’s perspective which will be the platform for discussion on how these issues might inform intellectual pursuits and policy making in our own time.”

In addition to the support of Denison University, other partners in this initiative are The Ohio State University, Columbus State University, and Capital University. The RHM Board is currently seeking additional funding from corporate, foundational, or individual contributions. Contact Ann Lowder, Director, for more information on how you can help.

Who was Victoria Woodhull?

                                               Presidential flyer 1872

Victoria Claflin Woodhull is one of the most inspirational and unsung heroes of American history.  Saying that her list of “firsts” is impressive is an understatement: first woman to speak before Congress about woman’s right to vote, first woman stock broker on Wall Street, one of the first women to own a newspaper publishing company, and the first woman to run for President of the United States (1872).  She was born in Homer, Ohio, Licking County.

Victoria seemed to be a phoenix in her lifetime, rising from the humblest of roots and soaring to national fame and influence.  She fell mightily in the 1870's only to rise again to wealth and prominence in England.  Woodhull had been virtually written out of history and her story is more recently finally being told.  Unfortunately, hers was a reputation that suffered due to her “radical” ideas that shook the very core of Victorian era mores.  Her entrance back into the spotlight in recent times is tragically tinged with these earlier vilifications and untruths.  

Elizabeth Cady Stanton, an American suffragist, social activist, abolitionist and a leading figure of the early women’s rights movement, wrote in 1876:

"In her own character and person there is never anything but refinement in word or movement. She has a beautiful face, the idol of spirituality. Victoria Woodhull has done a work for woman that none of us could have done.

 She has faced and dared men to call her the names that make women shudder, while she chucked principle, like medicine down their throats. She has risked and realized the sort of ignominy that would have paralyzed any of us who have been longer called strong-minded. Leaping into the brambles that were too high for us to see over them, she broke a path into their close and thorny interstices, with a steadfast faith that glorious principle would triumph at last over conspicuous ignominy, although her life might be sacrificed.

And when, with a meteor's dash, she sank into a dismal swamp, we could not lift her out of the mire or buoy her through the deadly waters. She will be as famous as she has been infamous, made so by benighted or cowardly men and women."

More than underwear

When Elizabeth Miller walked into the Robbins Hunter Museum with her son on a mission to do a little exploration for a school art assignment, little did she know that a treasure trove of vintage undergarments reside just above her on the second floor.

Elizabeth Miller, textile specialist and RHM docent, shows one of the sleeping caps that is part of a large collection of undergarments. The 2018 season at the museum will open April 4 with a display of the vintage collection.

 

To most, the closet packed with muslin-covered bundles on hangers and boxes of fabric pockets containing ivory colored hand stitched, hand embroidered sleeping caps, petticoats and all sorts of underclothing women wore in the mid 1800’s might just be old clothes. To Elizabeth, these items, many in pristine condition, are a delightful surprise. 

So taken with the beauty and history of the museum during her visit in October, she volunteered almost on the spot. She joined the ranks of docents and is just finishing up her docent training this month. During that training, she happened upon an upstairs room where the undergarments of two local sisters, the Devenny sisters, who lived on Loudon Street in the mid 1800’s, now reside in bags and boxes.

Now, not everyone gets excited by old underwear, but to Elizabeth, a vintage clothing buff since childhood, a textile engineer by training, and a former design director for Limited Brands in fabric research and development, these bundles and boxes were an amazing, surprising find.

“These pieces are really interesting,” she said. “They’re not particularly rare, but very interesting. They tell a story about how women dressed in the mid 1800’s, wearing six or seven layers of undergarments under their outer clothes. This collection is in good condition thanks to those women who originally owned it and to those who worked to preserve it.” Elizabeth cites RHM volunteer Suzanne Kennedy for taking the initiative to create muslin preservation bags and pockets.

The clothing came to RHM from the former Lifestyle Museum in Granville, when it closed its doors in 2011. The grand old house at 121 S. Main Street, built in 1871, was then the former home of Hubert and Oese Robinson. The Robinsons lived there for the remainder of their lives. When Oese died in 1981, the house and its contents was willed to the village to become a museum. And if you remember visiting the Lifestyle Museum, you will remember that the house and its period contents was so well preserved that it became known as the Lifestyle Museum, an unusual and unique feature of Granville’s history. “She (Oese) kept everything,” Elizabeth said she learned as she began to research this vintage clothing and its origins. The home is now a private residence.

When RHM opens for the season in March 2018, the collection, now under Elizabeth’s hand, will be the opening exhibit. “When the museum closes for the winter in January, I’ll have the opportunity and time to put it together,” she said. ”I want to focus on this, I love doing research.”

A sleeping cap up close, hand stitched and hand embroidered.

Elizabeth talks nostalgically about her childhood in Wilmington, CT as the beginning of her passion. “I have been collecting vintage clothing and textiles since I was 13,” she said. “My first job was at the town library and the wonderful ladies I worked with who loved antiques. They would give me 1920’s and 1930’s clothes because they were so small in size and I could wear them. I started wearing them and researching them and have been hooked ever since.

Elizabeth was accepted into the Parsons School of Design and moved to New York after high school. She then continued her education at the Philadelphia College of Textiles. “I worked at the Paley Design Center, now The Design Center at Philadelphia University in their costume and textiles collection while earning my textile design degree.”

She also did an internship at the Allentown Art Museum in their textile collection for a summer. “I have continued to collect vintage garments and love the fabrics and history. I hope this explains why I was very excited to see a closet of muslin covered hangers and boxes!” Elizabeth now lives in Granville with her husband Jeff, and her three children.

“Museums everywhere have collections, but to be able to tie it a local family that lived here on Loudon Street, is special,” she said.

She can’t wait to get started.

Heyer Marks History of Avery-Downer House in 175th year

Editor’s Note: the full articles noted in this story are archived on this website and can be read in their entirety. Thanks to the author and friend of Robbins Hunter Museum, William Heyer, for his research and interpretations of earlier days when grand homes like the Avery-Downer house were conceived and constructed.

The Avery-Downer House, home to the Robbins Hunter Museum, celebrated its 175th year this year and thanks to nationally recognized classical architect, William Heyer, we learned much about the history of the building, its creators, and the culture that permeated the times.

Heyer, who is from Columbus, has long been actively involved at the Robbins Hunter Museum. As a member of the Board in the early 2000's, he created measured drawings of the interior and exterior of the building and researched appropriate finishes. More recently, he designed the Knobel Folly, an appropriate addition to the Jill Griesse garden.  On May 5, he led a walking tour of downtown Granville with emphasis on the Avery-Downer House and St. Luke's Church.           

Over this year, Heyer wrote a three-part series of extensive and in depth articles for this newsletter, articles that are now archived here.

In the first article, published in April 2017, Heyer wrote about the fasciation of temple design and the unusual habit of building temples in the 1840’s as homes.

“The notion that a young family would live in a Greek temple in America is quite reasonable and beautiful, actually. These young Americans in the first half of the 19th century prided themselves on their new democratic republic—a form of self-government that had its origins in ancient Greece. These young Americans also believed in individual rights quite apart from any monarchy, aristocracy, or other system of oppressive government. Hence, man was a special creature, endowed by the Creator with rights and value above and beyond royalty.”

Then he talked about Albert Avery.

“Alfred Avery began his entrepreneurial career in Granville as a drover taking livestock to eastern markets like his future business partner and brother-in-law Lucius Mower. On their travels, they would have seen some of the stately Greek Revival mansions being built and possibly had come in contact with other businessmen who were commissioning their own temple houses. Further, they quite possibly would have been introduced to the architectural pattern books of Asher Benjamin, John Haviland and others that were widely disseminated in the early 19th century. From all accounts, the tradition of grand domestic architecture was something any young aspiring entrepreneur like Avery would have been interested in at this time….Avery came to acquire the double lot at 221 E. Broadway about 1837, about the same time he helped organize and complete a building campaign for his own church, St. Luke’s Episcopal.”

The second article, published July 6, explored the fascinating symbolic meanings behind entrances, in particular the front entrance.

“Since ancient times, the entrance to houses, temples, mausoleums, and civic buildings has symbolized an engagement with the world, the cosmos, the other side of death, the body politic. ‘Crossing over’ has intense meaning for us. It is a transformation in one way or another, a progression into the future, a conversion, a symbol of freedom or welcome, and a way forward to things previously unknown and unseen.”

Heyer acknowledges the classical inspiration behind the frontispiece of the Avery-Downer house, and recognizes its uniqueness.

“In 1842 when Alfred Avery was planning and designing his home on East Broadway, he certainly had in mind a timeless and yet personal sense of entry. The frontispiece surrounding the main north door is a masterpiece of Grecian design. It might seem redundant, interestingly, that a temple house should have an especially decorated doorway when it has the power of the Ionic temple speaking so clearly to the public. In reality, the two are quite opposite each other because the Ionic temple projects in an active way to engage the public while the frontispiece seems to fold inwards in a passive and receptive way. They both balance each other with their distinct purposes. One is strong and active, the other gentle and receptive. This is a brilliant showcase of the refined classical tradition in American architecture.”

And in the third and final article, published November 3, Heyer turns to the men who inspired each other and who shared a love for the architecture: Granville’s great entrepreneur and philanthropist Alfred Avery, celebrated architect Minard Lafever, and gifted builder Benjamin Morgan, builder of St Luke’s and Avery’s own house at 221 E. Broadway.

“We know that Avery, Lafever, and Morgan were instrumental leaders in the building of St Luke’s and we know that Alfred Avery was a major player in the financing and building of the Ohio canal system.

…Alfred Kelley was the celebrated first Mayor of Cleveland, a State Representative, and the genius behind Ohio’s canal system. He had been “pushing for canal bills through the state legislature, had personally surveyed land, signed contracts, and kept diligent records.” He was one of the most important figures in 19th century Ohio. Alfred Avery of Granville, also a canal financier, was almost certainly present that day having held a large sum of money in contracts to build the canal and would have wanted to see the beginning of his investment with all the fanfare and celebrated personalities present.

…The beauty of the new temple house of his acquaintance Alfred Kelley and the beauty of the new church of St. Luke’s most certainly influenced his decision to rely on Minard Lafever and Benjamin Morgan for the design of his own Ionic temple at 221 E. Broadway.”

And so, this year we have celebrated the history of our house, the Avery-Downer House.