Month: September 2021

The Vanderbilt Mansion In Hyde Park, New York

If this 54 room home looks a little bit small for something with both “Vanderbilt” and “Mansion” in its name, maybe it’s because Hyde Park was just one of several houses Frederick and Louise Vanderbilt owned. They also had a New York City townhouse, of course, and at various times, a Newport, Rhode Island mansion (Rough Point, later owned by Doris Duke), an Adirondack camp (Pine Tree Point), and a Bar Harbor, Maine mansion (Sogonee, later owned by radio tycoon A. Atwater Kent).

Construction began in 1895, the same year that Frederick’s kid brother, George Washington Vanderbilt II, completed his modest 250-room summer house, the Biltmore Estate.

Columns!
Continue reading The Vanderbilt Mansion In Hyde Park, New York

Art and Design of the New York Central Railroad

The other fab Jazz Age exhibit at the Albany Institute of History and Art is Romancing the Rails: Train Travel in the 1920s and 1930s, which focuses on the New York Central Railroad.

It’s cool to see the original paintings for some of their now classic advertising posters. There’s also a lot of items from industrial designer Henry Dreyfuss’s work on the 20th Century Limited, “The Most Famous Train in the World.” Dreyfuss designed everything from the streamlined locomotives to the dinner plates.

Romancing the Rails is on display through February 2022.

Original oil on canvas painting by Walter L. Greene, c. 1927 (right), next to a printed poster used by the New York Central Railroad (left).
Original oil on posterboard painting by Chesley Bonestell, c. 1929.
Glassware (by Libbey) and ceramic dinner plate designed by Henry Dreyfuss for the 20th Century Limited, 1938.

Original designs for the 20th Century Limited’s cars by Henry Dreyfuss, gouache on paper, 1938.
Bar Lounge design for the 20th Century Limited by Henry Dreyfuss, gouache on paper, 1938.

Featured image: Observation Car design for the 20th Century Limited by Henry Dreyfuss, gouache on paper, 1938.

Jazz Age Adventurers: Fashion Edition

At the Albany Institute of History and Art: Fashionable Frocks of the 1920s showcases the adventurous dresses of the Jazz Age.

Silk Evening Coat, 1929.
Quintessential flapper dress in silk and rayon exemplified the “relaxed morals” of the decade.
Chiffon “Bab” dress, c. 1925, Paris.
If you couldn’t afford a Paris original, Montgomery Wards and other department stores provided fashionable alternatives.

Featured image: Silk dress with flower, worn by former Girl Driver of Hospital Truck, D.T.A. Cogswell.

DNA Study of Birds, Extinction, and Demography

This paper by Smith, Gehara, and Harvey was released earlier this year (currently behind a paywall): The demography of extinction in eastern North American birds. Supplementary material can be viewed here. The DNA study included passenger pigeon and four other extinct bird species.

From the abstract:

We found extinct species harboured lower genetic diversity and effective population sizes than extant species, but both extinct and non-extinct birds had similar demographic histories of population expansion. These demographic patterns are consistent with population size changes associated with glacial–interglacial cycles. The lack of support for overall population declines during the Pleistocene corroborates the view that, although species that went extinct may have been vulnerable due to low diversity or small population size, their disappearance was driven by human activities in the Anthropocene.

Reference: Smith BT, Gehara M, Harvey MG. 2021 The demography of extinction in eastern North American birds. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences Vol. 288, Issue 1944: 20201945.