GCV&M Pride WeekJuly 15 – 21, with Programming Celebrating LGBTQ+ History

Mumford, NY (June 11, 2024) – Genesee Country Village & Museum in Mumford, NY, will hold its first Pride Week (Wednesday, July 15 – Sunday, July 21), with a variety of events, family activities, daily historical happenings, and explorations of untold stories and voices that have been historically silenced from 19th-century New York State. LGBTQ+ individuals have shaped and enhanced society throughout recorded history, and GCV&M welcomes visitors to join in exploring and celebrating this shared history. This new event is sponsored by Trillium Health.

Pride Week at GCV&M (Wednesday, July 15 – Sunday, July 21)

GCV&M invites visitors to take part in Pride Week Wednesday, July 15, through Sunday, July 21. Explore LGBTQIA+ voices and histories, take part in a community art project that Museum staff will bring to the Rochester Pride Parade on July 20, enjoy colorful crafting, tour the exhibit Becoming Gendered: Garment as Gender Artifact, meet GCV&M’s community partners, go on a Pride Flag color scavenger hunt in the Historic Village and Nature Center, buy Pride merch in the Flint Hill Store, and more. On Friday, July 19, at 12:30 p.m., visitors are invited to join Jessica Cohen from Trillium Health for a Community Lunch & Learn: Understanding and Embracing Rochester's LGBTQ+ Story. Explore Rochester’s singular role in the early Gay Liberation Movement and its evolution into today’s Pride Celebration and community activism. This program is included with the cost of general Museum admission. GCV&M staff will also represent the Museum by walking in the Rochester Pride Parade on Saturday, July 20 – GCV&M’s second year of participating in this community celebration. Learn more about Pride Week and plan a visit: https://www.gcv.org/event/pride-week/

Corsets & Crowns: A 19th-Century Drag Soirée (Friday, July 19)

In a brand-new program for 2024, GCV&M invites guests to explore the rich and complicated history of 19th-century female impersonators and Drag performers of the Genesee Valley Region and beyond. Drag as an artistic tradition gained mainstream popularity after the Civil War. The history of female impersonation and Drag has connections to vaudeville, 19th-century minstrel shows, theater, and operatic performances. Authentic to this area of New York State specifically, this event will highlight female impersonators and self-styled Drag queens of the 19th century such as Burton Stanley, Neil Burgess, and more distant female impersonators like B. Morris Young (son of Brigham Young) and William Dorsey Swann. After learning about the history of Drag and gender performance in late 19th-century America, guests will enjoy eight modern Drag performances by Rochester-area Queens and Kings. Learn more about this event and purchase tickets: https://www.gcv.org/event/corsets-crowns-a-19th-century-drag-soiree/

“Boon Companions: Affectionate Adventures in Early Photography” (Talk on Friday, July 26)

On Friday, July 26, from 6:30 – 8 p.m. in the John L. Wehle Gallery Lobby, visitors can attend a talk on male affection in 19th-century photography with Rochester-area librarian, photographer, speaker, and collector Gerry Szymanski. Victorian social and gender roles were strictly defined and represented in early photos. Why then, are there so many pictures of pairs of men in seemingly intimate poses? Using images from his vast collection, Gerry Szymanski discusses this “manly affection” and how these photographs change our perception of 19th-century attitudes and beliefs. Learn more and purchase tickets: https://www.gcv.org/event/affectionate-men-in-19th-century-imagery-talk/

Becoming Gendered: Garment as Gender Artifact exhibit

On view through 2024, the exhibit Becoming Gendered: Garment as Gender Artifact showcases a wide variety of historic garments for men, women, and children spanning over a century. Hegemonic gendered clothing for adult men and women is compared to the development of recreational and leisurewear. Understructures for men, women, and even children, are exhibited as evolving tools worn to achieve gendered ideals. Challenging these 19th-century gender norms in fashion and garment are the Dandy, the Bloomer, Dress Reformers and Women’s Rights advocates, the lady cyclist, female impersonators, and the Public Universal Friend: a religious leader who may have identified as non-binary if that word was available to them in the 19th century. This exhibit is sponsored by Trillium Health.

Supporting this Programming

For those interested in exploring untold stories and supporting the lifting-up of historically under-represented narratives, GCV&M welcomes you to consider supporting the living history museum as a Member. Your support – whether by becoming a Member, making a gift, attending an event, exploring an exhibit, or spreading the word on social media – allows GCV&M to continue to broaden the narrative and share a more expansive, more accurate representation of the Genesee Valley in the 19th century. Learn more about becoming a Member: https://www.gcv.org/membership/

DEAI at GCV&M

Genesee Country Village & Museum is actively committed to broadening their understanding of DEAI (Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, and Inclusion), and making it part of everything that the Museum does. Guided by mission, values, and inclusive culture of curiosity, GCV&M strives to dismantle inequity and address erasure through ongoing dynamic interpretation, communications, research, and outreach. Learn more about GCV&M’s commitment to Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, and Inclusion: https://www.gcv.org/deai/

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Photo caption: Visit GCV&M Wednesday, July 15 – Sunday, July 21, for the living history museum’s first Pride Week!

Additional photos and b-roll are available by request. To request an interview, or be removed from this mailing list, contact pengard@gcv.org.

GCV&M is the largest living history museum in New York State with the largest collection of historic buildings in the Northeast. The Museum, with its John L. Wehle Gallery, working brewery, vintage base ball park, and Nature Center, is located in Mumford, NY, 20 miles southwest of Rochester and 45 miles east of Buffalo. Visit www.gcv.org for more information.

Media Contact: Paige Engard, (585) 474,7695, pengard@gcv.org