The Evolution of Fashion from the ‘Teens to the Jazz Age
Saturday, October 5, 2024 at 1:00 PM to 2:30 PM
Holyoke Public Library Community Room
Join us as we journey through the styles of 1912, the WWI era, and the 1920s. Fashion Historian Ren Antonowicz will look at how war, the Jazz Age, Prohibition, and women’s newly-earned right to vote affected style and dress in these periods. Her talk will also discuss the impact of trends in fashion on women of different social classes.
Karen (Ren) Antonowicz received her Master’s Degree in Textiles, Fashion Merchandising, and Design, with a concentration in Historic Costume & Textiles, from the University of RI. She then taught fashion history and related courses full time at the college level for 13 years. Ren and her husband, Mike, also owned and operated Nostalgia Antiques & Collectibles in Providence, RI, for five years.
Ren continues to follow her passion for historic costume by conducting fashion history presentations and fashion workshops at libraries, senior centers, schools, historical societies, and historic homes. She and Mike now make their home in Vermont.
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New: The twice-monthly Genealogy Drop-in will now take place in the Computer Classroom! Each visitor will have their own workstation and access to expert advice from a professional genealogist.
2nd Wednesday (10/9): Hillary Schau 4th Wednesday (10/23): Hillary Schau & Iris Alicea Flores (4th Wednesdays include bilingual Spa/Eng help and Spanish-language resources)
The History Room across the hall will also be open for those whose research would be enriched by our maps, city directories, biographical files, church repertoires, and more.
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Join us as we journey through the styles of 1912, the WWI era, and the 1920s. Fashion Historian Ren Antonowicz will look at how war, the Jazz Age, Prohibition, and women’s newly-earned right to vote affected style and dress in these periods.
Missed the talk? View it here. Our thanks to Holyoke Media for recording it!
Considered by many to be the greatest American architect of the 19th century, Henry Hobson Richardson and his firm were commissioned to design more than two dozen railroad stations, many along the east-west line of the Boston & Albany Railroad. Only one, his 1885 Holyoke Passenger Station, was completed in his lifetime on the north-south line between New York and Montreal (the Connecticut River Railroad). When rail passenger service to Holyoke was abandoned nearly 80 years later, the station was altered into automobile parts and machine shops.
It sat empty for decades until local businessman David White bought the building in 2021, "tired of listening to people complain 'Someone should fix it before it falls down.'" His takeout restaurant and Choo Choo's Ice Cream shop will open on the site this Spring. Dave's friend Will Melton will tell the story of Richardson and this architectural commission.
This is Will Melton's third history talk for Holyoke Public Library. He retired in 2015 after four decades in university and museum fund raising to devote time to gardening, his mandolin ensemble, and history studies and writing. Liberty's War, An Engineer's Memoir of the Merchant Marine 1942-45, which he published in 2017, is available from U.S. Naval Institute Press, our library, and the C/W MARS library consortium.
A House in Holyoke Through Time: 159 Chestnut Street, a talk with Robert Comeau
The elegant building at 159 Chestnut turns 155 years old in 2023. It was once the home of James Newton of the entrepreneurial Newton brothers and later the Holyoke Club. It is currently the Holyoke Day Nursery. Come learn about the biography and residents of one of Holyoke’s oldest homes in this second annual “House through Time” presentation by local historian Robert Comeau. In the Community Room.
Missed the talk? View it here.
Blue Ghost: A helicopter pilot writes home from 1968 Vietnam
As a child, Holyoke native Tom Pueschel (1945-2019) dreamed one day of flying. What he didn’t know was that he would learn to fly, during his 423 days as helicopter pilot in the Vietnam War. His letters home, published in 2023, capture “a raw, unfiltered journey that navigates not just the perils of war but the emotional and ethical turbulence that comes with that.” Join us in on November 9 in the Community Room at 4:00 PM as Tom’s brothers and sons read from his letters and share stories of his life. A recording of this event is available here.
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