April
news & updates
4/21 Issue 5
Seeking Volunteer Docents

Looking for a great way to meet new people and learn something new? The East Hampton Historical Society is seeking volunteer docents to interpret our historic sites to the visiting public. Duties include creating intellectual and emotional connections to the exhibits for our visitors by walking visitors through the exhibits, and creating positive learning experiences for the visitors, answering questions as needed. 
Training will be provided to learn about the historic artifacts, exhibitions and historic content of the sites.

We are seeking docents for the East Hampton Marine Museum, which will be open Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays 11am-3pm. If you’re able to volunteer for one shift, or for multiple shifts, we are interested in you!

If interested, please email Marianne Della Croce.  
East Hampton Lil’ Explorers
Family Drop-In Program for Summer Fun!

Drop over to Mulford farm for some "historic" adventures with the Society's education team.

Each day will explore a different theme full of activities, games, and education. All supplies are included, and there is no charge for accompanying adult.


Monday – Young Writers: Ready to earn the Nobel Prize for Literature? Start here! On Monday, August 2nd, we will make our own journals and write a story using historic photos as our prompts. We will also be making our own invisible ink to write secret messages to our friends!

Tuesday – Forces of Nature: Unleash your outdoor curiosity! On Tuesday, August 3rd, we will explore a historic garden and have the chance to sow some seeds there! We will also take a nature walk, create a suncatcher from what we find, and learn about the ecosystem in our own backyard.

Wednesday – Games Galore: On Wednesday, August 4th, play games like East Hampton Kids of yore! Try your hand at rolling a hoop and making your own whirligig! Practice your hand at playing marbles and jacks too.

Thursday – Time Travelers: It’s not your parents’ summer program, but we will be doing activities like they did when they were kids waaaaaay back in the 1980s! On Thursday, August 5th, we will create your own magnetic tetris puzzle, design tubular 80s shades, and make individualized lanyards. Totally rad, dude!

Friday – Concoctions and Potions: End the week with our ice cream party! On Friday, August 6th, we will stir, shake and mix common household items for a sweet snack or two (contains dairy).  Stir up your own tornado in a quick science project too. 

August 2-6, 2021
9:30am-12pm
$15 Future Members per day
$10 Members per day
Curator's Corner
Springtime often explodes with a burst of flowers as an overture for Easter, always in an abundance of fresh yellows. This huge Staffordshire platter reflects the enthusiasm that early 19th century customers had for displays of blossoms. Though in the Oriental taste for blue and white, the roses, bellflowers, periwinkles and a single poppy, are exuberantly overflowing out of their urn and hardly need extra colors. Dating from around 1825, this pottery serving plate is completely covered with flowers in panels and borders. The design is created by a transfer printing technique that replaced the need for skilled painter-decorators. Huge sets of this pattern could be made for less cost, therefore, making decorated ceramics affordable to a wilder public. This platter is surely large enough to hold an Easter baked ham.

William Efner Wheelock’s summer cottage “Bonack Acres,” one of the earliest Shingle Style cottages built here in 1891, still sits on an ancient dune, well back from Georgica Road. This architectural style was influenced by early New England farmhouses. To furnish Bonack Acres the Wheelocks collected antiques from the old Main Street families on Main Street. The 1880s was the beginning of the craze for collectecting American Antiques. The Wheelocks lived with their collections. They sat in their Dominy chairs and kept their socks in a Chapin tall-chest. This beautiful platter was part of their collection, and it served as a centerpiece for countless dinners.

The Wheelock collection was one of the largest and finest gatherings of local artifacts on Long Island. William E. Wheelock’s son, John Hall Wheelock, gave the entire contents of their cottage to the East Hampton Historical Society. The rarest pieces were displayed in 1978 at Clinton Academy and can be seen at our Mulford Farmhouse every summer.
Virtual Book Club: A Day Like Any Other: The Great Hamptons Hurricane of 1938 by Genie Chipps Henderson

Join the EHHS for their virtual Book Club as they explore A Day Like Any Other: The Great Hamptons Hurricane of 1938 a novel by Genie Chipps Henderson on May 13 at 7:00pm on Zoom.

This is a thrilling story of a day that began much like any other at the ragtag end of the summer season on the eastern end of long island - better known as the Hamptons. The Storm, coming without warning, caught the summer colonists and locals alike off guard as it made landfall at 3:00pm. It brought with it unprecedented wind, rain, and waves so powerful they were recorded on seismographs 5000 miles away in Alaska.

Henderson's skillful storytelling is based on carefully researched facts and woven into an amazing story with compelling characters.

Historic photos and research with be shared by the Author who will be joining the discussion, as well as items from the Society's archive.

If you have any photos you would like included, please email info@easthamptonhistory.org.



Thursday, May 13, 2021
7:00pm
No charge
In case you missed the Virtual Winter Lecture Series - When Neighbors Were Neighbors: Character Studies by Cornelia Huntington 1803-1890, from Her Diary with Barbara Borsack and High King!

This special live Zoom event takes virtual visitors on a tour of world famous artist studios — national landmarks located in East Hampton, New York. Doors virtually open to the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center at 4pm, and then participants visit the Thomas and Mary Nimmo Moran Studio at 4:30pm on guided tours using Zoom. There is no charge, but registration is required.

Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center
with Education Coordinator, Joyce Raimondo

Education Coordinator, Joyce Raimondo will virtually guide visitors through Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner's home and studio - a national landmark located in East Hampton, New York. Discover creative ways Pollock and Krasner expressed their feelings with paint. Discuss the art displayed in their home and explore the barn studio filled with paint splatters -- evidence of their masterpieces.

Pollock is best known for applying house paint from sticks onto canvases placed on the floor of his barn studio. He walked around all four sides of the paintings as he created imagery that captures movement and energy. Krasner, also an abstract painter, is known for her innovative technique of cutting up earlier work to create new painting/collages.

THOMAS & MARY NIMMO MORAN STUDIO
with Chief Curator, Richard Barons

Join Chief Curator, Richard Barons, on a virtual tour of the Thomas & Mary Nimmo Moran Studio - national historic landmark, located in East Hampton, New York. In 1884, Moran built the first artist's studio in East Hampton which marked the beginning of the village as an artist's colony. The Moran Studio has been described as "a quirky, Queen Anne style-studio cottage.” Thomas Moran is widely known for his landscape paintings of the Rocky Mountains, and Mary Nimmo Moran for her landscape prints, particularly her etchings.

Wednesday, May 12, 2021
4:00pm
No charge