Dr. Jackson's Office - Now Open!

By: Erin Crissman, Curator

On July 4th, Dr. Jackson’s office opened after an extensive restoration. A new exhibition inside the building completes the transformation. Although I have already been at The Farmers’ Museum for over a year, this was the first project I was able to complete from start to finish; all of my other projects so far had been underway when I arrived.

The original structure (the front room) is furnished like Dr. Elhanan Jackson may have used it inthe 1840s. Since most rural doctors were not wealthy and travelled to see their patients, this space is sparsely furnished.

This little office was quite challenging, mostly because the space is so small. We had to accommodate people, artifacts and information in two very tiny rooms - 11' x 14' and 11' x 11'. I’m surprised that the project stayed true to its original plan. Sometimes, especially in historic structures, a variety of problems prevent us from doing exactly what we’d like: plaster walls won’t let us hang things in certain places; some objects that we’d like to display won’t hold up to the environmental changes in buildings without temperature and humidity control.

Physicians like Dr. Jackson mixed thier own medicines and had at least a few medical texts for reference.

Most physician's offices were used for record keeping and mixing medicines and were usually furnished with only two tables and a chair. All of a typical rural physician's equipment is displayed here. Not much to work with!

The back room of the office, added in the 1870s, displays developments just beyond Dr. Jackson's time: more advanced surgery and anethstesia in the 1860s; stethescopes; Mary A. and Mary Imogene Bassett - mother and daugher female physicians in Cooperstown in the 1870s and 1880s - represent women in medicine.

One of the most successful aspects of this project was very simple – color choice. The little office looks much more welcoming now with its yellow walls and red floors. The Museum’s interpretive staff reports that it was full of visitors all weekend!

Dr. Jackson's Office opens in 2 weeks

By: Erin Crissman, Curator

After an extensive restoration, Dr. Jackson’s office will re-open on Saturday, July 4th.

Here you can see the fresh paint almost completed.

The exterior had been grey since its arrival at The Farmers’ Museum in the 1950s. However, we learned through a paint analysis that the grey color was added in the 1870s, during the last doctor’s occupancy. When Dr. Elhanan Jackson used the office in the 1840s, it was white. During a paint analysis, professionals remove small areas of paint down to the original wood and use a high-powered microscope to read all of the layers. Then, through additional analysis, they determine the original colors – or any other color along the building’s history. Most Greek Revival style buildings like Dr. Jackson’s Office, seen throughout New York State in the 1840s, were also painted white. It was the color of Roman ruins and represented democracy, prosperity and refinement. (You can even see the inspirational scenes across the street at Fenimore Art Museum.) Although I personally think white is a little boring, when we know the accurate and appropriate color from a historic paint analysis, we have to use it. Sometimes ignorance is bliss -- and more exciting. Since we weren't sure exactly what paint was used inside the office, I made some bold (and historically accurate) choices.

Stay tuned next week for more photos from the installation process.

Creating The Farmers' Museum: Get Moving!

By: Erin Crissman, Curator

American outdoor living history museums, like The Farmers’ Museum, are 20th century creations. Skansen in Sweden is the world’s oldest, started in 1891. Some open-air museums, like Williamsburg (1927), are entire restored towns. Others, like The Farmers’ Museum (1942) are village settings created by moving relatively local historic buildings to a central location. Some, like The Henry Ford’s Greenfield Village (1929), have buildings and artifacts from across the country! When beginning to re-create a historic village in the 1940s, the Museum’s founding director, Louis C. Jones, didn’t have very far to go. Across the street, the New York State Historical Association and Fenimore House (today the Fenimore Art Museum) had a growing collection of primary source material – paintings, drawings, lithographs that illustrated what New York’s villages had looked like in 100 years ago. You can see one of the project’s most influential works here. Jones and early museum staff set out to collect all of the buildings important to a New York village. The first buildings were Todd’s Store, Filers Corners Schoolhouse, and Bump Tavern. Below are photographs of some of the museum's buildings in transition.

Louis C. Jones oversees moving Dr. Jackson's Office from Westford, NY

Re-constructing Fields' Blacksmith Shop -1950s

A crane positions the rear wing of the Westcott Shop -1997

Moving Cornwallville Church for the second time. It was originally placed behind Lippitt farmhouse, in the background of this photo. - 1990s

Sneak Preview: Dr. Jackson's Office

By: Erin Crissman, Curator

Ironically, I’ve been fighting off a cold and working on the exhibition plan for the newly restored Dr. Jackson’s office this week. Here are some updates on this project, scheduled to open on July 4th weekend. Interior restoration is almost complete. The plaster has been repaired and new paint applied. This bold ochre color is a historically accurate hue from one of my favorite publications--Historic Colors of America--a paint chart developed by Historic New England. The floors still need painting. The original floor boards were quite worn in some areas and needed to be patched. The paint will help us to protect the floors for future generations. The space will be used much differently for this new exhibition. Previous exhibitions in this building showed each small room as part of Dr. Jackson’s work space. Today, we know that only the front part of the office was available in the 1840s. The back addition was constructed by Dr. Drake, who took over the building and practice when Dr. Jackson died. This time, the front part of the building will be a sparsely furnished office like Dr. Jackson would have used; the back will feature an exhibition highlighting some of The Farmers’ Museum’s medical collections. When we develop exhibitions, there are always changes from the original plan. Come by in July to find out if this drawing (not to scale) resembles the final product!

Dr. Jackson’s office in Westford

By: Erin Crissman, Curator

On the way to collect a loom for The Farmers’ Museum’s collection (more on this in a future post), we passed through Westford, NY, the original home of Dr. Jackson’s office. Although it was not always next to the Westford General Store, that was the office’s last location when The Farmers' Museum took possession of it in the 1950s. The General Store looks much the same as it did when Mr. Whipple’s tow truck pulled it westward to Cooperstown. You can see the Greek columns on the store’s front in this picture, and in this one, the small addition in the back and the neighboring residence. All that is missing is the gas pump!

Dr. Jackson's Office - Part II

By: Erin Crissman, Curator

Working in a history museum forces me to think differently about my own life, especially when I’m thinking about the past. A lot of times it is difficult to put away my own experience when I’m trying to discover how people in the past may have lived. In the 1950s, when the staff at The Farmers’ Museum was restoring Dr. Jackson’s office and getting it ready for the public, they likely were thinking about their own experiences in visiting the doctor. The original interior of Dr. Jackson’s office, as the staff conceived it in the 1950s, looked like a 1950s doctor’s office, but with older furniture. It had a “waiting room” in the front (left) and an “exam room” in the back. (right)

Now, with more research resources available to us than were around in the 1950s, we have a different understanding of how Dr. Jackson used his office. First, he only had one room to work with (we discovered that the back room wasn’t added until 20 years after he died) and that he visited most of his patients in their homes, treating very few people in his office. Through a survey of probate inventories (a list of a person’s possessions upon their death) we discovered that most doctors only had a table, a chair, about 5 books, and very basic medical equipment in their offices. When Dr. Jackson’s office is restored, we hope to better reflect Dr. Jackson’s experience as a rural physician.

Dr. Jackson's Office - Part I

By: Erin Crissman, Curator

Dr. Elhanan Jackson took over his brother’s practice in 1830 and used this small building as an office until 1856 when he sold it to another physician. This tiny building was built around 1820 in Westford, NY (a few miles East of Cooperstown) . Its architecture is Greek Revival – very popular in New York state around the time the Erie Canal opened (1825). Little offices like this one are rare and particular to New York State.

The office had an addition put on the back in the 1870s, doubling its original size. The whole thing was loaded onto a truck and moved to The Farmers’ Museum in 1952. At the time, it was being used by the general store in Westford as a storage building.

Dr. Jackson's Office is undergoing restoration this spring. Stay tuned for updates and changes!