page_title: Wistariahurst
section_title: Library corporation era
hierarchical_section_title: Wistariahurst / Museum / History / Library corporation era
caption_attribution_description: English: Then-Mayor William Taupier of Holyoke presents Mary E. Preiss a certificate of commendation for her work in getting Wistariahurst listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973; the man in the center of the portrait, Edward Moriarty, chairman of the city's centennial steering committee
context_page_description: Wistariahurst is a historic house museum and the former estate of the Skinner family, located at 238 Cabot Street in Holyoke, Massachusetts. It was built in 1868 for William Skinner, the owner of a successful silk spinning and textile business, and is named for the abundant wisteria vines which cascade across its eastern facade. Originally constructed in Williamsburg in 1868, the mansion designed by Northampton architect William Ferro Pratt was moved to Holyoke in 1874, following the devastating flood which swept away the original Skinner mills. Following the death of Belle Skinner, its music room was operated as a private museum from 1930 to 1959, housing the Belle Skinner Collection of Old Musical Instruments, before their donation by the family to Yale University. Since 1959 it has been operated as the Wistariahurst Museum, and is open to the public. The property was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.
context_section_description: When the entirety of Wistariahurst was first opened to the public in 1959 as a museum, it was operated by the Holyoke Public Library Corporation which, despite its name, is a private organization. As early as 1939 the corporation had sought to use the space for its collections, as well as incorporating those of Belle Skinner. The group and its director, Mary Preiss, would successfully get the Wistariahurst estate on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973, and during this period its collections of natural history specimens, art, and artifacts were prominently featured in the halls of the house, as well as a number of notable exhibitions, including an example of Claude Monet's Houses of Parliament, loaned from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1968. This period of the museum's history would come to an end however in June of 1975. Shortly before his resignation, Mayor William Taupier demanded the private Library Corporation relinquish control of the Wistariahurst estate to the city's Historical Commission, in return for public funding. Agreeing to the terms, the Library would also remove its collections as well, leading the city to file suit against the Corporation to determine what parts of this collection were private property and which belonged to the city.
  Unfortunately, in the years following a 1989 multimillion dollar budget shortfall, the Library Corporation would sell more than 80 paintings in 1991 and 1992 to private collectors, some originally gifts of their artists. This collection, once housed in Wistariahurst in the mid-20th century held British, Irish, and American Impressionist paintings, including examples by Holyoke local William Chadwick, William Merritt Chase, Frederic Edwin Church, F. O. C. Darley, Francis Day, Frank Duveneck, John Joseph Enneking, Edward Gay, Mauritz de Haas, Howard Russell Butler, Joseph Goodhue Chandler, Eastman Johnson, Régis François Gignoux, Charles P. Gruppé, Hugh Bolton Jones, Alfred Jacob Miller, Edward Moran, John George Brown, N. C. Wyeth, Maitland Armstrong, Ivan Olinsky, Thomas Gainsborough, Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait, John Henry Twachtman. With the absence of the Library Corporation's collections, for a brief time after the estate reopened in the late 1970s, it would house a volleyball exhibit, a rough predecessor of the Volleyball Hall of Fame. The museum briefly faced the prospect of closure when in 1982 the city council passed a tentative budget calling for the complete removal of its budget, prompting a preservation campaign by concerned citizens. Fortunately this budget was later invalidated by the state revenue office, as the full membership of the council had not been present during said votes.
caption: Mayor William Taupier presenting Mary E. Preiss a certificate of commendation for her work in getting Wistariahurst on the National Register of Historic Places, 1973
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