POTSDAM — A unique exhibit connecting hunting and trapping with fashions made from animals will soon open at Potsdam Public Museum.
“Our exhibit focuses on how animal furs, skins, feathers and bones were acquired and what they were used for,” said Mary Gilbert, the museum’s collections manager.
The public is invited to the exhibit’s Open House, “Fur, Feathers and Fashion,” Sunday, Dec. 7, from 2:00-4:00 p.m. at 2 Park Street.
Highlighted will be striking taxidermy and extensive collections of fur coats, hats made of feathers and fur, Native American textiles, early trapping equipment and more.
Taxidermied animals on display include a beaver, coyote, bear, muskrat, otter, skunk, bobcat, fisher, raccoon, marten, turkey, snowy owl and great horned owl. They are on loan from Larry’s Taxidermy Studio and Nicandri Nature Center.
The animals are paired with a wide variety of coats, hats, jackets, dresses, sweaters, capes, stoles, and gloves made from their fur, feathers, and hides.
The exhibit shows how animals shaped local commerce and industry, including how the beaver was used as a resource in the fur trade over the centuries.
“The beaver trade drove the area’s economy in Pre-Revolutionary War-era,” said Gilbert.
Beaver pelts were used to make coats, and their felt was used for hats, including top hats and a Revolution War-era tricorn hat now on display, she said.
Native American connections to fur, feathers and fashion are also shown.
“Native Americans would use as much as they could from animals. Fur, feathers and just about anything you could think of was used. They would even make arrows and needles from animal bones and feathers,” said Hunter Crary, Potsdam Public Museum Village Historian.
Several Native American textiles made of soft, durable deerskin can be viewed at the museum, on loan from the Akwesasne Cultural Center Museum.
Even an eider duck blanket, made by the Inuit in Greenland, can be seen at the exhibit.
“Hunter Crary wanted to incorporate his interest in taxidermy into an exhibit that goes beyond taxidermy and use artifacts in our collection to tell the history of Potsdam,” said Gilbert.
The museum staff brainstormed how the museum’s extensive collection of furs and hats could connect to the local fur trade and manufacturing of textiles, she said.
“I remember Anderson Furs. It was a fixture in Potsdam for a very long time. The shop had a box of fur scraps you could take,” said Gilbert.
A mink coat and hat purchased at Anderson Furs by Potsdam residents Egon and Bozica Matijevic are highlighted in the exhibit.
Textiles from furs and feathers of animals not local to the area can also be viewed. There is a colobus monkey bolero and hats and fans with ostrich feathers.
Museum hours are Tuesdays through Friday 10 a.m.-4 p.m., and Saturday 10 a.m.-2 p.m. It is closed Sunday and Monday.
The exhibit will be on display in the Potsdam Museum until spring.
For more information about the exhibit or the museum, call (315) 265-6910, email museum@villageofpotsdamny.gov, or visit www.potsdammuseumny.gov/.