So I’ve just returned from three delightful afternoons wandering the Brimfield Antiques Fair. For those of you not familiar with this thrice-annual event, Brimfield is the nation’s largest antiques fair, spread across two miles of fields on either side of Route 20 in historic Brimfield Massachusetts, about an hour west of Boston in the rolling Worcester Hills. Antiquers come from all over the United States to hawk their wares, and it’s one of the best places on the globe to track down hard-to-find items. There a vendors selling just about anything you can think of, from bits of old buildings to fine furniture to radio tubes for that 1935 RCA tabletop you’ve been trying to repair. It’s all here: the trick is finding what you want when you want it. I’ve long since given up trying to acquire any one particular item on any one visit; I simply go with a goal in mind, and see where the spirits send me.
This year I went with an eye open for three things: a spinning Victorian bookcase for the study; a wall shelf for FDR’s bedroom, and some new/old quilts for the beds. What I brought home is pictured above, on my dining room table (itself another Brimfield discovery from a decade or so ago.) You see I found the quilt!! (no. 4) hanging at the rear of the picture above.
(But just the quilt… lol. You can click on the photo to expand it greatly.)
Actually, the quilt comes with an interesting back story. We know FDR had one, because he writes Sara very early in his freshman year “”The delightful rug & quilt came today & are too pretty, the rug is already down & looks so well. I am using my old quilt to cover my trunk and rooms is [sic] perfect now.” Over the years, I’ve seen many vintage quilts at the Fair, but I’ve been hesitant to buy old, fragile items for actual use, especially bedding, which is particularly subject to a host of potential woes. Then just as I was leaving on my last day, I ran into a very pleasant lady named Jennifer Pate. I immediately spied the quilt above, and inquired: “Is this your best price?” (Standard practice at a fair where everything is negotiable.) She looked at me and said: “You look familiar!” So, a quick explanation and detour into my Victory Garden hosting days. (Being on PBS is funny; people often recognize you, but they can’t quite figure out from where. My favorite was a woman a few years back who exclaimed: “A yes, the Victory Garden, I’ve watched that show every week for 30 years. What do you do?”)
After we got the TV introductions over, Jennifer said to me: “Michael, let me tell you. I used to teach home economics until our school system decided that children didn’t need to know practical things anymore and that Home Ec. was not a career path. I found that I could either go sell fabrics at my local craft store at minimum wage, or try to do what I always wanted to do, and be an artist. Look at this quilt. I make each one myself. Every one of these squares is handcut & sewn, all from shirt fabric, just like they used to be. The backs are dyed with tea leaves to replicate antique dyes. Some of these quilts take several days to complete. Does $240 not seem a good price, especially for something that should last a lifetime?”
Point taken. Quilt sold. (I bought one for my bed too.) This one is going to FDR’s bed, which pleased Jennifer no end.
So what else did I acquire? Well…
1) A late Victorian wood and silver traveling box for bath and shaving items, with a fold up mirror, for Lathrop’s bedroom. In the drawer: a ca. 1900 silver, glass and leather flask (handy at those chilly football games) and a pair of opera glasses, for those theater evenings when orchestra seats aren’t available.
2) A solid brass and wood cribbage board.
3) A collection of smoking implements; the silver thingie is a cigar cutter, along with two cigarette holders, and a cigar holder, for the study.
4) The aforementioned quilt.
5) A Victorian perpetual calendar for FDR’s desk. In good condition these are quite rare, as the fabric rollers are very fragile: to use, you just roll the wooden handles to advance the printed rolls. Today’s date? Why, Saturday, May 14, 1904, of course.
6) A ca. 1900 baseball bat and ball, for the study. (FDR managed the baseball team at Groton.) Still looking for a good quality mitt.
7) A beautiful solid brass and leather telescope, in perfect working condition, part of our nautical collection for FDR. (And very handy, too, to discreetly peer at all those lovely Gibson girls strolling down Mt. Auburn Street.) Beneath are several wood and silver walking sticks for the front hall.
8 ) A charming collection of small Victorian prints, in silver frames, (one round wooden) for the study.
9) Oh, I love this! It’s the brass horn off an early Franklin touring car. The story goes that ol’ Lapes stole it off Dean Brigg’s motor as part of his Dickey initiation. It still works, and is loud enough to wake the dead. (I know, my dog is still in hiding.) Now hanging on the wall of the study in gratefully silent testimony to that nocturnal triumph.
10) A very beautiful young lady of no known associations. I just thought she was lovely, and bought her for five bucks. I will frame her, and put her on Lathrop’s desk. He needs a girlfriend.
11) A period set of dominoes. Bone and ebony.
12) Oh, now here’s something, the subject of a future piece. These are, from an era before portable pens, gentlemens’ pencils, which when attached to one’s watch chain are perfect for writing stock orders or noting a dance card at the waltz. The smaller one is silver and tourmaline; both are ingeniously retractable.
13) A Victorian star paperweight: items placed underneath are magnified up into the globe.
The best part: the most expensive item on the table is the calendar, at $300. Everything else besides the quilt was under $100, most items well under $50.
And all these bits of Brimfield bounty – entirely thanks to supporters like you.
For those of you who enjoy time travel stories, one of the very best is Time and Again (1970) by Jack Finney. I won’t bore you with a detailed synopsis; suffice it to say that the Federal Government discovers it’s possible to travel in time by simply willing yourself back through history. The trick is that to achieve this temporal separation, you truly have to believe yourself back in time – no mechanics are involved, simply a type of self-hypnosis. So the Government sets up several experiments in places that haven’t changed much through history – one in Paris right around Notre Dame for the Middle Ages; one in a now deserted Vermont farming village returned to its 1920s bustle; and one in the Dakota, the famous apartment building in New York City for the 1890s – all in an attempt to steep the participants in the past. The various would-be time travelers experience the life and language of the age; dress the part, eat the food – in essence they do everything in their power to make themselves believe they are inhabitants of another time. I remember reading this book when I was a child, utterly fascinated. (It’s also an illustrated novel, which helps when a kid.) One of the passages I remember most vividly is when the main character, Simon Morley, visits the Smithsonian to view the costumes of the 1880s. The curators remove one of the ladies’ dresses from the collection, and show it to him. The material is dark brown, slightly frayed, smelling of age; he touches it, the fabric crumbles. Then suddenly, he is presented with a new version of the same dress on a mannikin: “Martin snapped the covering from the next figure, and there stood – I won’t call it a dress but a gown of bright wine-red velvet, the nap fresh and unworn, the material magnificently draped in thick multiple folds front and back. The bead trim caught the light, glittering a clear deep red, shimmering as though the garment were moving… It was spectacular…
“Can you see an actual breathing woman Si, a girl, wearing this and looking absolutely great?” And I said: “Hell, yes: I can see her dancing!”
Well, ladies and gentlemen, we’re almost ready to dance ourselves, in the Suite. The last of the draperies arrived today: (You can click any of these photos for a larger, clearer view.)
It’s amazing the impact the fabric has had on the space: where there were formally white walls and bare doors, now riots of color compete and play – surprisingly successfully – providing a first real sense of the opulence these rooms once possessed. The portieres (the fabric in the door frames) add a lot of character; originally used to close off the rooms for additional warmth, by FDR’s time they were entirely Victorian vestigal bits of decoration. Sara had insisted… and FDR acquiesced, though he often wished they’d been set just a bit taller for his tall frame… Just behind can be glimpsed the new drapes in FDR’s bedroom; a future president can now sleep soundly in richly muffled darkness.
Lathrop’s desk too has come alive, gleaming with brass. Can’t you just see young Lapes, his handsome brow bent over a sheet of heavy cream writing paper, answering one of his many house party invitations, as a dance card on the wall, souvenir of some now forgotten ball at the Somerset, pirouettes slowly at his elbow? The lamp on the table, by the way, originally oil, is one of the famous “Harvard Lamps,” providing “superlative light for scholars” according to an ad from a local newspaper. Lapes never cared much about that, but he has to admit it has come in quite handy for all his social correspondence.
And just behind, FDR’s desk, piled high with the loves of his life: Eleanor at left, as she looks this warm May of 1904. Less pleasant memories are next: dear, dear Alice Sohier, who’d unexspectedly spurned him. (He’d better put that picture away now…) The Half Moon II at full sail, at Campobello,with FDR at the helm, and on the wall, his father, James, shortly before his death, mounted on one of his favorite trotters. And Sara too, as always, is present; the butterfly collection she sent him smiles from the wall; plus, an unanswered letter awaiting his reply sits tucked in one of the roll-top cubbyholes.
For a moment, here, now, you can almost feel 1904.
Do you think, perhaps, if I just concentrated hard enough…
Some people just read history. Others help make it.
Come make a little history. Support the FDR Suite Foundation!
Look familiar? An illustration from the 1897 Scribner's article "Undergraduate Life at Harvard," picturing a room in Claverley, and a recent addition to the Suite's expanding collection of Harvard ephemera.
We are thrilled today to announce two $50,000 grants from the Lillian Goldman Charitable Trust to help fund the Foundation’s operations for the next two years. In addition to providing the money necessary to launch The New Fireside Chats web broadcasts, the annual grants will help develop our planned FDR Suite Internet Museum, expand the Suite’s historical collections, as well as fund day-to-day operations at the Suite. (And we have considerable day-to-day expenses: insurance on the Suite alone runs close to 2K per year, and other than heat and electricity, we receive no financial support from the College…)
The structure of this award was deliberate: splitting the amount into two 50K segments to be paid this year and next was designed to act as a challenge grant, spurring folks like you to help us raise the additional 50K we need complete our annual budget and begin our educational mission of expanding FDR’s legacy into the electronic age.
So in order to put the Foundation on a firm financial footing, we launch today our 2011 capital campaign. Won’t you consider donating at one of these levels?
Member $100 Supporter $250 Donor $500 Trustee $1000 Angel $5000
(And of course, there’s always the Deity level… lol)
If everyone on this mailing list donated just $100, we’d make our goals – unfortunately only a small percentage of you do – 4%, in fact.
I know there are a thousand demands on your charitable dollars, but we’d like to think that our particular combination of Harvard History, House History and presidential history is pretty special and worth supporting.
In addition, if we make our goal, it greatly increases the chance that these grants will be renewed in future years (and attract other monies to fund our planned scholarship programs, which are so far unfunded.)
So long story short, whatever you can contribute, please do. Just click the How to Donate Button at the top of this page. I will keep you posted on our progress.
And one final note: a number of you inquired during our hugely pleasant Fourth Annual Memorial Lecture & Reception this past Saturday whether or not these events were considered fundraisers for the Suite, and strictly, the answer is no: this lecture series is part of our educational mission, and we price the tickets each year principally to cover our costs, which means depending on attendance, we generally just break even. Hopefully however our attendees go away with a better sense of our mission and an increased inclination to support it. At least that’s the idea!
As always, we remain grateful for your interest and support.
For those of you not attending the Fourth Annual FDR Memorial Lecture this Saturday, I thought you might enjoy seeing a sneak preview of the The New Fireside Chats web casts I’ll be introducing there:
Of course, this is just an early version the trailer (well not so early, its the 15th one, actually) but I can’t tell you how excited we already are about this project – scheduled guests include nationally known scholar Skip Gates, who’ll talk about race relations in FDR’s time and what it means to be black in 2011, at Harvard and beyond; Nobel laureate Amartya Sen will visit to discuss the pluses and minuses of New Deal economic policy; historian and PBS scholar Doris Kearns Goodwin will be on hand to talk about FDR’s early years; Ambassador John Gunther Dean ’44 will review the tremendous ups and downs of four decades of diplomatic service – and that’s just for starters. We’ve been sending out invitations to a whole host of folks from both sides of the aisle, to come in and discuss politics, religion, history, the arts, world events, you name it. With any luck, we’ll be posting one or two new broadcasts each month.
And finally, returning of the subject of this weekend’s lecture by Cynthia Koch, we have just five seats left, so if you wish to attend, email me immediately to reserve your spot.
We are delighted to finalize plans for the Fourth Annual FDR Memorial Lecture and Reception at Adams House, Harvard College, this coming April 30th 2011 at 4:30 PM. This year we are truly honored to welcome Dr. Cynthia Koch, a huge friend to the Restoration, and Director of the FDR Presidential Library and Museum, who will be offering an intriguing view of how FDR led the nation during the Depression through popular education, overcoming fears and political obstacles by explaining clearly and directly to the American people how often unorthodox policies might improve their daily lives. (Something we could well do with more today, I fear.)
Our longtime supporters will note that this April, we are moving to our previously announced schedule of alternating years of full banquets and receptions; on the 30th, we will be hosting Dr. Koch’s lecture in the Lower Common Room, followed by a cocktail reception in the Conservatory. Fear not though: our famous FDR raw bar remains – yum – and as always delicious hot hors d’oeuvres and a happily stocked bar will greet attendees. Dress this year: comfortably casual.
Note: as the LCR seats only 80 persons, we are on completely first-come, first-served basis this year, with Foundation supporters given preferred front row seating. Please email me ASAP to reserve your place at michaelweishan@fdrsuite.org. Tickets are $35; payment will be at the door, by check or cash only, to benefit the FDR Suite Restoration. Reservations required.
We’re very excited here at Adams House to announce what we hope will be the beginning of a very long tradition: The New Fireside Chats – a series of web-televised chats with well known figures in academia and politics about the events that shaped our history, and continue to shape the world today. Set hearth-side in our extremely comfortable Morris chairs, and hosted by yours truly with a different guest each episode, segment topics will originate from some object or theme in the Suite, and move outwards from there.
The origin of this idea is comically mundane, in hindsight: a month or so back, I was hanging pictures in the Suite, and stepped down from the ladder to admire the results of my labor. “Michael,” I said to myself, “this almost looks like a television set…”
A TELEVISION SET! Indeed! What a great way to fulfill our educational mission!
So, since then I have been wearing my best PBS hat, nagging my contacts in the industry about what equipment we need to acquire (about 7K worth ahem ahem, for which we’ll need to raise large portion), how to arrange the lighting (basic three-point TV illumination, not that complicated), who’ll man the cameras & sound and edit the pieces (our students) and who our guests will be: First up, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and historian Doris Kearns Goodwin! (And for those of you wondering, yes, we will be inviting experts from both sides of the aisle – out goal is to foster debate, whatever that debate might be.) Invitations have been extended to Adams Senior Common Room Members Skip Gates to discuss historical race issues at Harvard, as well as Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen to explore the ramifications of New Deal economics on today’s markets. Four-time Ambassador John Gunther Dean (Adams ’46) will be with us over his 65th in May to talk about US foreign relations, New Deal forward;, and Dr. Cynthia Koch, Director of the FDR Presidential Library, our speaker at the FDR Lecture this year (April 30, details coming Monday), will be discussing FDR as Educator in Chief. And that’s just for starters…
We hope to film our first segment in May, and release approximately one per month
