The Saratoga Automobile Museum doesn’t just show cars, it shows how those machines have played a role in the shaping of our society and history.
The last thing we want to do is preach to the converted, said executive director
Steve Potter, noting that people who want to see distinct automobiles will come to the museum anyway.
By putting the cars and motorcycles in a social context, they not only educate their existing patrons, but also bring in a crowd that may be more interested in history than the metallic works of art.
Potter said the museum was able to really blend automobiles and their impact in a recent exhibit of the art of Florida’s folk artists. For more than two months the Saratoga Automobile Museum was host to 66 paintings from primarily self-taught, young black artists who prospered in the segregated South of the 1950s and 1960s. Instead of picking fruit ` often the only employment for a young African-American at the time ` the artists decided to pile their paintings into the trunks of the boat-like Cadillacs and Plymouths of the era and sell them door to door. They rode the highways, Potter said, stopping in small towns and carrying their paintings around to motels, banks and doctors’ offices somehow escaping scrutiny from the local police and public.
`You know, there is not a single car that appears in any of those paintings,` said Potter, `but the automobile was what made selling their artwork possible. We were able to make people aware of an important aspect of civil rights history and the roles that the automobile played in it.`
Assorted ’50s and ’60s road cruisers accompanied the artwork, which appeared outside of Florida for the first time in Saratoga.
The museum is once again marrying the art and the impact of the automobile with an exhibit of motorcycles that will run through this summer. `Born 2 Ride ` America on 2 Wheels` opened March 18 and will run through the Americade weekend in June.
Developed by internationally renowned curator and motorcycle journalist Ed Youngblood, whose background includes work on the Guggenheim’s `The Art of the Motorcycle,` the exhibit shares the stories behind two-dozen of these fascinating machines and the men and women who owned, rode, raced and loved them.
Youngblood, a past president of the American Motorcyclist Association (AMA), said he wanted to do something more than create `Guggenheim junior` at the Saratoga Automobile Museum, and has keyed into Potter’s philosophy of combining the machines with their context.
`We wanted a fresh look at the social context of motorcycles,` he said. `To look at the rider and the motorcycle together, and what it meant in society. We may be in Saratoga Springs, but we’re doing something that no one in the world has done before.`
The bikes on display run the gamut from Evel Knievel’s Jump Bike to Peter Fonda’s Captain America Chopper from Easy Rider, from Steve McQueen’s Military Indian 741 to Cal Rayborn’s land-speed-record Bonneville streamliner and Dot Robinson’s pink Harley-Davidson.
Patron’s looking at Robinson’s motorcycle may not notice anything extraordinary, save the color. But this is where the museum’s unique perspective comes into play, as it isn’t the bike, but the rider, who is really on display. Robinson always rode Harley-Davidsons, custom-painted in pink. Over her career, she logged more than 1.5 million miles in the saddle, and paved the way for women in American national championship competition by entering the grueling two-day Jack Pine Enduro motorcycle race in 1934.
Some AMA officials tried to bar her from their `manly sport,` but she persevered and won acceptance through her popularity with rank-and-file riders. She won the Jack Pine sidecar class in 1940 to become the first woman to earn an AMA National Championship title, then repeated the feat in 1946.
In 1941 she became a co-founder of the Motor Maids, an all-women’s organization dedicated to improving the public perception of motorcycling, and she served as its president for many years. Robinson was inducted into the Motorcycle Hall of Fame in 1998, under Youngblood. She died a year later at the age of 87. On display in Saratoga is the last motorcycle Robinson rode, complete with a sidecar that was added when she became too old to manage a large touring bike. The bike is owned by Robinson’s daughter Betty Falk, who is also an active motorcyclist and a life-long Motor Maid. Falk will ride the Harley-Davidson from the Saratoga Automobile Museum to Utah this summer.
It is stories such as Dot Robinson’s, Potter said, that bring more than the usual `gear heads` to the museum.
`I have frequently heard from people who have been dragged to the museum by a spouse or child, and they have had no interest whatsoever in the cars before they came. Then they see what we’ve done to do more than just show cars, to how they are historically and socially significant, and they can relate and enjoy the exhibit,` Potter said. `We know that if we get people through the door, they’re going to have a good time.`
Potter said he expects between 25,000 and 30,000 visitors to the motorcycle exhibit during its run.
`Even for people who have never been on a motorcycle, but they’re fascinated with the romance and its role in pop culture, this is an exhibit they’re going to love,` he said.
And if patrons love it, they’ll keep coming back for more. In this way, Potter said the museum has become a tourist destination in Saratoga and the region, with some rare exhibits attracting patrons from around the world.
`It is the nature of all museums that they are local,` said Potter. `We’re doing our small share to make the Capital District a destination.`
The Saratoga Automobile Museum is located on the grounds of Saratoga Spa State Park at 110 Avenue of the Pines. For information, visit the Museum’s Web site at www.saratogaautomuseum.org, call (518) 587-1935, ext. 22, or e-mail [email protected].“