from the Harness Racing Museum and Hall of Fame

Goshen, NY — Janet Terhune, director of the Harness Racing Museum & Hall of Fame, is pleased to announce the receipt of Mini-Grant funding of $5,000 to document, digitize and properly store a collection of approximately 2,000 glass plate negatives.

In brittle envelopes bearing the names of historic horses and people, the journey of this fragile collection from the attic storage area of the Goshen Historic Track offices during the 1940s to Columbus, Ohio, where they were thought to be lost for more than 40 years, and their subsequent return to Goshen, N.Y., in 2014 is a remarkable story.

Established in 1939, the United States Trotting Association, the governing body of the harness racing sport in America, kept its first offices at Goshen Historic Track. In 1942 the USTA announced its acquisition of “two-thousand and more negatives (the majority glass plates) accumulated by Ted Hansom in his long service as a photographer in the harness horse field…”

Ted Hansom, who died later that year, was credited with taking some of the earliest photographs of the harness racing sport. The USTA relocated to Columbus, Ohio, in 1948, where it is still headquartered, taking Hansom’s singular archive of photograph negatives with it. A small selection of these glass plate negatives were donated to the Harness Racing Museum in 1967.

Sadly it had been reported that the remainder of the Hansom collection had been lost or inadvertently destroyed. In 2014, during a move to new offices in Columbus, the USTA discovered the “lost” archive of glass negatives and donated them to the Harness Racing Museum.

Due to the fragile nature of the negatives, the process of documenting and digitizing the collection must be undertaken with great care. The project showcases both the Museum’s long-standing commitment to preservation as well as its dedication to creating greater accessibility to its collections through digitization.

The Mini-Grants are offered to help museums and historical societies strengthen and develop their institutions and work with their communities. These grants, administered by the Museum Association of New York, are designed to make it easy for organizations to access professional help and improve their institutions. To learn more about these grant programs, eligibility requirements and deadlines, visit the Museum Association of New York’s website at www.manyonline.org or contact the Museum Association of New York, by e-mail at info@manyonline.org and by phone at 518.273.3400.

The Harness Racing Museum & Hall of Fame is located at 240 Main Street in Goshen, N.Y. and is open daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. (last tour 4 p.m.). Thanks to U.S. Trotting Association support the Museum is currently offering free admission for walk-in visitors and group docent-guided tours at a minimal charge per person. For additional information about the Museum, its membership program, special events and educational programs, please call 845.294.6330 or visit www.harnessmuseum.com.