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Victorian Vanities, Inc.

Preparing for the Future by Learning About the Past

NEWSLETTER
APRIL 2013

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Victorian Vanities, Inc.

2901 Wood Pipe Lane Unit A

Philadelphia, PA 19129

215-844-1919

www.victorianvanities.org

A Federally Qualified Non-Profit Corporation

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April 2013

September 2012

June 2012

Tom and Huck go to Camp Prepares for its Sixth Season

From the Desk of the Executive Director-
A few Thoughts on Historic Preservation

Victorian Vanities has decided not to abandon its successful Tom and Huck go to Camp summer program. When we made this announcement last year, we were met with surprise and of course, disappointment. We were not quite aware of the many friends we had made with our quality programs and reasonable prices. So after much thought and deliberation, we have decided to bring this program back but with several changes.

The cut was made because after five years of children’s programming, we were losing money on every show. There did not look as if there was any hope of ever breaking even, and grant money did not seem to be on the horizon. We decided that this was not a profitable business model and our donors were drying up because they were not seeing us become profitable.

This year the program is coming back but with several changes. We have hired a former teacher, Gabrielle Rocaboy, to re - invent this program. There are no more costumes and the workshops cover things like art , science and dance. Programs are no longer limited to the Victorian Era although they do have a strong connection to history and how we fit into that history. The cost of the programs has also increased from $99 to $150.

The biggest changes have come in marketing. Previously, playgrounds and recreation centers would receive five mailings per year and then four telephone calls over a period of three months, April, May and June. Now, they will receive a series of four e - mails starting in April, and we will not call them to ask them to enroll in a workshop. If a playground or recreation wants a workshop, they will need to come to us to ask for one. Also, all of our workshops have been revamped to use as few materials as possible. While this may lead to fewer workshops being performed our feeling is this: In our best year we did thirty workshops for the July August season. In our worst year, we did eleven. We have come to believe that there probably isn’t a market that will support more than thirty workshops in any given summer.

Thus, any workshops that we do is a plus for us. It is our hope that we may receive donations for the materials that are needed for these workshops. In the event that grant money is not forthcoming, we have priced our programs, so that this is taken care of. If you would like to schedule a workshop, then please call us at 215-844-1919.

On May 18th, I will finally be getting the long awaited certificate in Historic Preservation from Bucks County Community College. For those of you who don’t know, Bucks is only one of two schools in the Philadelphia area that offers this designation. The other one is the University of Pennsylvania. Because of this, I’ve had to do a lot of thinking about how and why Historic Preservation is integral and important to what we do.
Historic Preservation is an important mechanism for conserving the past and the physical, cultural and shared experiences in it. History is a dynamic vessel for human and cultural diversity, both individual and collective. Victorian Vanities preserves American History through modern day oral history by telling the stories of our past. Through visual representations, stories and artifacts, we provide a look back into where we came from, how we got to be where we are, and the events that have shaped our cultural identity.

In our most popular presentation, Ten Unforgettable stories that History Forgot, we look at an ancient indigenous city that was larger than any other city north of Mexico five hundred years before Columbus arrived. We also look at the story of the wreck of the Sultana, largely forgotten because the day before everyone was talking about the death of John Wilkes Booth. And we look at the story of the Peshtigo Fire, which killed more people by fire than any other fire in the United States before or since. This fire is largely forgotten because it occurred on the same day as the Great Chicago Fire. I had the privilege of meeting people from Peshtigo who actually told me what the town was like today. And so I make a comment here, that this fire in Peshtigo defines the town, just as the Yellow Fever epidemic defines the city of Philadelphia. So what do we remember about our history? What are the stories that we will be talking about in fifty years? And who is giving us our most important stories?

Every performance given by Victorian Vanities acts to preserve history by chronicling the deeper and unknown past with the archetypes of modern, standardized, accepted histories. Imparting these historical fragments to people brings collective cultural histories back to life to be experienced and shared once again. This collective reliving of the past helps people to reconnect with their own pasts and maintain familiarity with themselves and their own experiences.

We do a show called 10 Astounding actions Earning a Medal of Honor. In November I was asked to be the featured speaker at the special presentation that Twining Village holds for its veterans on Veteran’s Day. I am always humbled when people come to my show wearing their medals. We do a show called 10 Little known events in WWII. One man gave me sheet music on the Ni-hau incident. He had the music because he was there.

We do some shows on Weird Pennsylvania and Weird New Jersey. I have promised myself that I would visit these places as I do the shows. I have found that once visited, the conversation changes with regard to what these places are about. For example, I used to talk about the grave of Ray Tse, a man who created a life-size replica of a Mercedes-Benz in concrete as his gravestone. Before seeing this grave I would emphasize its oddity and how some people have more money than sense. After seeing the grave, I emphasize the beauty of the work, and how well it sits on its plot. It’s also an opportunity to talk about land use and what it means to preserve in today’s economy.