May 2025

Have you been meaning to make a gift to Bennington Museum’s Annual Fund but just haven’t gotten around to it yet? In case you need one more reason to take a moment to write the check here are four to choose from:

• We’re doing good work: This summer we are looking forward to Green Mountain Magic featuring some big-name artists on loan: Albright, Tooker, Lucioni. From loan fees to painting the walls and printing the labels, your donations make major exhibitions like this possible.
• We’re getting better and better: Exciting additions to the collection in the last year include 5 new Moses works to grace our newly renovated gallery, the Burton snowboard that carried Rupert native Ross Powers through the Olympics, and several great modern/contemporary art pieces by Gregory Smith (sculpture), William Lau (pottery), Denver Ferguson (drawing). Your support not only makes it possible to purchase select pieces, but also enables us to appropriately care for them once they are here.
• We offer an accessible experience: All of our signature Museum programs are free to the public - from Music at the Museum to Concerts in the Courtyard, Museum ABCS, Bennington Historical Society presentations, and special events like the "From Studio to Streets" closing celebration pictured above. We offer something for everyone and your gifts ensure that what we present can be enjoyed by all.
• Local shopping: We love showcasing local artisans at Bennington Museum. In addition to t-shirts, postcards, and tea towels that reference current exhibits, in our store you can find unique jewelry by Belart, textile artwork from the Quilted Jardin, and historical books by local authors. When you shop with us, you are supporting the Museum AND your local artist community.

Your donation to this year’s Annual Fund WILL make a difference. You have until June 30 to make your fiscal year 2025 gift. Thank you for your generous support and come see us soon!

May Events

Mark Your Calendars

Opening Reception

Celebrate the new season, and get a preview of the major summer exhibition.

Concerts in the Courtyard

Thanks to an anonymous grant, the Concerts in the Courtyard summer series is back for the 5th season. Check out the fantastic line-up below, and mark your calendars now!

Monument Society

Registration for the next two Monument Society events have been posted!

June 14: Bennington, VT- A walking tour of Across the Street and dinner at the Four Chimneys

August 1: Williamstown Theater Festival- Tennessee Williams' Not About Nightingales and dinner at Coyote Flaco (only 16 places available!)

May Exhibits

Samplers, Girls, and the American Experiment

May 3 - September 7, 2025

On Saturday May 3, Bennington Museum will be opening an exhibit of Vermont girls' samplers from the 18th and 19th century. Through twenty-four unique pieces, this exhibit will explore how the ideals displayed in girls’ embroidery 200 years ago shaped the America we know today, how education couched in detailed needlework could ultimately provide a path to independence, and how teenagers will still be teenagers across the centuries.

Vermont became the 14th state in 1791, a time when the success of the “American experiment” (an idea articulated by George Washington in his inaugural address in 1789) was in no way guaranteed. Education was understood to be the foundation of a flourishing democracy, but the role of women and their education was hotly debated, because at this time women lacked the right to vote. A girls' education was often interwoven with domestic skill-craft such as sewing and embroidery. Needlework samples (or samplers) served the two-fold purpose of reinforcing the basics of literacy and math as well as demonstrating capability and refinement to future potential suitors. The motifs stitched on many samplers emphasize the importance of female virtue, the value of education, and obedience to parents and God. Samplers were often displayed around the home as a testament to a girl's skill, demeanor, and diligence. 

Beyond serving as practice pieces for learning various stitches and the basics of letters and numbers, samplers also communicated that a girl’s parents were wealthy enough to send their daughter to school. Girls’ samplers reflected what the young United States of America aspired to become: a virtuous republic full of educated and industrious people.

Callie Raspuzzi, Collections Manager at Bennington Museum talks about the impetus behind this project at the Museum: "When I originally conceived this exhibit I thought that samplers would be a good lens through which to really examine female education and the role of women in early Vermont. Educational opportunities are not available to everyone, and there is an understanding that this "American Dream" has limits. We have samplers from girls of modest families, and they're very different from the fancy work of their wealthy neighbors, as were the expectations for their future."

She continues, "I particularly love the unfinished samplers and the ones that are not very well executed. It's easy to look at the really pretty needlework and forget that these pieces are made by children and teenagers. They're not all good, conscientious scholars and they probably had other things that they would much rather be doing. They feel much more "real" to me than the perfectly executed pieces. When I look at my own teen and tween and their friends it's easy to imagine kids 200 years ago, some of whom were gifted and studious, and others who were haphazard scholars who found other paths to success in life."

WANT MORE SAMPLERS?

Take a driving tour from Bennington to Brownington

The VT Sampler Initiative has produced a statewide driving tour of collections of post-Revolutionary War samplers, in cooperation with the Nationwide 250th celebration of the American Revolution.

Beginning at a sampler exhibit at Bennington Museum, 20 statewide sites, including museums, art galleries, libraries and historical societies will extend this core exhibit with over 800 more pieces, inviting visitors to the state to explore additional communities in Vermont.

The story of our Revolutionary War generation having fought the war for our independence, and then having relocated to Vermont to live their lives, is one that can be illustrated by studying the lives of their descendants. The values, artistry and degrees of hardship and success of these families are often conveyed by the girls who produced these samplers. They are almost always the progeny – daughters and granddaughters – of the Revolutionary War generation – and their stories are many and unique!

Exhibition to Cast a New Light on Richard Morris Hunt

May 30 - November 2, 2025

Rosecliff Mansion, Rhode Island

NEWPORT, R.I. – Richard Morris Hunt has long been associated with contributions of extraordinary architecture, including The Breakers and Marble House, that provided the grand backdrop for America’s Gilded Age.

The first American admitted to the prestigious École des Beaux-Arts, Hunt returned home to instill European grandeur into his buildings. But Hunt also envisioned creating a national identity beyond physical structures. He was a collector, and this act of collecting, as well as what he collected, reflected how he sought to influence America’s cultural development.

Beginning May 30 at Rosecliff, The Preservation Society of Newport County will examine this lesser-known aspect of Hunt’s legacy with the opening of Richard Morris Hunt: In a New Light. The exhibition runs through November 2.

“As caretakers of Marble House, The Breakers, and Chateau-sur-Mer, we are reminded every day of the impact Richard Morris Hunt made on American architecture,” Preservation Society CEO and Executive Director Trudy Coxe said. “But this exhibition promises to reveal another side of this complex man who did so much to shape our understanding of culture in this country.”

For the first time, Hunt’s materials from the Library of Congress, Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, Vermont Historical Society, Bennington Museum (Vt.), and the Preservation Society’s collections – including architectural and interior drawings, his personal sketchbooks and scrapbooks, and intimate family objects and collections – will be exhibited in one location. Together they provide deep insight into Hunt’s approach to culture, private and public collecting, and architectural practice.

Highlights include a 55-inch plaster cast of Hunt’s likeness, dressed as a stone mason, the original of which was installed on the roof of the William K. Vanderbilt House (aka Petit Chateau) at 660 Fifth Avenue in midtown Manhattan as a tribute to Hunt by his workmen. An 1874 sketchbook detailing Hunt’s observations on a trip to Cologne, Germany, which features buildings, churches and landscapes, is also being exhibited for the first time.

Born in Brattleboro, Vermont, in 1827, Hunt also lived in New Haven, Connecticut, New York and Boston before moving to Europe as a young man. He studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris — the leading school for art and architecture of its day — before returning to the United States in 1856. His contributions to the development and professionalization of architecture in the United States earned him the moniker “The Dean of American Architecture."  Surviving examples of his work, including Vanderbilt summer cottages Marble House and The Breakers in Newport and Biltmore in North Carolina, established a new standard for opulence while also incorporating the latest technology of the era.

But Hunt also supported the idea that practicing and advocating for all the arts would transform his war-torn nation into a society as great as ancient Athens and modern Paris. He believed America needed “culture.” Through his education and experience at home and abroad, Hunt used his own collections to influence the public on what the ideals of culture should be through art and architecture, in both public museums and private spaces.

“With a renewed focus on the Hunt Collection at the Library of Congress, new scholarship has provided greater insight into who Hunt was and who he wanted to be, along with his vision for America at a time of great transformation in both the built and cultural landscapes,” explained Leslie Jones, the Preservation Society’s Director of Museum Affairs and Chief Curator. “His ambition for identifying what American culture should be through public and private spaces, particularly his role in the founding of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, has been largely overlooked."

“We are bringing together material selected by Hunt, which inspired his ability to influence America’s impressionable cultural landscape during the Gilded Age,” Jones said. “In a way, while we know Hunt as an architect, we are presenting him as a man.”

Through an examination of his own collecting practices, Richard Morris Hunt: In a New Light will reveal the ideas and objects Hunt immersed himself in to become America’s architect and arbiter of culture. 

Escape to the Green Mountains

By Tyler Resch

Vermont is known for welcoming new residents, especially if they had gained prominence elsewhere and their presence here seemed promising. One distinguished gentleman who moved to the Green Mountain State harbored a past he had reason to forget. When he and his wife moved to a town in Windsor County, their welcome was not always cordial, yet his contributions to the state were memorable.

The newcomer in 1922 was William J. Wilgus (1865-1949) who had been the engineer responsible in 1902 for the design and construction of the huge Grand Central Terminal in New York, notably its tunnels and double-stacked trackage. By electrifying the train lines, he solved the problem of choking smoke from hundreds of coal-driven steam engines.

Wilgus also coined the term “taking wealth from the air,” meaning the lease of the area above the Park Avenue tunnel to help finance the station. He was a founder of the Port of New York Authority and had been a key adviser to the engineer of the Holland Tunnel that opened in 1927, still a major vehicular crossing point between Manhattan and New Jersey.

In more recent times, it has been discovered why Wilgus might have moved from the city. In 2001 author Kurt C. Schlichting wrote a book that contends that the story of Grand Central Station is one of coverups and conspiracies. Wilgus, as chief engineer of the New York Central Railroad, left New York under a cloud, Schlichting writes, after destroying evidence that his company knew of an engine problem that led to a 1907 train crash in the Bronx that killed 25 passengers. The book’s title is Grand Central Terminal: Railroads, Engineering, and Architecture in New York.

Wilgus and his second wife Gertrude moved to Weathersfield, perhaps because his Revolutionary War ancestor Gershom Clark had resided there. They built a large house and, now known as Colonel Wilgus, he lived the life of the country squire. But a town history relates that they assumed an aloof attitude toward the neighbors. When he and his wife were subject to “uncomplimentary and profane remarks” by some unsavory characters who hung out at a local blacksmith shop, Wilgus arranged to purchase the shop and had it demolished.

He gained some prominence statewide when he became a robust supporter of the proposal for a 260-mile Green Mountain Parkway that would be built along the flanks of mountains from Massachusetts to Canada. The idea gained favor as a Depression-era job-producer, but was rejected by voters in a 1936 statewide referendum.

In 1945, Wilgus wrote a book titled The Role of Transportation in the Development of Vermont, that traced travelways from footpaths to canals to turnpikes to railroads to airports and vehicular highways (pre-Interstate). It specialized in the complex history of Vermont’s railroads.

The name Wilgus survives today in the 150-acre Wilgus State Park, the only state park on the Connecticut River, which he deeded to the state in 1933. It has become a summer camping area in Windsor and Weathersfield.

*top Image: Wilgus sketch of Grand Central Terminal as seen from the north between Madison and Lexington Avenues from the New York Public Library archives.

*bottom image: interior of Grand Central Terminal today.

The Bennington Historical Society (BHS) is a Bennington Museum volunteer-based program. Working from the Regional History Room, the BHS recovers and records information about the history of the Bennington region and shares this information with the community through projects, publications, programs, and other activities. If you are a current Museum member, email Director of Public Programs, Deana Mallory, to learn how to get involved with this fantastic community group and get started on a research project of your own.

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