Video Preview: Historical Society exhibit on local women trailblazers delayed by pandemic
May 27, 2020 | Cheryl Casey
Waterbury Women tells the story of 20 noteworthy women in the town’s history including Orrilla Somerville O’Clair (1896-1957), who was a local trailblazer as a business owner, village trustee, artist and poet. Screenshot.
One hundred years ago as the Waterbury community emerged from the grief and horror of the flu pandemic, it witnessed yet another century-defining moment: the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Today, as another pandemic ranges across the country and world, Waterbury Historical Society Museum Curator Jack Carter is determined to honor the suffrage movement and the inspiring women of Waterbury.
The exhibit, “Waterbury Women: Stories & Inspiration,” curated by Carter, was set to open in the Steele Community Room at the Waterbury Municipal Building on March 26. But Vermont’s response to the COVID-19 virus outbreak in mid-March resulted in stay-at-home directives and the closure of public buildings, putting the opening on indefinite hold.
That’s when Carter started thinking about ways to engage the community with the exhibit. The result has been a video series that gives viewers highlights in the lives of each of the 20 women featured in the exhibit. Three episodes have been posted to the Historical Society’s YouTube and Facebook pages, with three more in production.
Carter’s hope is that the videos will generate interest in the exhibit for when people are again permitted to visit the Municipal Building. “There is more to each woman, live, at the exhibit,” Carter said.
“The videos enhance the exhibit…once we can get in to see it! They tell a slightly different story of each of the Waterbury Women and that makes it interesting,” said Laura Parette, who both helped Carter with the exhibit and is also one of the featured women.
Carter’s idea for the exhibit stemmed from his desire to commemorate the ratification of the 19th Amendment in some way. “I didn’t have much information on Waterbury women who were suffragettes,” he explained, but he did remember a 2007 library scrapbook project that celebrated Waterbury women. This scrapbook became the basis for the exhibit. “I thought it was a good way to highlight women that people know or knew in town in the last hundred years,” Carter said.
Marjorie Luce (1894-1989), who spent her career with the University of Vermont Extension Service, is featured in the Waterbury Women exhibit. Screenshot.
The original 2007 scrapbook project was coordinated by Erin Mooney, a member of the Library Commission at the time, and then-librarian Mary Kasamatsu. Family and community members contributed pages, filling the book with the stories of 35 Waterbury women. Carter explained that he then chose 20 whose stories interested him the most for the 2020 exhibit.
A number of community members helped Carter put the exhibit together. Dave Mason did the carpentry work to mount hollow-core doors on risers. Parette, a graphic designer, produced high-quality scans of the scrapbook pages for Catamount Color, in Essex, to print on foam board.
Once the exhibit opens to the public, visitors will be able to see the original scrapbook with all 35 women featured. They can also take a blank page and write a story for a new scrapbook edition of inspirational Waterbury women.
If permitted, Carter plans to hold an opening reception to welcome the public to the exhibit. For him, a highlight of the reception would be having “the relatives and friends who knew these ladies come and talk about them in person.”
As one of those ladies, Parette said she feels “honored and humbled, as I did back in 2007. I love Waterbury, volunteering, and all the friends that I have met over the 30 years Bob and I have lived here. It is a special place and a special exhibit.”
No date has been set yet for the exhibit’s opening.
Cheryl Casey is an associate professor of communication at Champlain College. She is producing the Waterbury Women video series and lives in Waterbury Center.