New Concept in Open Air Museums Opens in New Lebanon, N.Y.
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NEW LEBANON, N.Y. — BEHOLD! New Lebanon, a new type of living museum that celebrates and explores contemporary rural American life, has scheduled its first weekend of activities, Aug. 29-Sept. 1.
Located in this rural Columbia County community in upstate New York, BEHOLD! New Lebanon is a museum without walls, comprising a wide – and variable -- range of venues and guides representing rural America as it exists today.
More than 50 country guides invite visitors into their homes and work spaces, where they practice cooking, farming, cattle raising, automobile racing and mechanics, furniture-making, and much more. The guides are not costumed docents recalling old-world skills - they are actual townspeople.
The museum is the idea of historian and social activist Ruth J. Abram, founding president of Manhattan’s Lower East Side Tenement Museum, which honors America's immigrants. A resident of New Lebanon, Abram brought the Behold! New Lebanon concept to regional residents, who responded enthusiastically with ideas and an outpouring of support.
The result, BEHOLD! New Lebanon, features programs that take place over four weekends: Friday-Monday, Aug 29 -Sept 1; Friday-Sunday, Sept 12-14; Friday-Monday Oct 10-13; and Friday-Sunday, Oct 31-Nov. 2
“BEHOLD! New Lebanon challenges stereotypes about rural life and expands the concept of the museum,” Abram said. “Contemporary rural American living has been energized by young people determined to model an environmentally sensitive way of life. In opening our homes, farms, garages, barns, fields and forests, we will share our delight over our lifestyle, and over the skills we have acquired in order to be successful country people, and communicate the values underlying our choices.”
These values include the importance of conservation, historic preservation, family and community life, farm-to-table cooking, and other contemporary ideals.
Donors have made it possible to offer reasonably-priced ticket packages. Donors include Judith Grunberg, Chuck and Deborah Royce, Mike Benson, Francis Greenberger, Monte Wasch, and Robert Webber, as well as organizations and businesses such as Columbia County Tourism, Hudson Valley Greenway Communities, Berkshire Bank, Hudson River Bank & Trust Co. Foundation, Lebanon Valley Speedway, Shed Man, Stewart Shops, photographer Uli Rose and personal weather forecasting app Poncho.
More information can be found at www.beholdnewlebanon.org.
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