Press Release: Pop-Up Museums Invite Community To Share Stories and Photos

For Immediate Release July 1, 2015

Contact: 
Tracy Huling, Founder/Director, tracy@hudsonprisonmemory.org
Tobi Jacobi, Collaborating Scholar, Tobi.Jacobi@colostate.edu

The Prison Public Memory Project announces that during three different days in July, 2015 we are holding pop-up museums in three different locations in Hudson, NY.  A pop-up museum is a temporary exhibit that invites the community to bring something on topic to share and contribute to the community-wide story.  

For 70 years, between 1904 and 1975, Hudson was home to the New York State Training School for Girls, once the largest reform school for girls in the United States, and one of the largest employers in Columbia County. Over the years, the school became an important site for new research in sociology and psychology. There were, however, accusations that the punishment practices — which included solitary confinement — were too harsh, and that “colored girls,” like famous jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald, who spent a year at the school, received unequal treatment and services. 

Conceived by Tobi Jacobi and Ed Lessor, visiting scholars from Colorado examining the Training School’s “hidden history,” these pop-ups invite the community to explore place, work and daily life, and the lives of some of the residents at the Girls Training School during the 1920s and 1930s. Participants can interact with historical artifacts such as photographs, letters, and institutional records on three tables in a hands-on museum-like setting. 

Visitors can also engage with the Training School's history in a variety of interactive drawing and writing activities led by Prison Public Memory Project staff and volunteers, and can tell and listen to others’ stories. Community members are invited to bring any of their own photos, documents, and other artifacts relating to the Training School or to the people who lived or worked there for temporary display on the museum tables. For those who wish to have a portrait taken with their artifact, a photographer will be available.

Cold drinks and cookies will be served each day as long they last. These are FREE events.  

When & Where

Thursday, July 9th
10 AM to 7 PM
Warren | Seventh (7th) Street Park
Theme: NYS State Training School For Girls: Exploring Place
Cost: FREE

Tuesday, July 14th
10 AM to 7 PM
Hudson Area Library
Theme: Life and Work at the NYS State Training School For Girls
Cost: FREE

Thursday, July 24th
10 AM to 7 PM
Promenade Hill/Parade Hill Park
Theme: Meet some of the girls who lived at the NYS Training School For Girls
Cost: FREE

Using history, art, and dialogue to engage people from all walks of life in conversation and learning about the role of prisons in society, the Prison Public Memory Project works with communities to discover, preserve, interpret and honor the memories of those who worked at and were incarcerated in correctional facilities. 

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For more information about these events, visit our new events page