Many yeaars ago Joan Miller had one of these as a hanging fixture which she had hung in her foyer.

Carol Ketchum Gunn

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Please thank the group for sharing their knowledge. It is greatly appreciated. Gwen Stebbins

A lampshade at the right price&.my Steuben memories by Jenny Monroe

Part Two

When Antony Snow was hired to assist the Corning Museum of Glass open their new Gunnar Birkerts wing and rollout the 1979 New Glass exhibition, the Rockwell Museum operated as Department #75 of the Corning Museum of Glass (CMoG). Snow was a savvy London public relations executive who moved to Corning with his wife and three children. After all was settled across the river, Snow took an interest in the Rockwell Museum and became its director. He was the person, with enthusiastic encouragement from Bob and Tom Dimitroff, to launch a restart for the annual Carder Birthday Dinners on September 18th that had not been celebrated since 1963. Collectors from all over the country began to diligently add this annual black tie affair to their calendars.

It was during those early years that the Carder collection was catalogued and moved from the Department Store to museum offices and storage on the seventh floor of the Baron Steuben. This was also when Bobby Rockwell joined the staff with his expertise in both Carder glass and historic firearms. A few years later, a Frederick Carder Steuben Glass exhibit, Portrait of a Glassmaker, was featured as the 1985 special exhibition at CMoG.

Plans were then underway for the restoration of the Old City Hall to enable it to become the permanent home for all the Rockwell collections. Because Bob was willing to give his collections, the City was willing to sell the flood-ravaged building to Corning Incorporated for $1 and Corning Incorporated committed to developing the Rockwell Museum as an additional tourist attraction in the region. The building opened in June, 1982 with Carder glass and antique toys on the second floor; paintings and bronzes, firearms, Pueblo pottery and Navajo rugs on the third floor; and gift shops and a special exhibition gallery on the first floor , plus storage for collections in the old jail cells!

It was in the second floor Rotary Gallery that the Carder Dinners were held each September. It was named the Rotary Gallery because the local club honored its founder of 1921, Frederick Carder, and past president, Bob Rockwell, with a large contribution at the time the Museum was seeking funds to support exhibitions. Here dozens of collectors could dine and where the walls were flanked with a thousand pieces of Carder glass. This is the collection that is now on long-term loan at CMoG and housed in the Carder Gallery there.

Rockwell and Dimitroff also developed a Friends of Carder group that sponsored an annual symposium and raised money for new acquisitions. It was during these events that Steve and I began our collecting, as auctioneer Tom Dimitroff allowed the bidding to close (probably prematurely) on a lampshade or two in our moderate price range each year. When I left the museum in 1999, we were given a beautiful chandelier with six Calcite shades for the Arts & Crafts home we were building in Corning.

Part Three to be continued Monday of Next Week

Note about the author: Jenny Monroe was employed by the Rockwell Museum from 1976 to 1999. She supervised education and public programs.