By Matthew M. Thomas
For collectors of maple sugaring antiques, artifacts, and material culture, there is one book that stands out as a kind of beginners’ guide and check list to the many different items one might come across and chose to collect. That guide is the book Sugar-Bush Antiques by Virginia Vidler. The book was published in 1979 by A.S. Barnes and Co. a New York based textbook and encyclopedia publisher at the time.
Sugar-Bush Antiques was Vidler’s second guide book on antiques, following on the 1976 release of American Indian Antiques: Arts and Artifacts of the Northeast, also published by A.S. Barnes. She also later published a book in 1985 on collectibles and souvenirs related to Niagara Falls.
Although Virginia Vidler’s name is on her books as a sole author, in reality, all of her books were a joint project of Virginia and her husband Edward Vidler. As an amateur photographer, Ed Vidler’s main contribution was in providing the many black and white and color images of artifacts, antiques, sugarhouses, and sugaring accoutrement in this well-illustrated book. Vidler asked local East Aurora and Buffalo artist and illustrator Rixford “Rix” Upham Jennings to do the color painting to provide a unique and original cover design.
Virginia Vidler was interested in local New York and new England history and served as the historian for the Town of Aurora. Her interest in maple sugaring and sugar-bush antiques primarily came from her fascination and interest in researching and documenting history. Virginia and Ed Vidler’s son Don Vidler shared that they were not a family of maple sugar makers, although there was a great deal of sugaring in the countryside around them. According to son Don, it was common for the Vidlers to head out on the weekends for sugarhouse and antique hunting expeditions in western New York.
More than simply a collection of photographs of old maple sugaring items, this book traces the history of the maple industry from Native Americans to early pioneers, and into the modern era. With a focus on the material remains of maple sugar and syrup making, there is a special emphasis on the changing technology of production and packaging as well as the change of materials from wood to metal as well as ceramic and glass. From the smallest and humblest wood or tin maple sugar mold to the large kettles, evaporators, or gathering tanks and onto the finest cut glass syrup pitchers, there is little that has been overlooked. Photographs, paintings and prints, and other printed ephemera like postcards and industry guidebooks and reports are also examined.
According to Don Vidler, Virginia and Ed Vidler’s son, the Vidlers amassed a reasonably big collection of maple related antiques, some of which appeared in the photos in the book. Mrs. Vidler recognized that what is considered common place today, will someday be an antique and of interest to the collector. She was quoted in a 1985 newspaper article where she gave a bit of advice on her collecting strategy, noting “when you go to an auction at a farm in the sugar bush country, be sure to check out the items in the barns and behind the old sheds. That is where you will find the authentic sugar bush antiques that no one else seems to recognize.”
When the Vidlers were not running around the countryside visiting sugarbushes and sugarhouses, collecting antiques, or taking photographs, they spent most of their time running Vidler’s 5 and 10 in East Aurora, New York, a short distance from Buffalo. Vidler’s 5 and 10 was started by Ed Vidler’s father Robert Vidler in 1930 before brothers Ed and Bob Vidler took it over in the 1940s. Today, Vidler’s is known as the world’s largest 5 and 10 store. Virginia passed away in 1986 and Ed Vidler in 2019.
Sugar-Bush Antiques presents a good general overview of the wide range of tangible items that someone might consider collectible or of interest that represent or is related in some way to the business and activities of making, packaging, and selling maple sugar and maple syrup. Most sugar-bush antique collectors end up specializing in a few select areas or types of items like spouts, packaging tins, or sugar molds and develop a detailed knowledge of those items far beyond what one will find in this book; however, it is still enjoyable to sit down with a book like this and have a virtual museum tour at your fingertips. Fortunately, it is still possible to find used copies of the book through various online book sales websites.