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In an effort to bring the museum to you, we'll be sharing our favorite pieces throughout #HarmonMuseum. Today we're sharing our 1908 #Buick. It's just inside the main foyer and often the first thing that draws guests' eye.
Our 1908 Buick was donated by the Ertel family (yes, as in Fields Ertel) in 1960. They had restored the Buick, with period correct parts, and would take it to shows and races. (We have a cabinet filled with their trophies and medals.) The historical significance extends beyond one family's love for speed. There Buick has no electrical components; from the gas powered headlights to the kerosene lamps and the air horn to the hand crank. 1908 was the last year before it all changed. In 1909, Charles Kettering (yes, that Kettering) accepted a contract from Cadillac to invent a better means to start their cars. Enter the electric starter with electric lights soon to follow. It was Kettering's patent that allowed for batteries to be incorporated into automobiles as a power source. Pretty soon, every car company wanted to use this new design. (Kettering made his fortune as an inventor and author of many other patents.) Cars have changed a lot in the subsequent 110 years but we're still using batteries to start our cars and light our way. Several mechanics have inspected the Buick (they always ask to) and we're assured it would still run. We won't take it out though for fear of the little rocks of the pavement road tearing up the undercarriage. So, for now, it'll live as it has for the past 60 years, on display in our Transportation Gallery. However, our recently retired Director, Victoria VanHarlingen purchased an antique bulb for the airhorn so, when you visit, you can honk it. 😋
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 On February 28th we hosted our Opera Tea in honor of famous opera soloist and Lebanon resident, Laura Bellini. Born in Lebanon, Ohio, Laura Bellini (1848-1931) was a soprano opera singer of note on three continents. Her magnificent singing voice was discovered when she was in a local church choir. Special Guests Christopher Milligan, the General Director & CEO of the Cincinnati Opera and Natalie Drury (Soprano Soloist). Menu Orange or Raspberry White Chocolate Scones Orange Marmalade or Raspberry Jam Clotted Cream Twinings Lady Grey Tea Quiche Lorraine Cumber Stack Sandwich Radish Sandwich tomato stuffed with blue cheese and bacon salmon on pumpernickel, grapes. The BonBonerie Bakery’s Opera Cream Cake We were pleased when attendees referred to the tea as both "elegant" and "wonderful." Future Teas: April 24th - The Cincinnati Shakespeare Company joins us for "A Celebration of Shakespeare" October 23rd - "A Shaker Tea" with Special Guest: the Whitewater Singers December 18th - "A Dickens of a Tea" It is rumored that Dickens himself will be joining us. For tickets and more information, click here. “No man is good enough to govern any woman without her consent.” Susan B. Anthony  Susan B. Anthony was the daughter of Daniel and Lucy Read Anthony, Quakers and political activists in the abolitionist movement. After the family moved to Rochester, New York in 1845, Anthony would meet William Lloyd Garrison as well as anti-slavery activist and escaped slave, Frederick Douglass. Douglass would later join Anthony in the quest for women's equality.
Anthony was a prominent player in the Temperance Movement, going so far as to take an axe into bars to destroy the barrels of alcohol, which got her arrested on several occasions. When she was denied the chance to speak, at a Temperance Movement rally, because she was a woman, Anthony took her attention to a new cause, women's equality. In those days, women were – for the most part – considered property. To fight against the status que, Anthony joined forces with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the pair became a driving force in the suffrage movement. Under heavy opposition, they traveled across the country giving speeches and inspiring women - and men alike - to support the cause. In 1869, they founded the National Woman Suffrage Association and later, the American Equal Rights Association, an organization for white and black women and men dedicated to universal suffrage. On November 1st, 1872, Anthony, Stanton and two others, registered to vote at a barbershop in Rochester, NY, becoming the first women to do so. How'd they do it? Well, Anthony threatened to sue the registrars personally if they didn't let them. On Election Day, the ballots were secretly cast (the ladies dressed as men). Two weeks later Anthony was arrested and fined $100, which she refused to pay – and never did. "The only chance women have for justice in this country is to violate the law, as I have done, and as I shall continue to do." "To think, I have had more than 60 years of hard struggle for a little liberty, and then to die without it seems so cruel." Susan B. Anthony passed away, in 1903, at the age of 86. She would never see the culmination of her life's work. It'll be another 17 years before the 19th Amendment grants women the right to vote in the US. On November 2, 1920, more than 8 million American women exercised that right. We're still working on true equality in this nation but, thankfully, are a far cry from women being considered property. The strides toward equality that have been made are, in large part, thanks to Anthony and the other brave women and men that fought, tirelessly for those strides. Now, every time a woman votes, holds political office or manages her own finances, she is doing so – whether she is aware or not – in the spirit of Susan B. Anthony. -Nathaniel Grauwelman is the Marketing Manager and a staff writer of the blog for WCHS. With the recent uncovering of a Beedle Station log cabin within the walls of a 19th century Victorian house a few miles west of Lebanon, new interest has developed in what was the first settlement in Warren County in September 1795. Few know that the founding of Union Village, the first Shaker community in the West in 1805, led to Beedle Station’s destruction. Families were torn apart, mobs marched, arrests were made, and the fledgling pioneer community, along with its influential church, disappeared.
John J. Zimkus, the Historian and Education Director of the Warren County Historical Society, led a sold out Lunch and Learn on Beedle Station. John is also the author of Historical Footnotes of Lebanon, Ohio and the house historian of The Golden Lamb in Lebanon, Ohio’s oldest continually operated business. A sold-out crowd (the event sold out a month in advance) played bingo for a chance to win designer handbags! Coach, Kate Spade, Cole Haan, Michael Kors and more were up for grabs. If you'd like your shot, tickets for our next event are almost sold out. You can purchase them here.
We'd like to announce the winners of this year's Christmas Tree Decorating Contest! The winners will be contacted with information on their prizes and how to collect them. We want to thank everyone who took part in this year's event whether you decorated a tree, purchased a tree, voted or visited the display, we thank you for your support.
Sold out crowd enjoys a special Lunch & Learn Christmas concert by The Bones of Cincinnatus12/11/2019 A sold out crowd enjoyed a special Lunch & Learn Christmas concert put on by The Bones of Cincinnatus, a trombone ensemble with members from all over the Greater Cincinnati area. It is named after the Revolutionary War officers’ organization the Order of Cincinnatus, as is the city of Cincinnati. The order was named for farmer and the Roman General Cincinnatus. In 458 B.C., after defeating an enemy, he resigned from the most powerful position in the army to return to his farm. In 1783, General George Washington, following the signing of the Treaty of Paris, resigned as commander in chief of the Continental Army and retired to his home at Mount Vernon, Virginia following the example of the order's namesake. The trombonists that make up this group, after coming together for the enjoyment of audiences and the fellowship of making beautiful trombone music, return, like Cincinnatus, to their private lives when their performance ends. The Bones of Cincinnatus program for the December Lunch & Learn consisted of some well-known Christmas music, as well as some holiday season classics, arranged for the unique capabilities of the trombone ensemble.
Seventy-eight years ago today, at 7:50 a.m, Sunday, Dec. 7, Japanese aircraft appeared on the horizon over Pearl Harbor. Two hours later, 2,403 American troops were dead at what would remain the largest loss of American life in an attck until the September 11th terrorist attacks. It's one thing to recite facts but another to recall memories. Below is a video of some of the veterans that survived the attacks, recounting their personal experience during the events in their own words.
For the second year, WCHS is holding its Christmas Tree Decorating Contest and Auction at Harmon Museum. Businesses, organizations and families from all over Lebanon have decorated 53, three-foot artificial trees. The finished trees are on display at the museum and up for auction, December 1st - 10th. The proceeds will go toward Harmon Museum’s children’s education programs. The display will be open during normal business hours but the auctions will be open online, continuously, until they close at at midnight on the 11th.
A sold out crowd enjoyed Stengal's Catering before Local author and historian Fred Compton took the podeum at our November 2019 Lunch and Learn.
Remember that time the SWAT team raided the Golden Lamb? Fred Compton remembers. 2019 marks the 10th anniversary of local author Fred Compton’s book The Golden Lamb: Tales From The Innside. To mark the occasion, Fred returns to The Warren County Historical Society to share some of the stories that didn’t make it into the first book for various reasons. Find out what it takes to get rid of a dead body in a dining room and what happens when the local SWAT team decides to storm the third floor. Hear about a future political leader who just needed some serious direction, a particularly memorable late-night telephone call and how a big piece of “Ohio’s Oldest Inn” gained new life several blocks away. Fred Compton spent the more than half his life at The Golden Lamb in a number of different roles. Starting in 1966 as a busboy Fred worked there throughout high school and college, graduating from Miami University in 1973 with a journalism degree. After graduation he continued at The Golden Lamb for what he thought would be a summer job. He wound up staying 35 years. You can see upcoming Lunch and Learn topics, as well as purchase tickets, under our "events" page. How many women out there have exercised their right to vote? On this day in 1872, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and two others, registered to vote at a barbershop in Rochester, NY, becomming the first women to do so. How'd they do it? Well, Anthony threatened to sue the registrars personally if they didn't let them. On Election Day, the ballots were secretly cast (the ladies dressed as men). Two weeks later Anthony was arrested and fined $100 (about $2,000 today), which she refused to pay. It'll be more than 40 years before the 19th Amendment will grant women the right to vote in the US. On November 2, 1920, more than 8 million American women will exercise their right to vote. 2020 is all about Women's Sufferage at Harmon Museum with talks and an exhibit featuring the women who fought for the vote in Warren County!  Kevin Harris teaches at Sinclair Community College where he has led courses in Drawing, Printmaking and Digital Media since the year 2000. Prior to coming to Sinclair, Kevin held teaching appointments at the University of Cincinnati, Northern Kentucky University, the Art Academy of Cincinnati, The University of the Arts, Moore College of Art and Design and Lincoln University.
Kevin earned a BA from Hampton University and an MFA from the University of Cincinnati. He has also studied at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia and frequently attends printmaking workshops at Making Art Safely in New Mexico. His work is included in the collection of the Cincinnati Art Museum as well as in many corporate and private collections. He has recently been featured in solo exhibitions at the Dana L. Wiley Gallery, Dayton, OH and at the African American Visual Arts Guild (AAVAG) Gallery at Central State University-West and at Sinclair’s Triangle Gallery where he presented, MULTIPLY, an exhibition of four thematically intertwined bodies of work: MULTIPLY, Angels Tread, Dream Sequence and Urban Wordfare plus The Sticker Snatcher Books.  These are Brigadier General Durbin Ward's pistols which he carried during the Civil War. Durbin Ward was a law partner of Thomas Corwin. He was also a Democrat and a state's rights advocate. Everybody thought he would sit out the Civil War, Democrats were all for letting the south go. But when Lincoln called for volunteers in April of 1865, Ward, who was trying a case in court in Lebanon, left the Court House and went to Washington Hall (now the site of the LCNB drive thru in downtown Lebanon), and was the first to volunteer for the Union. He was in his early 40's and jointed the 17th Ohio Volunteer Infantry. These pistols are Colt Navy revolvers. They are not a matching set as one was made by the Colt works in Connecticut and the other by Colt in London.
 Colonel Lewis Drake was an early pioneer to Warren County who came from Pennsylvania on horseback with his first wife. Legend has it he particpated in a shooting contest with Daniel Boone and Simon Kenton and won. His second wife (the first had 12 children before she died) was Rachel Lincoln Drake, daughter of Abraham Lincoln's Great Uncle John who is buried in Pioneer Cemetery. The Colonel and Rachel begat Dr. Issac Lincoln Drake and a whole line of well known Drakes issued thereafter. Think Drake Road and you get the drift.
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