January brings the full Wolf Moon, named for wolf packs circling icy villages, howling out in the night. Join us for the Wolf Moon with a short, illuminated walk in the woods of the Woestyne. Afterwards, we’ll make a fire in the Inn’s historic fireplace, and storytellers will share colorful tales from our area. Warm drinks will be served to fight off the night’s chill. Admission is $10 for non-members, and $5 for members.

This virtual program is part of our Winter Speaker Series, and will be presented on Zoom. A Zoom link will be emailed to all current SCHS members before the program. Anna Mazurkiewicz, historian and deputy dean at University of Gdańsk, Poland, will discuss her recent book “A Man in the Room Where It Happened: The Cold War Odyssey of William J. Tonesk.” Bill Tonesk was a Polish-American Schenectadian who served in the US Intelligence service (CIA) during the Cold War. Mazurkiewicz will unveil Tonesk’s role in some of the pivotal moments in US-Polish relations, uncovering a narrative of passionate love, risk, glamor, and secrecy.  She will also examine how support from Polish American organizations was instrumental in Tonesk’s success.

In this fiber art workshop, we'll create our own colorful, textured, embroidery garden. Artist Mallory Zondag will teach us a variety of embroidery stitches that can be used to create everything from stems and leaves to hydrangeas, roses, daisies, and even fringe moss! No experience required. All materials included in the cost. Students will leave with a 6" hoop, assorted embroidery threads, and an embroidery needle to be able to continue their project on their own time. We'll have a few historical embroidery pieces from our collection on display for inspiration! About the artist/instructor: Mallory Zondag is a mixed-media fiber artist and artist educator. Her experience with textiles while in art school led her to create both independent and community sculpture through a variety of fiber art mediums. She explores deeply personal and connective universal stories through the meditative and hands-on practices of wet felting, weaving, sculpting, and stitching, seeking to bring the ephemeral into physical being. The growth and decay of the natural world, the duality of discomfort and attraction we feel towards it, and humanity's place within this dichotomy informs her dimensional textures and sculptural pieces. Zondag’s work has been exhibited at The Banana Factory, Bethlehem, PA; The Allentown Art Museum, PA: The International Biennial of Textile Art Scythia, Ukraine; View Arts and Culture Center, Old Forge, NY; Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, CA; Cornell University, Ithica, NY; Towson University, MD; Ceres Gallery, NYC, NY: and Main Street Studio, Ballston Lake, NY. She has been an Artist-in-Residence at Acadia National Park, The Allentown Art Museum, and The Wassaic Project, Wassaic, NY.

The museum is home to rare and mysterious artifacts that seldom see the light of day. We’ve combed through them all to find only the most bizarre, which we will present to you in our Cabinet of Curiosities! A costumed storyteller will regale you with the tales of these precious objects, and of the distant past from which they came. Guests will be invited to touch the artifacts for themselves, feeling any power they may emanate. Guests will also enjoy warm cider after the tales, while prowling around the Museum at dusk! This program is geared towards families, but guests of all ages are welcome! This program is free for SCHS family+ members, but RSVP required. Non-members are $10/person. All ticket sales are final.

This virtual program is part of our Winter Speaker Series, and will be presented on Zoom. A Zoom link will be emailed to all current SCHS members before the program. Johan Varekamp, professor at Wesleyan University, will discuss “The Life and Times of Adriaen Block: Dutch Explorer, Mapmaker, and Fur Trader.” Adriaen Block (c. 1567–1627) was a Dutch explorer and merchant known for his voyages in the early 1600s that helped map parts of the northeastern United States. In 1614, Block became the first to document Manhattan and the surrounding waters as an archipelago. His explorations provided valuable geographic knowledge, and he played a key role in establishing Dutch trade in the region, particularly in the fur trade with Indigenous peoples. His ship, the Onrust ("Restless"), was the first European vessel built in the Americas.

This virtual program is part of our Winter Speaker Series, and will be presented on Zoom. A Zoom link will be emailed to all current SCHS members before the program. Kieran O’Keefe, assistant professor of history at Lyon College will discuss his recent work, “When Did New York Stop Speaking Dutch? The Persistence of the Dutch Language in Old New Netherland.” Despite their short-lived enterprise on the East Coast, the Dutch made a long-lasting impression. In addition to their cultural legacy, the Dutch language held on stubbornly across the region for a long time. When did New York stop speaking Dutch? The answer will surprise you.

For Black History Month, we're opening up the archives for a series of presentations and displays on the following topics, related to local Black history. We hope to see you! -Union College Special Collections -Jerry Burrell Arts Collaborative -African American Burial Ground at Vale -SCHS Collections -Schenectady African American Historical Records Project - Screening of  a new MLK documentary from PBS - Screening of our "History Erased" documentary