Spring 2020 - The Album

Spring 2020

LETTER FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Melissa Brown Tamara Bdour, Cheyenne Ketter-Franklin Rebecca Justinger, Barbara A. Seals Nevergold, Shannon M. Risk, Cynthia Van Ness Tuesday 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.

Wednesday 10 a.m. - 8 p.m.

Thursday-Saturday 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.

Sunday 12 - 5 p.m.

Closed Mondays Wednesday-Saturday: 1 - 5 p.m.

Extended Library Hours Wednesday Evenings: 6 - 8 p.m.

Closed Sunday, Monday, Tuesday Members: FREE Children Under 7: FREE Veterans: FREE Children (7-12): $2.50 Adults: $10, Students & Seniors : $5 Greg D. Tranter - President Cassie Irish - Vice President Mark L. Martin - Vice President Bill O’Donnell - Vice President Mark Taylor - Vice President Anne Conable - Secretary Brian Dempsey - Treasurer

The Buffalo History Museum is a private not-for-profit organization tax exempt under Sec. 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. We receive operating support from the County of Erie, the City of Buffalo, New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, and from donors, members and friends.The Buffalo History Museum is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums.

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“Ma would go to her bedroom, deliver the baby and be back in time to serve supper,” so quipped my Great Uncle Kelly in one of his remembrances of the old family homestead. “There were so many of us, they slept us in the dresser drawers and moved us down a drawer with each new addition.” Great grandmother Rose Augusta Wilhelmina Ganshaw conservatively spent a solid decade of her life pregnant - quick math my mother and I once tabulated in a hazy realization of a life experience we could hardly imagine.

Born in 1910, my Grandma Bertha, was her fifth child and third daughter. In eighth grade, young Bertha reached the end of her school days and formal education. She resented her forced withdrawal from school her entire life. From Cornell to military service, she watched her eight brothers, one by one, find their place in the world.

Knowing what I know now of my Grandma’s upbringing and this period in history, I recognize and appreciate the fire life’s experience lit within her.

I feel that same fire when I take in the faces and the stories of the local women both for and against women’s suffrage in our feature exhibit, Emblem of Equality. Imprisoned 30 days for picketing the White House, Margaret Fotheringham’s words remind me of my own grandmother’s struggle: I have two brothers who are to be in our fighting line.

They were not drafted; they enlisted. I am made of the same stuff that those boys are made of; and, whether it is abroad or at home, we are fighting for the same thing. We are fighting for the thing we hold nearest our hearts – for democracy.” (quote from Wilson April 2, 1917)

Actions of women like Margaret left an indelible impression on my Grandmother. When she came of age to vote, she did. She exercised that right each-and-every time. At the end of her life, when blindness and arthritis stole her distinctive signature, she signed her proxy with a pronounced “X.” The great-granddaughters she once fed Hershey kisses from her nightstand drawer are excited to exercise their right to vote for the first time in this year’s election. This is how it happens. This is how history is made.

With passion in her heart, Margaret recounted with confidence, “We shall never forget those stirring times. It was our great moment. The recollection lives very keenly in our minds.”

Her words eerily foreshadow the urgency of our endeavors.

Mind and memory are fickle. What if that 25-year-old Buffalo Public School home economics teacher’s (Margaret’s) “recollection” died with her?

Through her research and guest curation, historian Susan Eck saves Margaret and the legacies of other remarkable ladies from the brink of oblivion.

Look to your own family tree, the stories of your neighbors, the stories of our community- find the ‘Margaret’s. Find the stories that might otherwise be lost to time and honor them.

My gratitude to Humanities New York for their support of Emblem of Equality programming and this special issue of The Album.

All my best, Melissa N. Brown

Cover images (from left to right);

This newsletter was funded in part by Humanities New York with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this publication do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

-Shirley Chisolm, July 8, 1980. From the collection.

-Women march in suffrage parade, 1913. Courtesy of Ann Eger Thuman -Virginia Wolfenden, 1938. From the collection.

-Women's Wheel & Athletic Club members, Annette Rankin on the right. From the collection.

-Edith Ainge (left), from Jamestown. c. 1917. Courtesy of National Woman’s Party, Washington, D.C. -Spenser Lens Co. employee, Jean Pinski, operating assembly line drill press, January 2, 1943. From the collection.

-Curtiss-Wright Corp. female production workers. From the collection.

Winifred Claire Stanley

PAN-AM

3 DAYS

Chances are good that you may have never heard of one of the most important 20th century Buffalo women. Winifred Claire Stanley was born in New York City in 1909. The Stanley family moved to Buffalo when she was a child. After graduating from Lafayette High school, she attended the University of Buffalo and graduated at the top of her class from the UB law school in 1933.

“Discrimination against employees, in rates of compensation paid, on account of sex is hereby declared to be contrary to the public interest, and it is the policy of the United States, so far as practicable, to eliminate such discrimination.”

Stanley practiced law in a private office for a few years, and was appointed assistant district attorney in 1938; she was the first woman to hold this position in Erie County under the age of 30. In this role, she advocated for the inclusion of women on juries, which was later enacted into law. She also joined the Young Republicans Club that year.

In 1943, on the 20th anniversary of its introduction, Stanley joined efforts with Margaret Chase Smith to pass the Equal Rights Amendment.

In office, she sought a seat on the Judicial committee but faced opposition from male colleagues. Instead, she was appointed to the Patents and Civil Service committees. She supported US membership in the United Nations and worked to establish more veterans’ hospitals in upstate New York.

Most notably, Stanley continued to advocate for women’s rights. On June 19, 1944, Winifred Stanley became the first member of Congress in American history to introduce a bill requiring equal pay for equal work. Written as an amendment to the National Labor Relations Act, Stanley’s bill proposed this language:

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Cynthia Van Ness, MLS Director of Library & Archives

In 1942, Stanley was nominated to fill a Congressional seat that was slated to be eliminated due to redistricting. She was elected as a Republican to the 78th Congress (1943-1945), beating eight other candidates.

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It took another 20 years for the US to enact the Equal Pay Act of 1963.

After leaving Congress, Stanley joined Governor Dewey’s administration in New York, served as counsel for the New York State Retirement System, and later as an assistant district attorney in the New York State Law Department.

Throughout her career in Albany, she kept a house in Buffalo on Lancaster Avenue. She retired in 1979.

She was a member of the Erie County Bar Association, the New York State Bar Association, the Zonta Club, the National Association of Women Lawyers, the Erie County Republican Committee, and served as president of the Professional and Business Women’s Club of Buffalo.

Winifred Stanley died in 1996, a little-known pioneer of the women’s movement, and is buried in Mt. Olivet cemetery, Tonawanda.

ART AUCTION FUNDRAISER

MEMBERS $50 GENERAL $75 PATRON $150 includes VIP Reception

For more information contact Angelica Rodriguez at (716) 873-9644 x 318

buffalohistory.org

The poster from Stanley’s 1942 congressional campaign is part of our collection, and was donated by Mary Louise Stanley, whose husband, John, was Winifred’s nephew.

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PHOTO ALBUM- from the collection: EMBLEM OF EQUALITY

Suffrage Parade in Niagara Square, 1914

Louise Blanchard Bethune, first woman to become a professional architect .

Suffrage parade on Main Street, 1914

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Mary B. Talbert, civil rights activist, suffragist, and educator

Lafayette Hotel designed by Louise Blanchard Bethune, ca 1930

Larkin Women's Drum Corps, 1929

Housewives Division assembles at Niagara Square, 1913

Women working at Houde Engineering Plant, April 7, 1944

Two woman, one with a Pro-Equal Rights Amendment sign and one with an Anti-Equal Rights Amendment signs, August 26, 1977

PHOTO ALBUM

Buffalo Beauts Meet & Greet 1/17

Staff and Board of Managers tour the Richardson Olmsted Campus 1/24

Hidden in Plain Sight: Stained Glass in Buffalo with the Stained Glass Association of America 1/22

Tour with Delaware Park Living, 2/8

Maintenance on the Model Train Display, 1/28

President Lincoln’s Birthday Celebration with Buffalo Civil War Round Table and the Union Volunteers Fife and Drum Corps, 2/9

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SPOTLIGHT ARTIFACT ELIZABETH HEERDT DICKINSON C. Chandler Ross Oil on Canvas 1923 Donor: Karlyn Dickinson

Mrs. Dickinson was known as an excellent businesswoman.

Her combined energy, involvement in society, and business acumen enabled their business to expand from a small shop to one of the largest jewelry stores in the country. Elizabeth

Rebecca Justinger, Registrar

Dickinson grew the business through several moves to

Elizabeth Heerdt was born on November 30, 1838 in

so did her company. Her knowledge of gemstones made her

Hesse-Cassel, Germany and moved to the United States as

a nationally renowned diamond expert. Her husband passed

a child with her parents. She came to Buffalo at the age of 12

away in 1896 and Mrs. Dickinson continued as the head of the

and at 18, Elizabeth married Thomas Dickinson, a watch and

business, working with her sons and grandsons until her death

clock repairer. Upon their marriage, Thomas and Elizabeth

on Christmas Eve of 1931.

different locations along Main Street, and, as Buffalo thrived,

entered into a business partnership and his previous business

Ida Dora Fairbush,

became T&E Dickinson & Company, which would

Elizabeth Heerdt Dickinson’s oil portrait is currently exhibited

eventually become Buffalo’s oldest jewelry house.

in History Makers at the Museum.

accomplishments and the relentless advocacy of the Black

Educational Pioneer:

community. Her appointment took place 25 years after Buffalo

Buffalo’s First African American Teacher

the City’s only high school and five years following her graduation

By Barbara A. Seals Nevergold, PhD I first learned of Ida Dora Fairbush two decades ago. She was among the women whose biographies my colleague and I researched, documented and preserved through a project we named “Uncrowned Queens”. However, I only found slant information about Miss Fairbush. In spite of her significant success as Buffalo’s pioneer public school teacher in 1897, Ida’s narrative was largely unknown. Her history, like those of countless other Black women, was not fully documented in local history texts, educational curriculum or popular literature. A year ago, I decided to correct this omission.

schools were desegregated, eight years after she graduated from from Wilberforce University, the country’s oldest Historically Black College.

Immediately, she came under scrutiny and unquestionably was identified as the model for other Black women educators. She was singled out as the representative of the race and publicly reminded that her performance would be a yardstick against which other African American women would be measured. “As she is the first to be employed in the educational department of the city it rests with her to pave the way for many another educated women of her race.” Ida did not disappoint. For almost 40 years she held the mantle high. We are indebted to this pioneer, inspired by her story and hopeful that the brief history I’ve written has done justice to her legacy. Ida Dora Fairbush deserves a prominent place in Western New York’s regional

Born in 1869 to a family whose Buffalo roots date to the 1850s, Ida’s life was defined by educational scholarship, community involvement and family. The story of her employment by the Buffalo Public Schools was the result of her personal

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history. She broke barriers and did indeed “pave the way” for those who came after her.

Learn more at uncrownedcommunitybuilders.com

Photos courtesy of Ms. Phyllis Chase.

THE FINAL ACT: BUFFALO-AREA WOMEN BROUGHT CRUCIAL MOMENTUM IN THE LAST GENERATION OF SUFFRAGISTS

By Shannon M. Risk, Ph.D.

While New York City and Rochester suffragists weathered three generations before New York State recognized the women’s vote, the story of Buffalo-area women is one of slow momentum. The conservative, socio-political atmosphere of the region stymied significant political reform in the late 1800s; however, local women and their male supporters caught up to their contemporaries in other places, putting their full effort into the last suffrage battles in the early 1900s.1 The women’s franchise was officially instituted in all places by 1920, but some suffragists of color endured a longer battle to gain equal access to the ballot in the North and South. There was bifurcation in the suffrage ranks according to class and ethnicity. Wealthy white Buffalo and Niagara Falls women committed time and money to the state’s mainstream suffrage efforts, and women of color utilized their ties to the National Association of Colored Women to build a strong foundation for the civil rights movements – and other minority rights initiatives – to come. Wealthy white Buffalo women helped to significantly fund the last suffrage decade, and women of color breathed life into the promises of the Constitution. Black and brown women played the long game; and their tactics were often adopted by other rights groups in the 1960s and 1970s. Without reformers of color, however, so much of what seems like the template for mainstream agitation would not have occurred.

served as a catalyst to encourage the idea of the women’s vote in the region.

When the United States entered the First World War, American women’s war work also demonstrated their political worthiness to men. Part of National American Woman Suffrage Association President Carrie Chapman Catt’s “winning plan” strategy meant including suffrage material in every communique from women war workers. In New York State, it took two major referendums in 1915 and 1917 to bring the issue to a head. In addition, it took money. Once again, Buffalo women dug out their pocketbooks and contributed the third highest amount

What forces were in place in the early 1900s that brought about the rise of suffrage sentiment in the Buffalo area? By the turn of the century, a number of women’s clubs had flourished for at least a decade, along with local African American women’s leadership in the National Association for Colored Women.

From the Buffalo region, clubwomen became central agitators for the women’s vote. They had money and prestige, but lacked real political rights. More and more women attained high school and university-level education, which posed the question of how to make the best use of that advanced education. Some elite women wished to lend a hand to those less fortunate, while others sought to limit suffrage to those who were “educated,” which was often targeted language that meant to restrict immigrants, Native Americans, African Americans, and poor whites from the ballot. Some rich, white women, in other words, were outraged that poor men and men of color might vote and they could not.

of campaign funding in 1917.2 Some women from the Buffalo region, as part of an initiative by the National Woman’s Party, physically put their bodies on the line, protesting for their cause at the White House and around Washington, D.C., going to jail, or experiencing longer incarceration in the notorious Occoquan Prison in Virginia. In 1917, Buffalo Sisters Janet and Margaret Fotheringham, along with Amy Juengling and Hattie Kruger went to jail. Hamburg resident Mrs. Frederick W. Kendall also found herself detained in 1917. They joined a shocking 18-page list of women protestors hauled off to jail and prison, as noted in a retrospective written by Doris Stevens. The protesters exposed the hypocrisy of the U.S. government’s argument that Americans fought to “make the world safe for democracy.”

In 1908, after several years of requests from local suffragists, the National American Woman Suffrage Association held their annual convention in Buffalo. The national organizers demanded $10,000 in seed money to hold the convention there, and wealthy Buffalo women met this challenge. While some suffragists continued to build tentative alliances at this time between white and black, working-class, and immigrant women, the convention followed a familiar protocol where most speakers represented the upper echelons of society. Still, the convention

Once their vote was finally recognized, women reformers turned their considerable energies, knowledge, and resources towards other socio-political concerns in an attempt to actualize a more just society. Some pushed for long-term peace initiatives in the 1920s. Women of color continued their struggle to access theirs and African American men’s right to the ballot box, and to gain simple human dignity and bodily integrity in a time when Jim Crow dominated the American South. Meanwhile, the not-sosubtle “James Crow” institutionalized racism affected people

of color in the North. Some women agitated for the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment, composed by Alice Paul in 1923.

Catt and others formed the League of Women Voters to ensure that women understood the full breadth of their citizenship and political rights. Catt and former Buffalo suffragist Nettie Rogers Shuler published a summary of the final suffrage efforts, Woman Suffrage and Politics, in 1926.

In the Buffalo area, Mary Talbert rose to national prominence in the National Association for Colored Women, and helped to save the Frederick Douglass home in Anacostia, Maryland, as a museum. Helen Z.M. Rodgers, a lawyer, bridged the wealth-gap, striving to bring working-class women in the Women Worker’s League into the suffrage movement. Gertrude Tone of Niagara Falls ascended to leadership in the New York State Woman Suffrage Association, and spent considerable time speaking to groups around Erie and Niagara Counties for the cause. Buffalo Artist Evelyn Rumsey Cary created one of the most iconic posters of the suffrage movement, entitled Give Her the Fruit of Her Hands. Belva Lockwood, from nearby Royalton, forged a

high-profile legal career in Washington, D.C., famously running for president in 1884 and 1888, and securing a major court case victory for the Cherokee Nation.

The suffrage fight in the Buffalo region demonstrated that socio-political movements take time to permeate, are often intergenerational, and require coalitions in order to be effective.

The struggle for the vote encompassed many other reforms.

Furthermore, contemporary Americans can draw inspiration from the women and male supporters, who surely faced a monumental uphill battle. We can honor them today by carrying on the key tenets behind the right to vote: a recognition of a diverse citizenry that works towards bettering society for all members.

1 On the conservatism of Buffalo, see Brenda K. Shelton, “Reformers in Search of Yesterday: Buffalo in the 1890s” (PhD diss., SUNY-Albany, 1976), 23.

2 Ida Husted Harper, History of Woman Suffrage, Vol. VI (Indianapolis: Hollenbeck Press, 1922), 478, 482.

Dr. Shannon Risk is an associate professor of history at Niagara University where she teaches courses in progressive era U.S. history, Canadian studies, and public history, and manages the women’s studies and public history minors.

VISIT OUR NEW WEBSITE AT

BUFFALOHISTORY.ORG

Partnering with local business technology and web designer Helm Experience & Design, our new website is easier to navigate, find resources, purchase tickets for events, and explore our collection!

THANK YOU TO THE GENEROUS DONORS WHO MADE THIS WEBSITE POSSIBLE:

Charles D. and Mary A. Bauer Foundation - Conable Family Foundation of the Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo Cheryl Lyles and Steve Lakomy, M.D.

The Erie County League of Women Voters began in

Today, our local League serves the people of Erie

May 1919. The League of Women Voters of the United

and Niagara Counties. We produce an online Voters

States merged with the National Women’s Suffrage

Guide at Vote411.org with candidate responses to our

Association on February 14, 1920, six months prior

questions and conduct candidate forums and debates

to the adoption of the 19th Amendment that granted

in the community. The League hosts monthly programs

women the right to vote. The League has always focused

for the community related to important issues of the day

on educating citizens about important governmental

that are posted at our website: www.lwvbn.org. We are

issues, advocating for specific bills in the legislature

available to provide moderators and timekeepers for

and educating, registering and encouraging voting by all

local and school board elections. You may contact the

citizens. The League is strictly nonpartisan and never

League at lwvbn@lwvbn.org or by calling 716-986-4898.

supports any political party or candidate.

Membership in the local, state and national Leagues is open to anyone at least 16 years of age.

exhibit COMING SOON: White House / WNY In our nation’s history, 44 men have held the office of U.S. president. Of them, 32 have visited Western New York either before, during, or after their term. White House/

WNY features newspapers and objects pertaining

RESEARCH LIBRARY

to nine commanders-in-chief who have either visited Western New York or have deeper connections to the region. Subjects include Buffalo’s own Millard Fillmore and Grover Cleveland, as well as Theodore Roosevelt, William McKinley, William Howard Taft, and Abraham Lincoln. Featured artifacts include Lincoln’s life mask and walking stick and a guest register from William Henry Harrison’s 1840 election campaign.

The exhibit will be on display beginning March 31, 2020 in the Museum’s Community Gallery.

BOOKS PAMPHLETS LETTERS DIARIES PERSONAL PAPERS POSTCARDS & MORE library@buffalohistory.org Wed 1-5 p.m. & 6-8 p.m. thur, fri, sat 1-5 p.m.

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VISIT THE BUFFALO HISTORY MUSEUM SHOP

FOR VINTAGE AND BUFFALO THEMED MERCHANDISE

CELEBRATING 100 YEARS OF THE 19TH AMENDMENT

SHOP OPEN DURING REGULAR MUSEUM HOURS

BUFFALOHISTORY.ORG

IN HONOR OF THOSE WHO RALLIED FOR EQUALITY AT THE BALLOT BOX AND THE PEOPLE WHO ARGUED AGAINST IT.

CURATED BY SUSAN ECK SUPPORT PROVIDED BY:

ANNE CONABLE

IN LOVING MEMORY OF TWO CHAMPIONS FOR WOMEN: MARGARET STRACHAN GOUINLOCK, 1856 - 1906, AND CHARLOTTE WILLIAMS CONABLE, 1929 - 2013

JOHN AND CAROL KOCIELA C2 PAINT

-NEW ERA-

CELEBRATING THE COMPANY’S EVOLUTION AS A FASHION AND CULTURAL ICON

FRIDAY APRIL 17TH 6 - 8 P.M. VISIT BUFFALOHISTORY.ORG TO REGISTER.

Members $10; general admission $25; VIP $50.

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MARCH Sunday 3/8 | 2 - 4:30 p.m.

Jazz on 2nd Sundays: Brendan Lanighan Octet In partnership with the Buffalo Jazz Collective, Williamsville native trombonist and current Masters student at the Julliard School of Music, Brendan Lanighan, leads a performance of his original arrangements. Members $5; general $12.

Tuesday 3/17 | 5 - 8 p.m.

A Superhero Comes to Buffalo: The 'Real' Harriet Tubman Hosted by Uncrowned Community Builders, Dr. Kate Clifford Larson, bestselling author of three critically acclaimed biographies including Bound for the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman, hosts a discussion on Harriet Tubman. Topics will explore why her story resonates to this day.

Free to attend, reception begins at 5 p.m.

Wednesday 3/18 | 6 - 8 p.m.

A Conversation with Don Paul In partnership with Western New York Mensa, join Don Paul, longtime broadcast meteorologist whose career spanned WIVB, WGRZ, and WKBW, and Budd Bailey of Western New York Mensa for a Q&A discussion.

Members of the Museum and Western New York Mensa free; museum admission.

Wednesday 3/18 | 6 - 8 p.m.

Behind the Scenes Tour Join Walt Mayer, Director of Collections, on a behind the scenes tour of our collections storage facility, the Resource Center at 459 Forest Avenue, where our artifacts are cared for. Members free; general $10. Advanced registration required at buffalohistory.org; space is limited.

M&T Third Friday 3/20 | 10 a.m. - 8 p.m.

Free admission to the Museum and Resource Center at 459 Forest Avenue along with activities, tours, and more.

Visit buffalohistory.org for a schedule of activities.

Curator's Talk with Susan Eck | 6 - 8 p.m.

Buffalo historian and curator of the Museum's exhibit, Emblem of Equality: Woman Suffrage in Western New York, Susan Eck hosts a talk on women’s suffrage. Free to attend.

Sunday 3/29 | 2:30 - 4 p.m.

Marching with Aunt Susan In partnership with the Chromatic Club of Buffalo, musical performers will conduct a program inspired by the history of women’s suffrage. Free to attend; suggested donation of $10 to the Chromatic Club of Buffalo’s scholarship program.

spring PROGRAMS 2020

APRIL Wednesday 4/1 | 6 - 8 p.m.

Jack the Ripper in Western New York Author Michael Hawley discusses his new research on the Western New York connection to Jack the Ripper.

Members free; museum admission.

Wednesday 4/8 | 6 - 8 p.m.

Louisiana Purchase Exposition Lecture with Karl M. Kindt III Karl M. Kindt III hosts a lecture on his research regarding the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition.

Members free; museum admission.

Wednesday 4/15 | 6 - 8 p.m.

The ‘City is A-Wheel’: Buffalo’s Bicycling Women and Men of the 1890s Dr. Claire Schen hosts a discussion on cycling in Buffalo in the 1880s-1890s and women cyclists during this time period.

Members free; museum admission.

M&T Third Friday 4/17 | 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.

See 3/20 for details.

Giants of Buffalo: Fashion - New Era Cap Company 6 p.m. Reception; 7 p.m. Program Begins Giants of Buffalo celebrates individuals and organizations who have made extraordinary contributions to their vocation or industry. Stories of New Era Cap Company’s evolution as a fashion and cultural icon will be shared.

Register online at buffalohistory.org.

Members $10; General $25; VIP $50.

Wednesday 4/29 | 5 - 8 p.m.

Buffalo Cherry Blossom Festival Kickoff 5:30 p.m. reception; 6 p.m. program Kickoff the festival with a reception, kimono fashion show, and more! Free to attend. Visit buffalocherryblossomfestival.org for more information.

MAY Saturday & Sunday 5/2 - 5/3 | 11 a.m. - 3 p.m.

Buffalo Cherry Blossom Festival Celebrate spring at the Museum and in the Japanese Gardens with Music Is Art, Taiko drummers, dancers, vendors, activities, and pink boat rides! Free. For more information, visit buffalocherryblossomfestival.org.

Wednesday 5/13 | 6 - 8 p.m.

The Holland Land Company & the Development of WNY Ryan Duffy, executive director of the Holland Land Office Museum, will host a lecture on the Holland Land Company and its impact on the development of Western New York.

Members free; museum admission.

Friday - Sunday 5/15 - 5/17 | 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. & 12 - 5 p.m.

M&T Third Friday and Pan-Am Weekend Celebrate the anniversary of the 1901 Pan-American Exposition with free admission to both the Museum and our Resource Center at 459 Forest Avenue. Family friendly activities, tours and more. Visit buffalohistory.org for a schedule of activities.

Friday 5/15 | 2 - 4 p.m.

Behind the Scenes Tour Join Walt Mayer, Director of Collections, on a behind the scenes tour of our collections storage facility, the Resource Center at 459 Forest Avenue, where our artifacts are cared for. Free as part of M&T Third Friday. Advanced registration required at buffalohistory.org; space is limited.

Friday 5/15 | 6 - 8:30 p.m.

21st Annual Paint the Town Paint the Town features original artwork by artists with strong ties to Western New York in a live and silent auction.

Members $50; General $75; Patron $150.

Contact Angelica Rodriguez, Membership and Events Coordinator, at (716) 873-9644 ext. 318 for tickets, sponsorship opportunities, or more information.

Wednesday 5/20 | 5:30 - 7:30 p.m.

Annual Meeting of Membership All members of the Museum are welcome. A Membership Appreciation Reception immediately follows Annual Meeting.

RSVP to Director of Operations, Robin Foley at rfoley@buffalohistory.org.

On social media? Follow us!

The Buffalo History Museum @buffalohistorymuseum @BuffaloHistory

*Dates and times subject to change

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