(upbeat music) - From the palatial gardens to the flowing fountain and the magnificent mansions, beauty awaits you here at this Delaware jet.

"You Oughta Know" is coming to you from Winterthur in the first state.

Welcome to the show.

I'm Shirley Min at Winterthur Museum, Garden, and Library in Delaware, (upbeat music ending) which opened to the public in 1951.

I'm inside the galleries, which was added to the estate in 1992 for large exhibitions, exclusive to Winterthur.

It's here where visitors can take guided tours of exhibitions like the recent from Winterthur to the White House.

If you missed it, you don't wanna miss this current season of exhibitions and activities, including Daffodil Day and Point to Point, which we will talk about later.

And to keep these activities running smoothly, it takes a committed team who don't just work here, but they are invested in Winterthur.

(majestic music) - My name is Chris Strand.

I've been here 17 years.

I started out as Director of Garden and Estate and I've been CEO for the last two years.

We're 1000 acres.

We have 78-acre naturalistic garden, a Point to Point course and mile a half square with natural areas.

We have this museum, which has 175 rooms, two academic programs, two graduate programs.

We have a research library.

Obviously a lot going on.

Mr. DuPont set this foundation up in 1951.

He died in 1969 and since then we've been offering tours and providing education for just about everyone, but especially for people interested in the American decorative arts.

There are over 100,000 objects in this collection, and these were made by craftspeople.

So, each one in a sense is a work of art.

So, both in the galleries and in the house, we have people coming through learning about what it took to make that beautiful piece of furniture back in the day when everything was done by hand.

And I think that magic is what Mr. DuPont was excited about, recording the sort of miracle of that American craftsmanship.

So, this space is so unusual when we bring guests in here, their jaws drop because you're in an interior space with the facades of four buildings.

This was originally a badminton court, and then Mr. DuPont got the inspiration to move actual historic architecture into this space, so that people could fall in love with the craftsmanship of it, but also be wowed by the scale and scope of it.

(upbeat piano music) We're a very diverse operation here, so there are hundreds of people involved in making this happen.

We have about 170 full-time staff, close to 100 part-time staff.

We have students and interns, scores of volunteers, and we teach from the collection.

And that takes a lot of hands to make that happen.

And even though there's more than 100,000 objects in this building, we know exactly where every one of 'em is, which is just amazing to think about that level of detail and that level of care.

So, you know, as we try to connect with the community, we realize that we've got a lot of great partners in the Wilmington area, like partnership for the Delaware Estuary.

Freshwater mussels are largely gone from all of our native waterways, and they needed a nursery site, so that they could raise them and then distribute them to various wetlands throughout the Delaware River Watershed.

And we offered our pond as a nursery site.

So, one single freshwater muscle can filter 25 gallons of water a day, and that they can live to be 80 years old.

Another example is this was originally the sheep farm for the DuPonts.

The DuPonts were some of the first breeders of the Marino breed here in the US.

A number of years ago, a local nonprofit, Greenbank Mill, was interested in raising Marino sheep.

So, we created a pasture and barn area for them and their volunteers, along with our volunteers take care of heritage Marino sheep on that pasture.

We also have rescued goats to eat invasive plants on the property.

We have a couple of big events we do every year, and one of them is Point to Point, a horse race that we have every spring.

And we are dedicating the funding to preservation of land and conservation.

In November, we have an antique show and we have dedicated the funds from that to underwriting our school programs.

The nice thing about those events is they're fun, but also does something really great for the museum and helps us manage these sort of vital programs.

(music ending) - The attention to detail and care is evident everywhere, and it's that same kind of attentive craftsmanship that inspired an upcoming exhibition focused on fashion designer, Anne Lowe.

Sadly, many have not heard of her.

In spite of the breadth of her work, the Black couturier's name and work have gone largely unrecognized.

But an exhibition coming to Winterthur aims to change that.

Anne Lowe designed couture gowns for some of society's biggest names, (soft music) including Jacqueline Kennedy.

Lowe designed the iconic wedding gown the future Mrs. Kennedy wore in 1953, the culmination of her life's work.

But when asked who designed the gown, Kennedy referred to Lowe only as a colored dress maker.

- There are layers upon layers of injustice when it comes to Anne Lowe.

- [Shirley] Katya Roelse teaches fashion design at the University of Delaware.

The folks at the Winterthur Museum asked her to make a replica of Kennedy's wedding gown for an upcoming exhibition dedicated to Anne Lowe's contributions and her legacy.

- I didn't know who Anne Lowe was before I was contacted about this, and I wasn't taught that in fashion design school.

- [Shirley] All the more reason Katya wanted the black fashion designer to have her long overdue moment in the sun.

So, she traveled up to Boston to take measurements and look at the original gown, which is far too delicate to display.

- I spent three days at the JFK library in Boston.

I measured, I took pictures, I sketched.

It's a typical Anne Lowe dress, because it has so many moments of her details.

There are the, the rosettes that are on the 10 panels.

There are these little wax flowers of orange blossoms that are sitting inside the rosettes.

And then there are all the swags that are hand sewn on the hem.

I knew that I wasn't going to be able to complete this, but I also wanted to share this, because it was such a unique techniques to learn.

And there's history and there's also a large part of social justice that I think is a part of this.

- [Shirley] So last summer in this very workroom on UD's campus, Katya and three of her students worked till their fingertips went numb.

Literally.

- First we started with sewing the swags on the bottom of the dress.

It was very labor intensive.

It was about, I think 10 tiers going around the whole entire dress, you know, all that fabric and just hand sewing every little piece on.

It was just very, a lot of work, really hurt your hands.

- It was an interesting experience, because like the hand sewing was just so intricate and yeah, there was a bunch of mishaps and I, it made me wonder, did she have to go through the same thing, like when she was sewing the rosettes, did she pick her fingers too?

- [Shirley] Katya estimates it took at least 300 hours to make the dress from start to finish.

- I thought about her a lot when I was making the dress and, and how she must have felt and if she had these moments of panic.

But then I also liked to think about, you know, did she listen to music while she was making this?

- It makes me feel kind of sad for her, because she deserved all the credit for this dress, especially how much work she put into it.

And it was kind of sad to see that she doesn't really get enough recognition, especially like, if you look in a lot of books.

Her name isn't even me mentioned in them either.

It really made me feel special to be a part of this project and give her the credit that she always deserved.

(music ending) - This will be the largest exhibition of Anne Lowe's work to date with dozens of iconic gowns, many that have never been on public display before.

And here to tell us more about the exhibition is Alexandra Deutche, director of collections here at Winterthur.

Alexandra, thank you so much for having us here.

- Oh, thank you for giving us the opportunity.

- We just saw a segment about how Katya Roelse and some of her students at UD worked tirelessly to recreate Jacqueline Kennedy's wedding gown, which is going to be part of the upcoming Anne Lowe exhibition.

Let's talk about some of the other components of the exhibition.

One being this beautiful gown that we're looking at here.

- This remarkable gown was created by Anne Lowe in 1961 for the Aksar Ben Ball, which is actually Nebraska spelled backwards.

It's one of more than 30 gowns that were commissioned for this ball.

And she did this work when she actually had her atelier shop in Sak's 5th Avenue.

- [Shirley] Oh, wow.

And and there's also going to be a wedding gown that's going to be part of the exhibition.

And there's a local backstory there.

- Yes, it's wonderful to have that local connection to Anne Copeland.

It's her wedding gown, which she created with Lowe.

And she had a very particular vision for this streamlined, extremely elegant gown that actually is quite different from the Aksar Ben gown that has this floral motif.

But it's an incredibly elegant gown with a dramatic train created for Mrs. Copeland.

- So, the gowns are a big component of the exhibition, but what else can visitors expect when they see the Anne Lowe exhibit?

- Well, they're, one of the teasers for the show is on May 20th, they'll be a behind the scenes glimpse of how we've prepared these mannequins, creating special mannequins for each of the gowns in a show, a tiny show called "Getting Dressed with Anne Lowe."

It's sort of the backstory you never learn.

And then on September 9th, we open the exhibit to the public, but then we, in November, we'll open our Yuletide installation, of course with the yuletide theme, but this time inspired by Lowe.

So, you're gonna be seeing trees that are inspired by the gowns.

And we're also featuring-- - Oh my gosh.

- Two local designers who are taking Anne Lowe as an inspiration and creating unique pieces that'll be on view in the house.

- That's gonna be incredible.

Now the fall exhibition for Anne Lowe that's kind of focused on her legacy, we are gonna do a bit of a focus on the gowns, but you're really zeroing in on her story.

- We are, and that was really from the start, the deep commitment to tell a story that has really not been told on this scale and to this depth of scholarship.

And it was so important for us to situate this with Anne Lowe herself, which is why she's on the logo.

But the work for this show started long before we actually decided to make it into an exhibition.

And the research dates back to more than a decade ago with someone who was at Winterthur.

- What goes into putting on an exhibition like this?

I mean, this is the largest Anne Lowe show to date.

So what, what all the, what's all the work that goes into making sure that you acquire all the necessary parts, dresses, pieces, all of that.

- It's a huge team.

It spans most aspects of the institution to get it done.

In this case, our remarkable conservation lab, our textile lab at Winterthur has spent enormous amounts of time preparing all the gowns that are coming from not only private collections, but institutional collections.

Designers are involved, the people fabricating the exhibition, and then our whole interpretive framework for programs, all of those people are involved.

So, it really does take a village to produce a project like this.

- Can people buy tickets already for the September exhibition?

- They are welcome to.

And also if there are people interested in bringing special groups, those arrangements can also be made now.

- I will say I was surprised that the students at UD, the fashion students, had never heard of Anne Lowe before.

I had never heard of Anne Lowe before.

And so I'm so happy this designer is finally getting her credit.

- Yes, and that was very important to us, because I'll confess that before working on this project, I too didn't know of Anne Lowe.

And I think that's why this is even more important, because she is meant and has a deserved place in the history of American fashion.

And I think this exhibition, the accompanying catalog, all the work we're doing is really elevating that history to the place it deserves to be.

- Alexandra, this is gonna be incredible.

Thank you so much for having us here.

- It was an honor to talk to you.

- Well, when Philadelphia's own Grace Kelly married her prince, her wedding girl garnered attention too.

But the fascination for Kelly goes beyond the dress to her fairytale story.

(big band music) - [Announcer] Grace Kelly, Academy Award winner for this, her greatest performance as Georgie Elgin, the country girl.

- And I might forgive even you Mr. Dod, if you can keep them up long enough for me to get out from under.

- She went to New York in 1949.

She got married in 1956.

She made 11 films during that time.

Grace is one of those icons that's known all over the world.

You mentioned her name and everyone knows who she is and she's connected with a certain beauty, culture.

My name is Ellen Sheehan.

I'm with the East Falls Historical Society.

And the Historical Society is so pleased to have this beautiful venue for our lovely Grace Kelly gallery.

We start out with pictures of her when she was a child, her house where she lived.

So, we do have pictures of her movies, pictures of her family, and of course, all her cards from the palace, pictures of her and Rainier when they were married.

One case is dressed before she was married, is just in her Hollywood outfits from her movies.

And the second case we have is her outfit she wore when she met the Prince.

And then her wedding gown and dresses that she used after the wedding.

Lived in a house built by her father, whose company was Kelly for Brickwork, build brick houses in Philadelphia.

He also noted for his athletics; Mr. Kelly won three gold medals in the 1920s at the Olympics for his rowing.

Mrs. Kelly also had athletic ability.

She was the first woman in the nation to coach a university sport.

Well, the Kelly's married in 1925.

Their oldest daughter was Peggy, next child was a John B.

Junior.

Then there was Grace.

And then the youngest sister, Liz Anne.

(upbeat music) Grace got her start on the stage at the age of 12 at the old Academy Playhouse in East Falls.

It seems that her sister came down with the chickenpox.

So Mrs. Kelly said, "Grace, get down to the old academy.

You're going on for your sister tonight.

She's sick."

And so Grace at the age of 12, you know, went down there and performed at an early age.

Whenever she came back to East Falls, she always visited the old academy.

Her uncle, George Kelly, was a playwright and he wrote a Pulitzer Prize winning play called "Craig's Wife."

When she decided she wanted to go to New York and study acting, he gave her some invitations for his friends and introduced her around.

- Amy!

- I mean it, if you won't go with me now, I'll be on that train when it leaves here.

- [Ellen] Her first film was "High Noon."

My favorite movie is "High Society."

- There is one thing I want understood right now, no member of my family is to invite Dexter Haven into this house until after I am married and gone.

- [Ellen] I like "To Catch a Thief," Cary Grant.

And I think it showed her acting ability.

She prepared herself for her film industry the same way her parents did when they were athletics.

She achieved so much in her life.

She was a great actress.

She won an Academy Award, she married a prince.

I mean, it's a fairytale.

People are fascinated by that.

- I'm here now in Montmorenci's stair hall, the elegant staircase.

It was installed in the 1930s.

It actually replaced a marble staircase original to the Winterthur home.

Well, one tradition that continues here at Winterthur is the Point to Point Steeplechase and hear now to tell us more about it is Jill Abbott, the race director.

Jill, thank you so much for meeting me here.

- Thank you, thank you so much.

- We're obviously not on the track.

- We aren't and the horses are not running up the staircase.

- No, no.

But tell viewers what Point to Point is.

- Point to Point is our largest annual fundraiser.

This is our 45th year.

The board of trustees 45 years ago thought that the rolling hills of Winterthur would make a beautiful backdrop for the gentleman's sport of horse racing.

- They weren't wrong.

- Not at all.

It is beautiful.

- And we have some beautiful pieces from the collection that connect Point to Point to the museum here.

- Well, Winterthur Museum, Garden, and Library, right?

So, we are a little everything.

So I'll talk about the library first and how that's connected to our race.

So we have, I have here, I'm holding the original program from 45 years ago.

- [Shirley] Wow.

- And when I look through it, it's fantastic because so many of the people that were originally involved in it are still involved today.

- Huh.

- It's incredible, the-- - [Shirley] Yeah.

- Yes, the tenure and the support, not just of Winterthur, but of steeplechase racing itself.

We also have, part of our collection is textiles.

And what a lot of people don't know is, you know, every year people, we create these wristbands, these are our mission wristbands.

Everybody loves them.

They, they're colorful, they're beautiful for spring.

But what people don't know is every year we create our design motif based on part of the collection.

- Oh.

- This year, we have a pocketbook, which, you know, modern day clutch.

And you can see that this, the design motif is resembles the clutch.

- [Shirley] Right.

- The pocketbook.

So that was something that came from the early 1800s from Rhode Island.

- Wow.

- Sarah Cook created it for her cousin, Mary Remington, who she lived with when her mother became institutionalized.

So there's an unbelievable history in that little piece right there.

- Yeah!

- And that comes with the wristbands.

And then we have, part of our medals collection is the beautiful sterling silver trophies.

- Oh.

- So these are signature of our race.

These are in our winner's circle.

These are perpetual trophies that the winners, the winning owners can bring home and enjoy on their mantle for one year.

And then they must bring it back.

And we have so many different types of, this is a coddle cup from 1692 based off of.

- It's beautiful.

- It is.

- And I like that Point to Point is really like our own Kentucky Derby.

- It is.

And it actually is a very equestrian weekend, because we always run the day after the derby.

So something a little, a little unique is we always say we run the, the first Sunday in the of May, but it's the first Sunday of the first full weekend.

So we never run May Day, because the Kentucky Derby will never run in April.

So that's just a little caveat of our race.

But one of our signature piece is the Winterthur bowl.

And this is obviously named after our founder, Henry Francis DuPont.

And it was donated by the Wilmington Trust Company.

It's based off of an 18th century bowl made by Jacob Van Ike, who was a cousin of Mr. DuPont's great-great-great grandfather.

And what we have here is we have the actual bowl, which I can touch because this is a replica, but right next to it is the actual bowl.

- Wow.

- Part of our collection that is in our Queen Anne dining room.

So it's-- - It's beautiful.

- It's incredible.

And just to see that we have taken the, you know, the part of our collection and made it part of our race.

And that's really what ties Point to Point and why it's our largest annual fundraiser.

- I won't touch that book.

So there are more than just races though.

This is a family friendly event.

Tell me about some of the other activities.

- Ugh, we have, we have something for everyone.

So, it really is a day full of festivals.

So we have antique carriages.

Again, just going to the history of early America.

So we have the antique carriages, we have antique Rolls Royces, we have family activities, we have organizations that come in and bring crafts and games that everybody can enjoy all day.

And obviously we have the sanctioned races, the signature of the event, so.

- Well, it's always fun to get out here and kind of be in your beautiful clothes and your hat and it's always a good time.

So Jill, where can people get tickets and learn more about the event?

- Absolutely, winterthur.org/ptp.

- Okay.

Jill Emmett, thank you so much.

- Thank you.

- This is a great way to make Winterthur a destination.

So I will see you on May 7th.

- [Jill] Can't wait.

- Well, travel with us now to a national historic landmark museum that links the past to the present.

(soothing music) - Pearl S. Buck was actually born Pearl Comfort Sydenstricker.

She was born in West Virginia to Presbyterian missionary parents who took their daughter as an infant back to China.

And she lived there for 42 years.

Her first language was Mandarin.

She would live there and learn about life in rural China, especially Chinese peasants.

That would greatly impact her life's work.

Pearl S. Buck was an accomplished author.

She wrote novels, she wrote children's books, and also a comic book under DC Comics.

In 1932, she won the Pulitzer Prize.

And in 1938, she won the Nobel Prize for Literature.

And her most popular book that everyone's probably heard of is "The Good Earth."

So it's mostly framed around her life experiences in China and what she saw while living there, but also to teach other people around the world about Eastern culture.

This is Greenhill's Farm, which was the farm purchase for her family with her second husband, Richard Walsh.

They adopted six children together and she had eight in total.

They lived here the rest of her life from the mid 1930s until her death in 1973.

She is buried here on the property.

Her tombstone actually has her Chinese name engraved on it, or as it's called a chop.

So there's three characters on it.

The first one is Sy for her maiden name, Sydenstricker.

And the other two are Zen Ju, which means precious Pearl.

Greenhill's farm, it comprises of her home, our cultural center, and conference and events center.

And then we also have the Pearl S. Buck International Foundation of headquarters here on the property.

- Pearl Buck grew up in China, so she had a strong affinity for Asian culture.

She was in Korea and she saw blue-eyed, blonde-haired Korean kids begging in the street.

Well, she investigated and found out that these children were the sons and daughters of U.S. servicemen and local women.

And unfortunately the United States government did not recognize them as U.S. citizens.

And they didn't recognize these children as Korean citizens.

She saw an injustice there.

These poor children, they needed the same kind of love and attention as the children in the United States.

They need education, they need healthcare.

And so she founded Pearl S. Buck Foundation in 1964 to help these children.

It expanded to Vietnam, the Philippines, Thailand, China, and in Taiwan as well.

And then we also have a partnership where we work in Kenya.

Over the years since 1964, we've helped well over 2 million children get an education, have good healthcare, have good psychosocial support, so that they understand that they do have self-worth.

(soothing music continuing) - I'd say the biggest cause of her life that also aligned with her humanitarian work with children was her work for civil rights.

And so racial issues, racial equality and rights were very important to her.

(music ending) - It may be difficult to get to the many hidden gems in our region, but don't worry, we're bringing them to you.

(majestic music) - Welcome to Andalusia.

This has been a magical place since the late 1700s.

1793, it was a year, much like we're experiencing now.

There was the yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia.

John Craig, he was a wealthy merchant and ship owner in Philadelphia.

John's father James had died in that epidemic and two years later, he's searching for a place to get his family away from the city during the summertime.

In 1811, Nicholas Biddle married John and Margaret Craig's daughter Jane.

Margaret Craig died about three years later.

Nicholas Biddle acquired the property and it has been Biddle family ever since that time.

Nicholas Biddle's father Charles served with Benjamin Franklin on the Supreme Executive Council, which was the governing body of Pennsylvania at that time.

Nicholas Biddle had traveled to Greece as a young man.

He went to France in 1804 as a secretary to General Armstrong and attended the coronation of Napoleon.

He served in Pennsylvania legislature and in 1819 was appointed to the board of directors of the second Bank of the United States.

The property now is under the care of the Andalusia Foundation, which was created in 1980 to take care of the big house where we are now and about 75 acres.

- The grounds here as of this year, were established as an arboretum.

It's about 50 acres of formal gardens.

In the Wald Garden, we feature a rose garden that's really spectacular in the spring and even now in the fall.

With the arboretum, we have a magnificent collection of trees that we're really proud of.

On the Green Walk, there's some really beautiful ones like the umbrella pine.

My favorite personally is the paper bark maple, all of which are probably hundreds of years old.

What's special about Andalusia is that we definitely have garden spaces unlike any of the others I've seen, even in America's garden capital.

The age of this institution is wonderful and the walled garden is especially pretty.

- [Connie] All branches of the family have served the country.

Nicholas Biddle served the country.

Commodore James Biddle was in the Navy for 48 years, opened up trade for China and as well as Turkey.

So the family has really contributed to American history and American society.

- I hope that they see something new and garden designs that maybe they can, they can look at and be like, I can take that home and maybe do that in my garden.

Like I think Andalusia should really bring a sense of inspiration to people who visit.

- You can walk through the house, you can see it pretty much as it looked when the Biddles were still living here.

You can step into the surroundings that really are serene and really just take a deep breath and relax.

(music ending) - Well, I hope this show has inspired you to get out and explore some of the places featured today.

And WHYY members get a discount here at Winterthur.

Trust me, you're gonna fall in love as soon as you step on the grounds.

That's our show, everyone.

Have a great night.

(upbeat music) (music ending)