FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 20, 2007

CONTACT: Katie McElwain/ Marketing Coordinator

(802) 447-1571 Fax (802) 442-8305

info@benningtonmuseum.org

Museum Hosts "Friends of the Monument" Meeting

The Friends of the Bennington Battle Monument invite the public to hear well-known local publisher, historian and preservationist Tordis Ilg Isselhardt present a slide lecture entitled "The Troy-Bennington Connection, or What the Trojans Have Wrought." The program will take place in the Ada Paresky Education Center at the Bennington Museum on Thursday, March 29 at 7:00 p.m. Admission is free, and the public is cordially invited to enjoy the lecture and learn more about the Friends of the Monument.

"The Troy-Bennington Connection" is the featured segment of the Friends' Annual Meeting. A not-for-profit advocacy group established in 2005, the Friends of the Monument association supports and promotes programs and exhibits at the Bennington Battle Monument. A brief business meeting, including a preview of the year's special activities, will precede the lecture.

Using original research, Tordis Ilg Isselhardt will discuss the histories of familiar structures in Old Bennington and their out-of-town owners. Her account will cover a span of about 75 years up through the 1930s, during which period wealthy and powerful families whose main residences were in Troy, New York, transformed what we now call Old Bennington into a picture-perfect Colonial Revival New England Village.

Isselhardt notes that even before the late 19th century, the original settlement of Bennington on the hill was no longer the town's real center, which had shifted to the valley below. By 1937, the American Guide Series characterized Old Bennington as "a veritable outdoor museum of historic landmarks compactly grouped along Monument Avenue."

Tordis Ilg Isselhardt is the publisher and president of Images from the Past, Inc, which since 1966 has published solidly researched history in ways that help people see it as real and present. Active for decades in heritage tourism, interpretation and preservation, Tordis is currently a member of the Bennington Historic Preservation Commission, the Vermont Scenery Preservation Council, and the International Commission on Monuments and Sites.

The Bennington Museum is located at 75 Main St. (Route 9) one mile west of the intersection of Routes 7 and 9 in downtown Bennington, Vermont. See web site at www.benningtonmuseum.org.

To learn more about the Friends of the Monument and to request membership information, write to The Friends of the Bennington Battle Monument, 15 Monument Circle, Bennington, VT 05201; or call George McCain at 447-2610. The Bennington Monument is the most visited historic site in the state. It is important that it receive broad support to keep that status.