New & Noteworthy Collections

Barbara Palmer Quick - Photograph Collection
In 1980 a student in a Visual Anthropology class at Cornell was given an assignment to create an extended  portrait of a businesswoman in Ithaca. The result was an interesting and insightful album of photographs and text documenting the life and work of Barbara Palmer Quick, a hairdresser in Collegetown.

Barbara went to Bethel Grove School, a one-room schoolhouse on Slaterville Road, and Ithaca High School, and later trained at the Bradford Academy, a Beauty School in New York City. After her schooling she began working for her mother-in-law at her beauty shop on College Avenue, and took over the business when she died.  Like many women in any era, Barbara learned how to juggle the competing needs of family (she raised her three sons) and work, and did it, to all appearances, with skill and aplomb. She was not only expert with her scissors, she was also adept at the logistical and financial management of her business. Family struggles and tragedies barely slowed her down, and she seemed to embrace the best of life, enjoying travel and the friendship and support of long-time customers and friends. 

This sympathetic and thoughtful window into Barbara Quick's life and work is a vivid reminder of the often unseen and unsung service workers who buttress modern society.

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