Special Guest Curator: Bethany Romanowski
Bethany Romanowski received her master’s degree in social science from the University of Chicago in 2002. Since then she has worked at several New York City museums and is currently employed by the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution as a collections registrar.
Bethany will guest curate an exhibition at the Vander Ende-Onderdonk House, the oldest Dutch Colonial stone house in New York City. Her research, which will focus on tactics used by the West India Company and Kiliaen van Rensselaer to recruit colonists to settle in New Netherland, will support the exhibition Van der Donck’s New Netherland.
The exhibit will introduce visitors to Adriaen van der Donck’s work A Description of New Netherland and analyze it as a recruitment tool for settlement in New Netherland, in comparison with strategies employed by the West India Company.