Hillsdale in the 1930s - A Swinging Town
TWO NEW VIDEOS!
SEE HILLSDALE AS IT WAS IN THE 1930'S! ~ Watch it Right here on YouTube!
The newly edited film compilation - Hillsdale in the 1930s - A Swinging Town will be of great interest to local residents, history buffs, fans of vintage films and swing music alike!
The original film footage of Hillsdale and environs shot between 1936 and 1938 by an unknown, yet talented amateur filmmaker, was given to Palmer Vincent, Hillsdale’s Town Historian at the time. Vincent preserved the film and passed it down to his grandchildren, Doug, Ron and Susie Vincent, who enjoyed it as children and later recognized the film's value as an important visual record of life in Hillsdale during the "Swing Era".
Fast forward to the present, when Palmer Vincent’s grandkids had the foresight to share the virtual time capsule with Hillsdale documentarians Julia Brandi and Marilyn Herrington, who, working with skilled editor Elizabeth Wilder Elm, transformed this silent footage into a 22-minute documentary set to a foot-tapping soundtrack of swing tunes written and performed by such greats as the Dorsey Brothers, Bing Crosby, and Irving Berlin.
Join us on November 2nd and travel back in time to savor life as it was lived nearly 90 years ago. A time when automobiles and horse-drawn vehicles still coexisted, when farms were plentiful, and passenger trains made regular stops at the Hillsdale station. A time when scores of school buses delivered students to the new and stately Roeliff Jansen Central School, and when the frozen Milk Pond off Anthony Street provided a winter’s harvest of ice for all of Hillsdale. And see how, despite America’s Great Depression, the close-knit community of Hillsdale flourished and the town thrived.
Hillsdale in the 1930s - A Swinging Town was produced by Ron Vincent, Julia Brandi and Marilyn Herrington, edited by Elizabeth Wilder Elm, and funded and supported by The Rheinstrom Hill Community Foundation & The Roeliff Jansen Historical Society
The RJHS presents a newly re-built video about Copake farming history!
1700 VIEWS ON YouTube! (as of April 1st 2025)
It's 1990, and amid many ominous signs, the last 25 functioning farms in Copake — farms that have been the backbone of the regional farming industry for over one hundred years — are struggling to survive, and to adapt to rapidly changing conditions and ever-shrinking profits. And no one knows how this story will end.
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1990 is the year that journalist and RJHS co-founder Elinor Mettler, assisted by Copake Town Historian Polly Langdon, conceaved of a short documentary about the state of farming in the Copake area at that pivotal point in time. The original program has now been completely rebuilt and remastered using all the original photographs and other elements that Mettler had assembled for incorporation into the her production. The result is a vastly improved viewing experience of this important document.
The video is a unique virtual time capsule of the farming industry of Copake in the late 20th century and a valuable resource for anyone involved in the dairy or cattle farming industry in this area over the past 50 years. Today, the Copake community can enjoy "A Changing Scene" just as Elinor Mettler and Polly Langdon originally intended.
And speaking of farming and farmers, you'll want to read this stirring tribute to the American farmer from exactly 80 years ago, published in Life Magazine during WWII, by the Maytag Corporation, in February 1944.
IMAGES FROM OUR 2024 SUMMER EXHIBITION
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