Major Exhibit including Thursday Night Lecture Series to Open at Historical Society: Doodles, Drafts, and Designs Industrial Drawings from the Smithsonian Collections Illustrate History of American Ingenuity

Doodles, Drafts, and Designs: Industrial Drawings from the Smithsonian Institution documents two centuries of American ingenuity and industry, from inventor's hand to investor's boardroom, from patent office to factory floor.

The exhibition opens October 29, 2005 in Troy, NY, at the Rensselaer County Historical Society (RCHS) and will remain on view through December 23. It will continue on an 11-city tour through 2006. Drawn from the rich collections of the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History and the Smithsonian Institution Libraries and organized by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES), the traveling exhibition encompasses familiar domestic and industrial icons as well as ideas that never got off the drawing board. The exhibition has been made possible by the support of Marsh Inc., the global risk and insurance services firm.

Seventy-four original pencil sketches, ink drawings on linen, notebooks, patent drawings, trade literature covers, and other documents illustrate well-known consumer products such as the Singer sewing machine, the Maidenform bra, and the Crayola crayon. Drawings related to large-scale construction projects ranging from New York's Grand Central Terminal to a hydraulic plant at Niagara Falls are also featured. Among the highlights of the exhibition are a patent drawing for a waterwheel dating from 1838 and a patent drawing of an airtight bowl and lid, which later became known as "Tupperware." Organized into four sections, with interpretive panels addressing how each artifact is used to explore, persuade, record, or explain, the exhibition illustrates American industrialization and the importance of visual records to invention and industry. A virtual version of Doodles, Drafts and Designs is available at www.sil.si.edu/exhibitions/doodles/.

Since 1871, Marsh has provided risk management, insurance-brokering and program-management services to businesses, public entities, professional-service organizations, private clients and associations. For more information about Marsh, go to www.marsh.com.

The Smithsonian Institution Libraries acts as both public and academic library, as scholarly resource and general information service. Its collections of 1.5 million volumes housed in 20 libraries include 40,000 rare books and manuscripts and the nation's largest collection of commercial trade catalogs.

The Smithsonian's National Museum of American History traces American heritage through exhibitions of social, cultural, scientific, and technological history. Collections are displayed in exhibitions that interpret the American experience from the Colonial times to the present.

The Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES) has been sharing the wealth of Smithsonian collections and research programs with millions of people outside Washington, D.C., for more than 50 years. SITES connects Americans to their shared cultural heritage through a wide range of exhibitions about art, science, and history, which are shown wherever people live, work, and play. Exhibition descriptions and tour schedules are available at www.sites.si.edu.

The Rensselaer County Historical Society (RCHS) is a dynamic, community-responsive educational organization that connects the importance of local history and heritage to contemporary life. Its purpose is to collect and preserve that history, using its collections and resources to connect the past to the present through a wide range of programs and activities. The RCHS is located at 57 Second Street in downtown Troy and operates two historic buildings - the Carr Building, RCHS headquarters and research library and the adjacent Hart-Cluett House (1827), historic house museum.

Doodles, Drafts, and Designs: Industrial Drawings from the Smithsonian Institution is being brought to RCHS by the sponsorship of Rensselaer's Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center, the Office of its President, and by its Schools of Architecture and of Humanities and Social Sciences. A special Smithsonian Community Grant has also been received to support a lecture series, It Starts with a Doodle, that will take place during the time the exhibition is on view. Four lectures will be offered to the public during November and December, expanding the impact of the exhibition. The Smithsonian Community Grant program, underwritten by the MetLife Foundation and administered by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Services (SITES), is used to strengthen the connections between museums nationwide and their communities.

The schedule for Doodles, Drafts, and Designs: Industrial Drawings from the Smithsonian is as follows:

The schedule for It Starts with a Doodle LECTURE SERIES is as follows:

Lecturers include Michael Oatman, Ray Fouche, and John Harrington.

» Logistical Info + Driving Directions from the RCHS website

Questions? Contact the RCHS:

Stacy Pomeroy Draper
Curator
spdraper@rchsonline.org
(518) 272-7232 x. 14
Rensselaer County Historical Society
57 Second Street
Troy, NY 12180