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As the winter season approaches, I’ve been looking at the winter-themed objects in the Cayuga Museum’s collection. Several pairs of ice skates caught my eye and I’ve been learning more about the history of skating and how Cayuga County has promoted this beloved winter pastime. The first ice skates consisted of bones strapped onto the wearer’s shoes, and were developed in Nordic countries as a mode of transportation.

Skating was also enjoyed as a recreational activity and was eventually adopted as a sport with rules and regulations. Organized clubs were formed in Scotland and England, which focused on creating patterns etched into the ice. This became known as the “English style” of figure skating.



In this style, participants were judged on the patterns they were able to make in the ice. In New York City, trained dancer Jackson Haines grew tired of the rigidity of the English style and developed his own interpretation of figure skating that included dancing and jumps choreographed to music. Haines’ style became known as the “international style.

” Ice skates in the collection of the Cayuga Museum of History & Art in Auburn. As the sport of figure skating gained new fans, recreational skating continued to be enjoyed, and it gained tremendous popularity during the Victorian era. New innovations of metal blades that could be clipped to one’s shoes made skating more affordable and accessible.

In face of growing industrialization, Victorians romanticized nature a.

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