Please visit Weaving Hopes and Prayers at the following exhibitions:

Erie Art Museum
"Boundaries: Book Arts Between the Traditional and the Experimental"
October 10, 2006 through January 5, 2007
Visit the Musem Online
 
Erie County Historical Society
"Weaving Hopes & Prayers: Five Generations of Strong Women"
October 26, 2006 through April 14, 2007
Visit the Historical Society Online

Weaving Hopes and Prayers:
The Exhibition consists of wall-mounted photographs and historical ephemera dating from the 1860s to the present. Old letters, newspaper clippings, political campaign buttons, diaries, formal portraits — including cartes de visite, snapshots, and early Polaroid photographs—illuminate each woman's era in American history.

Margaret, who was born in 1848, kept journals over a sixty-year period during which she reveals deep feelings of love for her husband and lasting sorrow for the death of loved ones. She records daily activities in her home and village and comments on contemporary events such as the Spanish-American war and the temperance movement.

Helen, her daughter, kept a diary in 1906, the year she graduated from college and was married. On her wedding day she writes, “An absolutely perfect day—did not feel the least bit nervous, for I felt so sure we would always be happy.” A few years later she was divorced and supported herself and her family by running her former husband's florist business. She became active in politics, first as a suffragette and then as the first woman in Pennsylvania elected to public office.

Dorothy, who was born in 1909, was a society reporter when she met and married a fellow journalist who worked as a police reporter on the same newspaper. After his death, she resumed working and became Society Editor in an era before the women's movement changed the rules of society.

Cathryn's life has taken many unexpected turns, including developing a new career in mid-life. Like her mother, she was widowed young, and, like her grandmother, she supported herself by learning to run her husband's business. Memorabilia includes scrapbooks and letters from the 1950s through the present.

Sarah, now in her 30s, honors the past by working to preserve historic architecture in Boston. She documents her life and travels in beautiful books filled with photographs, souvenirs and personal notes.