To the Editor:

For Julian Fellowes’s highly popular HBO dramatic series, The Gilded Age, location scouts and production designer Bob Shaw searched for a city to serve as an 1882 stand-in for New York. They came to call on Rensselaer County and Troy City Historian Kathryn Sheehan, who was able to make them aware of the rich resources Troy offered for that time period.

With its block after block of surviving 19th-Century architecture, concert hall, and impressive cemetery, Troy became the perfect backdrop for this tale of old money vs. new money, old world vs. new world, and the world-altering changes this historical era would produce.

Kathryn Sheehan will be the speaker at the New Scotland Historical Association’s May program. She worked with the location scouts and production designer around the city while providing information on how Troy appeared during the Gilded Age and about who the major players were that represented “old” and “new” money. She will also share some behind-the-scenes stories that happened during the filming for season one. 

Sheehan has lectured widely on a number of local history topics and has been featured locally and nationally on PBS and the History Channel. She is currently finishing a book, “Architecture Worth Saving in Rensselaer County; 50 years later,” a follow-up to Bernd Foerster’s “Architecture Worth Saving in Rensselaer County,” published by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1965.

Please come to NSHA’s May program to hear Kathryn Sheehan’s informative and entertaining presentation featuring the true stories behind The Gilded Age story.

This program will be presented at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, May 2, at the Wyman Osterhout Community Center in New Salem on 7 The Old New Salem Road. Admission is always free.   

The New Scotland Historical Association Museum will be open for a half-hour before the program.

Judy Kimes

Publicist

New Scotland

Historical Association