October 17, 2014
Belle's Table
In 1902, second-generation Skinner family women of Holyoke founded, funded and operated a settlement house for and with immigrant women mill workers. Through 1988, the settlement house, known as the Skinner Coffee House, hired its own all-woman staff to organize and provide meals, education, childcare and a women's community center that crossed class, ethnic and color lines in the western Massachusetts planned industrial city. Skinner women also led international rebuilding efforts in Paris and northern French villages following World War I. During a summer LYNK UAF fellowship at Wistariahurst Museum, Ms. Moore's independent archival research focused on newly established food-systems' links between Belle Skinner's philanthropic work in Holyoke and Hattonchâtel, France. In each case, Skinner established, directed, and refined model community centers, brick-and-mortar infrastructure rebuilding projects, updates to food and water systems, and education programs that preserved ethnic traditions and advanced community objectives. The forthcoming publication, Belle's Table, is the result of Moore's research and collaboration with Wistariahurst Museum.
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