August 2019 will mark the 50th anniversary of the mother of contemporary music festivals: Woodstock. Held over three days in 1969, the festival featured three-days of performances for folk and rock artists like Joan Baez, Janis Joplin, and Jimi Hendrix. The legacy of the festival was cemented by the Woodstock documentary and a song of the same name by folk luminary, Joni Mitchell. That’s a lot of talk about Woodstock when the festival wasn’t actually held there. Woodstock the event was actually held in Bethel, a neighboring town in upstate New York. Woodstock itself wasn’t even considered as a site for the festival. According to Woodstock the Oral History (1989) the only connection between the concert and the town is that the event’s promoters originally considered building a music studio in Woodstock, NY and incorporated under the name Woodstock Ventures. So what about the other Woodstock? Though it didn’t host the eponymous music festival, Woodstock, NY had been home to a thriving art colony since the early 1900s.
Category: History and Culture
This blog post was written by G. Goldberg, student at Smith College and Summer 2019 intern in the Smithsonian Libraries Research Annex. Interning at the Smithsonian Libraries Research Annex (SLRA) more »
This blog post is part of a series from Smithsonian Libraries highlighting Unearthed, a new collection of paleobiology literature in Biodiversity Heritage Library curated by Smithsonian Libraries in celebration of the opening of more »
Would you guess burglar alarms existed in the 19th Century? Though not as sophisticated as those of today, burglar and fire alarms did exist, as we can learn from this trade catalog.
This year, 2019, is the Smithsonian Year of Music, so how about looking at some music-related material in the Trade Literature Collection? In February, we highlighted mandolins and harmonicas. This month, let’s look at a trade catalog advertising harps.
Publications detailing how to survive any given situation pop up everywhere. Some are serious and fearful, others practical and common sense, and then there are those tongue-in-cheek and humorous. Wilderness more »
Some of us may be familiar with mixed-use developments in urban areas, towns, or even suburban locations. A store might be on the first level with upper levels devoted to housing. These types of buildings have been around for quite some time. Let’s go back to 1913, via this trade catalog, to see options available to residents and business owners in the early 20th century.