Rescheduling and looking forward to our 40th Annual General Meeting in 2025
Please note that our next in-person meeting has been rescheduled for October 24-26, 2005. Join us for our 40th “Ruby” anniversary next October!
With Covid (twice) in one year, efforts to build a full program for 2024 have been hampered. We work hard to organize full schedules for our in-person meetings, and are very excited about our 2025 meeting in cooperation with Wake Forest University and The Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts (MESDA) and Old Salem, in Winston-Salem, N.C. For the first time in many years, the ’25 Annual General Meeting on Saturday will fall precisely on October 25, St. Crispin’s Day, making for a memorable gathering indeed.
Curator’s Tour
In addition to our formal presentations, the highlight of the weekend will be a special curator’s tour of MESDA’s important collection of 18th and 19th century shoemaking tools (some belonging to a shoemaker working there), shoes, and time to tour the Old Salem Museums & Gardens. This is a wonderful opportunity to get a first-hand look at one of the most important collections of early shoemaking tools in the United States today.
About the Venue
“The Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts (MESDA) is the preeminent center for the research and study of Southern decorative arts and material culture. MESDA is home to the most comprehensive collection of southern decorative arts and related research resources in the country. The museum is internationally recognized for its contributions to the study and understanding of the history, decorative arts, and material culture of the American South.
MESDA is part of Old Salem Museums & Gardens, a unique living history site that shares the rich, authentic, and diverse cultural history of the early South—with special emphasis on the Moravians in North Carolina, enslaved and free people of African descent, and indigenous peoples of the Southern Woodlands—through the preservation and interpretation of material culture, architecture, and cultural landscapes. Its museums—the Historic Town of Salem, the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts (MESDA), and the Gardens at Old Salem—are quickly becoming nationally known for innovative and novel interpretive models and programs,” mesda.org.
Early Call for Papers and Presentations
Get out your PowerPoint and start planning early – we welcome submissions for presenting an in-person or virtual illustrated talk, pre-recorded video, live workshop, or remote hands-on demonstration. Presentations will be hosted in-person at Wake Forest University and virtually via Zoom, enabling members from across the country and around the world to contribute their research, knowledge and expertise. Please contact Al Saguto dasaguto@widowmaker.com. We look forward to your creative input for this special 40th Annual General Meeting!
For 2024, we will hold a brief Zoom AGM on Saturday, October 26, which will include our normal business meeting, possibly Zoom cocktail hour in lieu of our annual “Feasting & Drinking”, or showing of some classic HCC videos from days gone by! HCC dues-paid members will receive the Zoom link via email.