DUMMERSTON HISTORICAL SOCIETY QUARTERLY MEETING
SUNDAY, APRIL 23 AT 2 PM – DUMMERSTON CENTER

Your help is needed to identify Dummerston scenes in photos of long ago. You are invited to attend the Dummerston Historical Society quarterly meeting on Sunday, April 23 at 2 pm at the Historical Society Schoolhouse in Dummerston Center. The Photo Committee of the Wardsboro History Group, represented by Charlie Marchant, spokesperson, will present more than seventy images they have digitized of Dummerston glass plate negatives. They hope local people will be able to identify them. A similar meeting will be held for Vernon and Brattleboro. The Wardsboro group, active since 1992, has transformed and preserved thousands of glass plate negatives over the years.

The images to be shown are from a collection of Thomas Johnson's family and generously gifted by his widow, Barbara Johnson, to the Wardsboro group for eventual distribution to the historical societies of the three towns. This donation is a valuable addition to Dummerston's photo collection, an on-going project of many years. So please come and help!

You may ask, what are glass plate negatives? As opposed to the type of thin flexible negatives you may be familiar with, glass plate negatives are exactly what they soundlike: a negative printed on a glass plate. Two types were used, wet plate, which was developed in 1851, and dry plate, developed in 1871. The terms referred to whether the emulsion on the glass plate was wet or dry when placed in the camera and exposed.

Because the wet method allowed photographers a very short time frame – approximately five minutes- in which they could expose the plate, the dry method was a welcome improvement. The gelatin dry plate negative was widely used from the 1880s until the late 1920s when it was surpassed in both ease and popularity by the gelatin silver negative on celluloid roll film.

The Dummerston Historical Society is handicapped accessible and one need not be a member to attend programs or exhibits. Delicious homemade refreshments will be served! For more info, contact Gail at gailsvt@gmail.com or 802-254-9311.

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