October 13, 2023 • 22 mins
What if you had the opportunity to unlock the hidden stories of historic artifacts in the collections of the Historic Odessa Foundation? You're about to get a front row seat on a journey through time as we navigate the captivating tales of the Corbett and Wilson family collections, objects that have witnessed history unfold, from the 1770s to later generations. Executive Director of the Historic Odessa Foundation, Debbie Buxton, and author Dr. Philip Zimmerman, join us to share the rich history and intriguing stories woven into the fabric of their new book, A Storied Past Collections of Historic Odessa.
Get ready to be captivated by tales of community involvement and connection in Odessa, such as the heartwarming story of a quilt crafted for a dying individual and the fascinating evolution of mid-19th-century chairs labeled 'Odessa'. Discover how these pieces are not just objects, but portals to the past, revealing the intricate networks of those who lived before us. We also explore the technological marvels of the time, such as the automated lathe technology from Chairville, NJ, that played a crucial part in creating these historic objects. This enlightening discussion underscores the Historic Odessa Foundation's commitment to preserving and celebrating their heritage and offers insights into how you can get involved. So sit back, relax and let's unfold the pages of history together.
The Delaware Division of the Arts, a branch of the Delaware Department of State, is committed to supporting the arts and cultivating creativity to enhance the quality of life in Delaware. Together with its advisory body, the Delaware State Arts Council, the Division administers grants and programs that support arts programming, educate the public, increase awareness of the arts, and integrate the arts into all facets of Delaware life. Learn more at Arts.Delaware.Gov.
Delaware State of the Arts is a weekly podcast that presents interviews with arts organizations and leaders who contribute to the cultural vibrancy of communities throughout Delaware. Delaware State of the Arts is provided as a service of the Division of the Arts, in partnership with NEWSRADIO 1450 WILM and 1410 WDOV.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
For Delaware State of the Arts.
I'm Andy Truscott.
My guests today are DebbieBuxton, the Executive Director
of the Historic OdessaFoundation, and Dr Philip
Zimmerman, the author of a newbook the Foundation has
published, entitled A StoryedPast Collections of Historic
Odessa.
Using rich archival andgenealogical sources, dr
(00:32):
Zimmerman brings to light herefor the first time an
extraordinary array ofdecorative and fine arts from
the Collections at the HistoricOdessa Foundation.
And as we kick off, can youhelp provide a bit of an
overview of the book A StoryedPast and what inspired the
creation of this book?
Speaker 2 (00:50):
The book grew out of some informal contact over the
last oh many years where I andothers would find particular
objects of interest in thecollection.
And over the last several yearsI spent more and more time here
in Odessa looking at thecollections and I started to
(01:14):
badger Debbie about a book onthe collections.
And let me pass it back to you,debbie, in terms of how the
book actually started.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Well, actually it's kind of a funny story.
You know, we belong to WinitourMuseum for 50 years and so our
collection was part ofWinitour's collection and we
were also, you know, understoodto be just sort of mixed in with
Winitour's other 100,000objects.
(01:44):
So when we went, when we becameour own identity in 2005, we
had a big job ahead of us tobuild a new brand and really a
new identity for Odessa, andwe've been working on that for a
long time and the collectionwas was always at the forefront
of those, those discussions.
(02:04):
When you are a brand newstartup institution, you know
there's a long list ofpriorities.
We own six major buildings, ahalf a dozen outbuildings and 72
acres of property here in thehistoric center.
But about, I would say, fouryears ago there was an episode
on Antiques Roadshow and some ofour staff saw that episode and
(02:28):
there was a wonderful samplerthat came to light and the
dealer that was looking at thatsampler and identifying it for
and authenticating it for theowner pointed out that there was
one almost identical to it inthe Winitour collection.
As soon as we saw it, it wasours, it was in the collection
of the Historical OdessaFoundation, so it's sort of lit
(02:50):
a fire under us.
Philip had been bugging and itseemed like, okay, the timing's
right, we need to address it now, but also finding the funding
to support the research and thesurvey of the collection, which
which was is a significantproject.
It took us some time, but wewere finally able to secure
funding and really get it offthe ground.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Talk to me a little bit about how the Historical
Odessa Foundation's collectionsare different or varied from
what they might see at otherhistoric sites around Delaware.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
The big difference between these collections and
those of many museums and otherhistoric sites is that these
collections have a much higherpercentage of objects that
belong to the site.
We've talked about what Odessais and what it is not, and if
(03:43):
you imagine a museum period room, it is assembled by a curator
with that curator's idea of whatis most appropriate or what is
most interesting to him or her.
What historic Odessa has in thetwo houses are an assemblage of
objects that have been therefor a long, long time, whether
(04:06):
we like it or not, which meanswe have objects from the 1770s,
which is the period when the twohouses were built, but we also
have objects from latergenerations, and we have objects
that have been repaired andobjects that have, oh goodness,
come in from all unusualcircumstances, and it provides a
(04:28):
layered historical look at allof these collections, and there
are only a few other historichouses in the country that have
this kind of collection.
Clearly, places like MountVernon, monticello or Stanton in
Philadelphia are the ones thathave enormous percentages of
(04:49):
original furnishings, and Idon't want to mistake the houses
in Odessa for those.
But the houses in Odessa arespecial because of that one
criterion, where so many of thecollections have been preserved,
either on the site or in one.
Telling anecdote.
There is a collection ofobjects here in Odessa that were
(05:12):
gathered by a member of theJohn Janvier family John Janvier
being an important furnituremaker of the second half of the
18th century and this individualwas a trained librarian in the
mid-20th century and when shewas in retirement in the 1960s
and 70s, she was activelygathering Janvier furniture from
(05:36):
the family that had owned thesethings and had identified who
had made it.
So she had maybe a dozen piecesof furniture and many
manuscripts which, for onereason or another, she then
offered to Winitur because ofWinitur's ownership of the two
houses.
Winitur bought the furniture.
(05:56):
It's installed here in Odessaand it forms a corpus of the
work of a particular craftsmanfrom Odessa, which is quite
extraordinary.
The other collections in thehouses include a body of
furniture in one house, theWilson house, that was actively
(06:20):
assembled by a descendant whothen opened the house as
Delaware's first historic houseopened to the public in 1923.
So that material is there.
The other house was purchasedfrom the family in 1938,
(06:41):
restored by Rodney Sharp, andthen he furnished it with all
sorts of things, includingthings from the immediate area.
And then the fourth body ofmaterial is material that has
come from Corbett and Wilsondescendants.
(07:01):
This came into the site between1972, where they're about, and
up until a couple of years ago,where first Winniter and now
Historic Odessa under Debbie'sleadership.
Now Debbie's impetus has beento gather things from the family
(07:21):
, and that provides a large bodyof material.
Can you share a little?
Speaker 1 (07:26):
bit about how the Corbett and Wilson family
collections shed light on thehistory of Odessa and also the
larger region.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
Well, I think it's.
You know, odessa was a port inthe 18th century and in fact
they shipped 400,000 bushels ofweed out of the town of Odessa.
So it was a.
It was a really economicallythriving town.
The?
It's the shortest distance overland between the Chesapeake Bay
and the Delaware River.
It was an Indian trade routebefore you know the ink, the
(07:54):
Dutch and the Swedes and theEnglish Came into the area.
You had a community ofcraftsmen that settled here and
there were I mean, the Jamveerfamily of cabinet makers are
probably Delaware's mostprominent cabinet-making family.
In addition to that, you hadsome important clockmakers that
were in the region, includingDuncan Beard, who lived and
(08:16):
worked in this town.
And so I think when you look at, when you look at the things
that were made here and Werepurchased by the, by the people
who lived in these homes, andthey just never left here,
that's Extraordinary.
I mean these things were madehere and never left the town and
(08:37):
in some cases we even know whatrooms they were in.
I mean that just doesn't happen.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
It's it sets us apart another aspect of all this is
that when we look at some of thefurniture that was made here on
Odessa, this is furniture thatwas made between 1774 and the
early 19th century.
If you take an object like acard table or a dining table or
(09:04):
a chest of drawers and you putit out in the marketplace or you
put it into a museumenvironment and have a parade of
experts look at it, they cannottell the difference between a
Odessa, delaware made piece offurniture and a Philadelphia
piece of furniture.
That, I think, is telling.
(09:24):
The reason that we can assignit to Odessa is, in some cases
the objects are signed by themaker.
In other cases they haveextraordinary provenances,
histories of ownership thatidentified clearly that object
having been tracked throughdifferent generations and Coming
(09:46):
back to the historic houses,and we know it was made by an
Odessa Individual.
But my point here is that inthis little town of Odessa,
which is At least a day'sjourney from Philadelphia, the
quality of workmanship here wasExtraordinary and, quite frankly
, it was much higher than otherplaces of equal distance from
(10:12):
from Philadelphia.
If you think of Philadelphia asthe center of a wheel and along
the rim are several differentobject-making communities,
typically the distance from anurban center Shows up in the
quality of workmanship, and whatI'm saying here is that the
Odessa workmen are Making thingsthat are essentially
(10:35):
Indistinguishable fromPhiladelphia, which I think is
both telling and important whatmotivated the historic Odessa
Foundation to undergo thiscareful examination and
interpretation of the collectionover the last recent years well
, I think that, in addition tojust, you know, creating this
book, to to bring the collectionout into the sun, so to speak,
(10:59):
we also were very motivated towork on the catalog information
that was available to us.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
This collection had not been seriously looked at for
many, many, many years.
Probably the last serioussurvey of the collection would
have been done in the very earlyyears when John A H Sweeney,
who was a curator at Winotourand was in the first graduating
class of the Winotour Program inEarly American Culture, wrote
(11:30):
his thesis Grand Drone in theApokonomic about the Corbett
House.
The collection had been addedto and there were new family
pieces coming into it and youknow we wanted to connect the
dots.
We wanted to take a look ateverything that was here closely
and study it closely and reallybe able to bring this
(11:50):
information to the public.
So part of this overall project, in addition to the book, was
creating a new online catalogthat anybody can access by going
to our website.
So that, I think, was just asimportant, if not more important
, than the book itself.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
The bottom line is that museums and historic houses
have a responsibility to thepublic to research their
collections, obviously withinavailable resources and
everything else, but this issomething that should be
happening more regularly than itdoes.
(12:29):
As Debbie says, the fact thatit's been, oh goodness, 50 years
since this collection has beencarefully reviewed is an
indication of just how rarethese kinds of events are.
It is not what should happen.
What should happen is thatmuseums should be regularly
(12:52):
reviewing their collections.
That said, the reason why it'shappening now at Odessa, I think
, is a combination of where theorganization is, what resources
it has available, thoseresources being both funding and
personnel.
Lots of extenuatingcircumstances come into play,
(13:17):
but I hope that by doing thebook and by putting the database
online, we can somehow open upthis collection so that many
other people can get involved inthe content that these objects
represent and kind of keeppushing the organization to keep
(13:38):
looking at what it has and, inthat sense, keep reinvigorating
its presentations to the public.
That said, I also would like tothink that when others and here
I guess I'm talking aboutpeople with particular interests
in the material when theyrealize the quality of
(13:59):
collections here, that it willthen put Odessa in their own
sites, if you will, in terms ofplaces that they want to visit
and collections that they wantto learn about.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Can you share the impact you hope this book will
have on readers and the broaderunderstanding of early American
history in Delaware?
Speaker 2 (14:18):
Well, as an author, what I have tried to do in the
book is something that I havedone with other publications
that I've been involved in, andwhat I try to do in these things
, andy, is to number one,present a very clear image, a
(14:38):
word image and a photographicimage of the objects, with
careful descriptions andappropriate evidence, which
means footnotes and thefootnotes are there for those
people who want to say why is hesaying what he's saying about
the object.
I want to make sure thosereasons are there, and that's
the kind of model of scholarshipthat I've been pushing all of
(15:01):
my career.
That said, the content that Iwant to share with readers is
the kind of information that Iwould like to think would allow
them to tap into a variety ofinterests that they may bring to
the book.
I don't know why people pick upthe book and why they would
read through it, but I wouldhope that when they pick up this
(15:23):
book, they would find severalkind of aha moments.
There are some stories, thereare some objects in here that
are really very poignant.
I've lately been looking atquilts and reminding myself that
there is a quilt in thiscollection that was made as the
(15:43):
person for whom it was made wasdying.
It's an 1844 quilt that wasbegun about 1842.
And it's one of these signaturequilts, which is to say
different squares have the nameof a different person.
The squares on this quilt comefrom all over the eastern half
(16:04):
of the United States.
This is the network of theindividual for whom the quilt
was made.
The quilt then is in lieu of ahundred Get Well cards or a lot
of verbiage.
It stands at the center of anetwork, and if that doesn't
shape somebody's thinking, Idon't know what will.
And there are just a wholebunch of those kinds of stories.
(16:27):
Here's another story that Ithink is kind of fun.
There are some mid 19th centurychairs, a set of six chairs, in
the collection.
The bottom of each of the chairseats has the name of the maker
and the name Odessa, which ofcourse is the place from where
they came.
So the term Odessa on thebottom of the chairs tells us
(16:52):
that the chairs were made after1855, when the town changed its
name from Cantwell's Bridge toOdessa harkening to Odessa in
the Ukraine, which was a greatgrain shipment center.
And poor little Odessa inDelaware had kind of lost its
way in terms of being a grainshipping center and was trying
(17:14):
to recall some of that grandeur.
So these chairs made by alittle shop here in Odessa have
evidence on their turnings thatI had never seen.
And, as I say, I've been doingthis a long, long time and I
researched into that and Ibelieve that those chair parts
were made in by an automatedlathe we're talking mid 19th
(17:39):
century automated lathe, whichis a very rare piece of
industrial equipment.
And there was a town in NewJersey, appropriately called
Chairville, which no longerstands.
It was created when someinvestors built a factory in
1842 or 1840, established thetown and they started making
(18:00):
chair parts which they thenshipped to Philadelphia where
people bought them and assembledchairs.
Well, our guy in Odessa musthave bought his chair parts from
Philadelphia and they came fromChairville, new Jersey, which
is kind of just across theDelaware River but not
convenient to him.
I mean, he wouldn't have hadaccess to that kind of supply of
(18:22):
parts.
But you know, that kind of storyreminds us that people are
really connected in ways thatsurprise us.
They're connected by therailroad that came through.
They're connected by riverboats that went up to
Philadelphia and down.
They're connected by religiousorganizations.
They're connected becausethey've got to see people and
(18:44):
they're not many people betweenhere and 20 miles from here, so
that connection becomes one thatthey use all the time.
So there's another kind ofanecdote that comes from looking
at this stuff.
I hope the book has got enoughof those kinds of these are not
strange stories.
These are normal storiesdealing with objects in perhaps
(19:06):
strange ways.
You know, objects tellingstories.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
Debbie, given the book's focus on local history,
can you share a little bit ofthe efforts that the Historic
Odessa Foundation has made toinvolve the community in both
preserving and celebrating thisheritage?
Speaker 3 (19:20):
Oh, yes, well, we're very involved in our community.
In fact we rely on thecommunity.
The Historic Odessa Foundationis fully staffed by volunteers.
We only have two full-timestaff people here and we have
about a half a dozen part-timestaff people and the balance of
our operation is volunteers.
(19:41):
So you know they become veryinvolved in pretty much
everything that we do.
In addition to that, we do a lotof programming for the
community.
We consider ourselves acommunity resource, a cultural
resource for the area.
So you know we get peopleinvolved.
For instance, the local highschools have an art show here
(20:04):
every year and their students APart students work is on
exhibition in our visitor center, you know, for about a month,
and we do a lot of programminglike that.
We have an extremely activeschool tour program.
We do about 4,500 schoolchildren in the region and we
(20:26):
raise money for a scholarshipprogram to help with all of that
.
And we also have a membershipprogram that people can become a
member of the foundation, whichalso helps to support our
preservation and educationmission.
So there's a lot going on.
We cooperate with all the othernonprofits in the area.
Odessa has quite a fewnonprofit organizations within
(20:51):
the town limits, considering thetown is extremely small.
There's only a little over 300residents here, which is about
the same as it was in the 18thcentury.
So we're a tiny little townwithin a much larger community.
Now the MOT area, middletown,odessa, townsend area, of course
, is exploding.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
As we wrap up a little bit, can you tell us
where we can purchase a storiedpass?
Collections of Historic Odessa.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
You can purchase the book online at historicodessaorg
.
You can go to the website andmake arrangements.
You can pick it up here at ourvisitor center.
We're happy to mail it out toyou.
It's also, as I said, availableonline through Amazon and other
outlets and if you Google thetitle of the book, those outlets
(21:36):
will pop up for other placesthat you can buy it, and they
can find out all thatinformation at our website,
historicodessaorg.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
Debbie Philip, thank you so much for joining me today
and, as Debbie had mentioned,to learn more about the Historic
Odessa Foundation, visitwwwhistoricodessaorg.
For Delaware State of the Arts.
I'm Andy Truscott.
My guests today are DebbieBuxton, the Executive Director
of the Historic OdessaFoundation, and Dr Philip
Zimmerman, the author of a newbook the Foundation has
published, entitled A StoryedPast Collections of Historic
Odessa.
Using rich archival andgenealogical sources, dr
(00:32):
Zimmerman brings to light herefor the first time an
extraordinary array ofdecorative and fine arts from
the Collections at the HistoricOdessa Foundation.
And as we kick off, can youhelp provide a bit of an
overview of the book A StoryedPast and what inspired the
creation of this book?
Speaker 2 (00:50):
The book grew out of some informal contact over the
last oh many years where I andothers would find particular
objects of interest in thecollection.
And over the last several yearsI spent more and more time here
in Odessa looking at thecollections and I started to
(01:14):
badger Debbie about a book onthe collections.
And let me pass it back to you,debbie, in terms of how the
book actually started.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Well, actually it's kind of a funny story.
You know, we belong to WinitourMuseum for 50 years and so our
collection was part ofWinitour's collection and we
were also, you know, understoodto be just sort of mixed in with
Winitour's other 100,000objects.
(01:44):
So when we went, when we becameour own identity in 2005, we
had a big job ahead of us tobuild a new brand and really a
new identity for Odessa, andwe've been working on that for a
long time and the collectionwas was always at the forefront
of those, those discussions.
(02:04):
When you are a brand newstartup institution, you know
there's a long list ofpriorities.
We own six major buildings, ahalf a dozen outbuildings and 72
acres of property here in thehistoric center.
But about, I would say, fouryears ago there was an episode
on Antiques Roadshow and some ofour staff saw that episode and
(02:28):
there was a wonderful samplerthat came to light and the
dealer that was looking at thatsampler and identifying it for
and authenticating it for theowner pointed out that there was
one almost identical to it inthe Winitour collection.
As soon as we saw it, it wasours, it was in the collection
of the Historical OdessaFoundation, so it's sort of lit
(02:50):
a fire under us.
Philip had been bugging and itseemed like, okay, the timing's
right, we need to address it now, but also finding the funding
to support the research and thesurvey of the collection, which
which was is a significantproject.
It took us some time, but wewere finally able to secure
funding and really get it offthe ground.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Talk to me a little bit about how the Historical
Odessa Foundation's collectionsare different or varied from
what they might see at otherhistoric sites around Delaware.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
The big difference between these collections and
those of many museums and otherhistoric sites is that these
collections have a much higherpercentage of objects that
belong to the site.
We've talked about what Odessais and what it is not, and if
(03:43):
you imagine a museum period room, it is assembled by a curator
with that curator's idea of whatis most appropriate or what is
most interesting to him or her.
What historic Odessa has in thetwo houses are an assemblage of
objects that have been therefor a long, long time, whether
(04:06):
we like it or not, which meanswe have objects from the 1770s,
which is the period when the twohouses were built, but we also
have objects from latergenerations, and we have objects
that have been repaired andobjects that have, oh goodness,
come in from all unusualcircumstances, and it provides a
(04:28):
layered historical look at allof these collections, and there
are only a few other historichouses in the country that have
this kind of collection.
Clearly, places like MountVernon, monticello or Stanton in
Philadelphia are the ones thathave enormous percentages of
(04:49):
original furnishings, and Idon't want to mistake the houses
in Odessa for those.
But the houses in Odessa arespecial because of that one
criterion, where so many of thecollections have been preserved,
either on the site or in one.
Telling anecdote.
There is a collection ofobjects here in Odessa that were
(05:12):
gathered by a member of theJohn Janvier family John Janvier
being an important furnituremaker of the second half of the
18th century and this individualwas a trained librarian in the
mid-20th century and when shewas in retirement in the 1960s
and 70s, she was activelygathering Janvier furniture from
(05:36):
the family that had owned thesethings and had identified who
had made it.
So she had maybe a dozen piecesof furniture and many
manuscripts which, for onereason or another, she then
offered to Winitur because ofWinitur's ownership of the two
houses.
Winitur bought the furniture.
(05:56):
It's installed here in Odessaand it forms a corpus of the
work of a particular craftsmanfrom Odessa, which is quite
extraordinary.
The other collections in thehouses include a body of
furniture in one house, theWilson house, that was actively
(06:20):
assembled by a descendant whothen opened the house as
Delaware's first historic houseopened to the public in 1923.
So that material is there.
The other house was purchasedfrom the family in 1938,
(06:41):
restored by Rodney Sharp, andthen he furnished it with all
sorts of things, includingthings from the immediate area.
And then the fourth body ofmaterial is material that has
come from Corbett and Wilsondescendants.
(07:01):
This came into the site between1972, where they're about, and
up until a couple of years ago,where first Winniter and now
Historic Odessa under Debbie'sleadership.
Now Debbie's impetus has beento gather things from the family
(07:21):
, and that provides a large bodyof material.
Can you share a little?
Speaker 1 (07:26):
bit about how the Corbett and Wilson family
collections shed light on thehistory of Odessa and also the
larger region.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
Well, I think it's.
You know, odessa was a port inthe 18th century and in fact
they shipped 400,000 bushels ofweed out of the town of Odessa.
So it was a.
It was a really economicallythriving town.
The?
It's the shortest distance overland between the Chesapeake Bay
and the Delaware River.
It was an Indian trade routebefore you know the ink, the
(07:54):
Dutch and the Swedes and theEnglish Came into the area.
You had a community ofcraftsmen that settled here and
there were I mean, the Jamveerfamily of cabinet makers are
probably Delaware's mostprominent cabinet-making family.
In addition to that, you hadsome important clockmakers that
were in the region, includingDuncan Beard, who lived and
(08:16):
worked in this town.
And so I think when you look at, when you look at the things
that were made here and Werepurchased by the, by the people
who lived in these homes, andthey just never left here,
that's Extraordinary.
I mean these things were madehere and never left the town and
(08:37):
in some cases we even know whatrooms they were in.
I mean that just doesn't happen.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
It's it sets us apart another aspect of all this is
that when we look at some of thefurniture that was made here on
Odessa, this is furniture thatwas made between 1774 and the
early 19th century.
If you take an object like acard table or a dining table or
(09:04):
a chest of drawers and you putit out in the marketplace or you
put it into a museumenvironment and have a parade of
experts look at it, they cannottell the difference between a
Odessa, delaware made piece offurniture and a Philadelphia
piece of furniture.
That, I think, is telling.
(09:24):
The reason that we can assignit to Odessa is, in some cases
the objects are signed by themaker.
In other cases they haveextraordinary provenances,
histories of ownership thatidentified clearly that object
having been tracked throughdifferent generations and Coming
(09:46):
back to the historic houses,and we know it was made by an
Odessa Individual.
But my point here is that inthis little town of Odessa,
which is At least a day'sjourney from Philadelphia, the
quality of workmanship here wasExtraordinary and, quite frankly
, it was much higher than otherplaces of equal distance from
(10:12):
from Philadelphia.
If you think of Philadelphia asthe center of a wheel and along
the rim are several differentobject-making communities,
typically the distance from anurban center Shows up in the
quality of workmanship, and whatI'm saying here is that the
Odessa workmen are Making thingsthat are essentially
(10:35):
Indistinguishable fromPhiladelphia, which I think is
both telling and important whatmotivated the historic Odessa
Foundation to undergo thiscareful examination and
interpretation of the collectionover the last recent years well
, I think that, in addition tojust, you know, creating this
book, to to bring the collectionout into the sun, so to speak,
(10:59):
we also were very motivated towork on the catalog information
that was available to us.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
This collection had not been seriously looked at for
many, many, many years.
Probably the last serioussurvey of the collection would
have been done in the very earlyyears when John A H Sweeney,
who was a curator at Winotourand was in the first graduating
class of the Winotour Program inEarly American Culture, wrote
(11:30):
his thesis Grand Drone in theApokonomic about the Corbett
House.
The collection had been addedto and there were new family
pieces coming into it and youknow we wanted to connect the
dots.
We wanted to take a look ateverything that was here closely
and study it closely and reallybe able to bring this
(11:50):
information to the public.
So part of this overall project, in addition to the book, was
creating a new online catalogthat anybody can access by going
to our website.
So that, I think, was just asimportant, if not more important
, than the book itself.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
The bottom line is that museums and historic houses
have a responsibility to thepublic to research their
collections, obviously withinavailable resources and
everything else, but this issomething that should be
happening more regularly than itdoes.
(12:29):
As Debbie says, the fact thatit's been, oh goodness, 50 years
since this collection has beencarefully reviewed is an
indication of just how rarethese kinds of events are.
It is not what should happen.
What should happen is thatmuseums should be regularly
(12:52):
reviewing their collections.
That said, the reason why it'shappening now at Odessa, I think
, is a combination of where theorganization is, what resources
it has available, thoseresources being both funding and
personnel.
Lots of extenuatingcircumstances come into play,
(13:17):
but I hope that by doing thebook and by putting the database
online, we can somehow open upthis collection so that many
other people can get involved inthe content that these objects
represent and kind of keeppushing the organization to keep
(13:38):
looking at what it has and, inthat sense, keep reinvigorating
its presentations to the public.
That said, I also would like tothink that when others and here
I guess I'm talking aboutpeople with particular interests
in the material when theyrealize the quality of
(13:59):
collections here, that it willthen put Odessa in their own
sites, if you will, in terms ofplaces that they want to visit
and collections that they wantto learn about.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Can you share the impact you hope this book will
have on readers and the broaderunderstanding of early American
history in Delaware?
Speaker 2 (14:18):
Well, as an author, what I have tried to do in the
book is something that I havedone with other publications
that I've been involved in, andwhat I try to do in these things
, andy, is to number one,present a very clear image, a
(14:38):
word image and a photographicimage of the objects, with
careful descriptions andappropriate evidence, which
means footnotes and thefootnotes are there for those
people who want to say why is hesaying what he's saying about
the object.
I want to make sure thosereasons are there, and that's
the kind of model of scholarshipthat I've been pushing all of
(15:01):
my career.
That said, the content that Iwant to share with readers is
the kind of information that Iwould like to think would allow
them to tap into a variety ofinterests that they may bring to
the book.
I don't know why people pick upthe book and why they would
read through it, but I wouldhope that when they pick up this
(15:23):
book, they would find severalkind of aha moments.
There are some stories, thereare some objects in here that
are really very poignant.
I've lately been looking atquilts and reminding myself that
there is a quilt in thiscollection that was made as the
(15:43):
person for whom it was made wasdying.
It's an 1844 quilt that wasbegun about 1842.
And it's one of these signaturequilts, which is to say
different squares have the nameof a different person.
The squares on this quilt comefrom all over the eastern half
(16:04):
of the United States.
This is the network of theindividual for whom the quilt
was made.
The quilt then is in lieu of ahundred Get Well cards or a lot
of verbiage.
It stands at the center of anetwork, and if that doesn't
shape somebody's thinking, Idon't know what will.
And there are just a wholebunch of those kinds of stories.
(16:27):
Here's another story that Ithink is kind of fun.
There are some mid 19th centurychairs, a set of six chairs, in
the collection.
The bottom of each of the chairseats has the name of the maker
and the name Odessa, which ofcourse is the place from where
they came.
So the term Odessa on thebottom of the chairs tells us
(16:52):
that the chairs were made after1855, when the town changed its
name from Cantwell's Bridge toOdessa harkening to Odessa in
the Ukraine, which was a greatgrain shipment center.
And poor little Odessa inDelaware had kind of lost its
way in terms of being a grainshipping center and was trying
(17:14):
to recall some of that grandeur.
So these chairs made by alittle shop here in Odessa have
evidence on their turnings thatI had never seen.
And, as I say, I've been doingthis a long, long time and I
researched into that and Ibelieve that those chair parts
were made in by an automatedlathe we're talking mid 19th
(17:39):
century automated lathe, whichis a very rare piece of
industrial equipment.
And there was a town in NewJersey, appropriately called
Chairville, which no longerstands.
It was created when someinvestors built a factory in
1842 or 1840, established thetown and they started making
(18:00):
chair parts which they thenshipped to Philadelphia where
people bought them and assembledchairs.
Well, our guy in Odessa musthave bought his chair parts from
Philadelphia and they came fromChairville, new Jersey, which
is kind of just across theDelaware River but not
convenient to him.
I mean, he wouldn't have hadaccess to that kind of supply of
(18:22):
parts.
But you know, that kind of storyreminds us that people are
really connected in ways thatsurprise us.
They're connected by therailroad that came through.
They're connected by riverboats that went up to
Philadelphia and down.
They're connected by religiousorganizations.
They're connected becausethey've got to see people and
(18:44):
they're not many people betweenhere and 20 miles from here, so
that connection becomes one thatthey use all the time.
So there's another kind ofanecdote that comes from looking
at this stuff.
I hope the book has got enoughof those kinds of these are not
strange stories.
These are normal storiesdealing with objects in perhaps
(19:06):
strange ways.
You know, objects tellingstories.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
Debbie, given the book's focus on local history,
can you share a little bit ofthe efforts that the Historic
Odessa Foundation has made toinvolve the community in both
preserving and celebrating thisheritage?
Speaker 3 (19:20):
Oh, yes, well, we're very involved in our community.
In fact we rely on thecommunity.
The Historic Odessa Foundationis fully staffed by volunteers.
We only have two full-timestaff people here and we have
about a half a dozen part-timestaff people and the balance of
our operation is volunteers.
(19:41):
So you know they become veryinvolved in pretty much
everything that we do.
In addition to that, we do a lotof programming for the
community.
We consider ourselves acommunity resource, a cultural
resource for the area.
So you know we get peopleinvolved.
For instance, the local highschools have an art show here
(20:04):
every year and their students APart students work is on
exhibition in our visitor center, you know, for about a month,
and we do a lot of programminglike that.
We have an extremely activeschool tour program.
We do about 4,500 schoolchildren in the region and we
(20:26):
raise money for a scholarshipprogram to help with all of that
.
And we also have a membershipprogram that people can become a
member of the foundation, whichalso helps to support our
preservation and educationmission.
So there's a lot going on.
We cooperate with all the othernonprofits in the area.
Odessa has quite a fewnonprofit organizations within
(20:51):
the town limits, considering thetown is extremely small.
There's only a little over 300residents here, which is about
the same as it was in the 18thcentury.
So we're a tiny little townwithin a much larger community.
Now the MOT area, middletown,odessa, townsend area, of course
, is exploding.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
As we wrap up a little bit, can you tell us
where we can purchase a storiedpass?
Collections of Historic Odessa.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
You can purchase the book online at historicodessaorg
.
You can go to the website andmake arrangements.
You can pick it up here at ourvisitor center.
We're happy to mail it out toyou.
It's also, as I said, availableonline through Amazon and other
outlets and if you Google thetitle of the book, those outlets
(21:36):
will pop up for other placesthat you can buy it, and they
can find out all thatinformation at our website,
historicodessaorg.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
Debbie Philip, thank you so much for joining me today
and, as Debbie had mentioned,to learn more about the Historic
Odessa Foundation, visitwwwhistoricodessaorg.
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