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Description
Madeline Friedler, MST 623: Digital Museum Collections
Faculty Mentor: Professor Noelle Wiedemer, Museum Studies
The Hengerer's department store was a staple of the Buffalo area for decades. The William Hengerer Company sold primarily shoes, household goods, apparel, and other accessories. Beginning with William Hengerer, the family and the business were well-known in the area. The Howard D. Beach Collection of glass plate negatives, owned by the Buffalo History Museum, served as the inspiration for this research. As part of the Museum Studies Digital Museum Collections course, the negatives were cleaned, rehoused, and digitized. Among them were portraits of William’s grandchildren. Using genealogy sites, economic reports from the last century, and newspaper articles, a poster of the Hengerer family's personal history and their business enterprise was created. My research attempts to answer a series of questions: Did Buffalo host a family living a life comparable to the Rockefellers? Or was their daily life more comparable to the common citizen? How did the family’s daily life compare to that of their business?
Publication Date
2020
Recommended Citation
Friedler, Madeline, "Hengerer's: A Buffalo Legacy" (2020). Psychology and Social Sciences. 22nd Annual Student Research and Creativity Conference. SUNY Buffalo State.
https://digitalcommons.buffalostate.edu/srcc-sp20-psychsocsci/16
