The recording of the Victorian Society New York’s first ever online lecture is now online. Please see the link below.
Recorded May 6th, 2020.
Speaker: Anna Rasche G.G.
This lecture explores the history of elite jewelry firm Dreicer & Company. Founded by Jewish immigrants shortly after the Civil War, the company began in a tenement laundry room, and ended in a 5th Avenue flagship designed by Warren & Wetmore. Although the brand is somewhat obscure today, by the turn of the twentieth century Dreicer & Company ranked alongside prestigious houses such as Cartier and Tiffany & Co., and boasted the nation’s wealthiest businessmen and U.S. presidents as patrons. Dreicer was celebrated for their intricate garland-style platinum mountings, singular strands of pearls, and ability to procure rare and historic gemstones. In addition to operating their jewelry business, the Dreicer family invested in real estate and developed properties along Fifth Avenue, and left a substantial collection of Renaissance & Medieval Art to the Metropolitan Museum.
Speaker Bio: Anna Rasche is a gemologist and independent jewelry historian based in New York City. She holds an MA in the History of Design & Curatorial Studies from Cooper Hewitt/Parsons, a Graduate Gemologist degree from the Gemological Institute of America, and a BA in archaeology from Boston University. She is also co-founder of the Society for the Advancement of Social Studies, a history lecture series that has been bringing good times and fun facts to museums and bars around the city since 2011.