Hallie arrived at the Adirondack Museum fresh out of the Hagley Program with a bright, shiny Master’s Degree from the University of Delaware, intending to spend two or three years in northern New York and then move on. That was 25 years ago. She seems to have given up her dreams to return to the West (she’s a native of Colorado), but has otherwise found professional and personal fulfillment in the East.
Hallie was hired as Education Director, and her chief accomplishment during her first years in the Adirondacks was designing and presenting exhibits and programs in the Parkmobile, a traveling gallery-classroom. In 1987 she moved to the curatorial department and took on the job of revising the boat exhibit, one of the most popular and well-known permanent exhibits at the museum. In 1991, “Boats and Boating in the Adirondacks, 1840-1940” opened, celebrated by the first No-Octane Regatta, an event that has continued ever since. Boats and Boating in the Adirondacks followed in 1995, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities and published by Syracuse University Press.
Hallie has remained the museum’s boat curator, but has also tackled other subjects with the perspective of material culture and social history she learned at the University of Delaware, including domestic history (“Never Done: Women’s Work in the Adirondacks”), landscape photography (“Picture the Land: Photographs from the Adirondack Museum Collection” 1994), children’s camps (“`A Paradise for Boys and Girls:’ Childrens’ Camps in the Adirondacks,” exhibit 2003-6, book 2005), and dogs (“Dog Days in the Adirondacks” paper for the Conference on New York State History and annual museum festival). She is currently working on “Common Threads: 150 Years of Adirondack Quilts and Comforters.” She has written extensively on these and other subjects for such diverse periodicals as Adirondack Life, WoodenBoat, and Material History Review.
Hallie Bond married a native New Yorker and lives with him and their two children in Long Lake. She has recently returned to full-time work at the museum after working part-time while her children were young. She is currently serving her third term on the Long Lake School Board.
