Marist archivists help recreate regatta for film

Imagine 100,000 people descending on the banks of the Hudson River for a county fair-like spectacle that united Dutchess and Ulster counties while celebrating the athletic majesty of the waterway known as America’s “First River.”

President Franklin D. Roosevelt, a Hyde Park native, might be there with his wife, first lady Eleanor Roosevelt. The Vanderbilts and the As-tors, two families that anchored the nation’s Gilded Age, also joined in the revelry, which included Mardi Gras-style parades and parties.

The focus of all this attention was the Poughkeepsie Regatta, a rowing race launched by the Intercollegiate Rowing Association that ran from 1895-1949, except for a few years when it was either canceled or held elsewhere. Officially, it was the Intercollegiate Rowing Association Regatta but became popularly known as the Poughkeepsie Regatta in the1910s. While attracting national attention, much of the preparation and staging of the race was overseen by residents of Poughkeepsie and Highland.

Now, 75 years after the competition was last held on the Hudson, the regatta and the river are once again receiving high-profile attention. The spotlight is coming thanks to George Clooney and Hollywood — with support from Marist College.

Still in theaters as of Sunday, and set to be featured on streaming services, “The Boys in the Boat” is based on a best-selling book and follows the University of Washington rowing team, their success at the 1936 Poughkeepsie Regatta and gold medal victory at that year’s Summer Olympics in Berlin. The film was directed by Clooney, whose team received research assistance from the Marist Archives and Special Collections.

“It was really fun to see it,” Laurel Spuhler, 60, a Marist graduate and Poughkeepsie resident whose daughter rowed for Poughkeepsie High School’s crew team, said of the film. “They really helped you visualize the whole thing.”

When the regatta was held in Poughkeepsie, Marist was a training school for a religious order, the Marist Brothers, and did not field a crew team, said John Ansley, director of Archives and Special Collections at Marist, who worked directly with Clooney’s team. Marist is now a four-year, co-ed college with men’s and women’s rowing teams.

The Poughkeepsie Regatta stretched for both three and four miles, with the Mid-Hudson Bridge to the south — which connects Poughkeepsie and Highland — always serving as the finish line. That particular section of the Hudson was selected for the competition because it is straight and its banks made the river accessible to spectators, Ansley said. Following frustration with the tidal nature of the Hudson River and dissatisfaction with a lack of local housing for crews, the race relocated to Ohio in 1950, then rotated around the country.

Marist prioritized the regatta for its archives in large part because it unfolded “right on our front door,” Ansley said.

And yes, assisting with research for a big Hollywood film was exciting.

“It was definitely an exciting request because it was connected with a big movie,” Ansley said. “We did learn that George Clooney was directing, so we were hoping it would be filmed here, so we would have the chance to meet the crew and entice him to come and visit the archives.”

Laurent Rejto, director of the Hudson Valley Film Commission, also hoped Clooney would film in the region. The film commission, according to Rejto, worked with the movie’s pre-production team and provided hundreds of potential filming locations in the Hudson Valley. These sites included Marist, Vassar College, the city and town of Poughkeepsie and the Wooden Boat School at the Hudson River Maritime Museum in Kingston. The film commission also sent referrals for local scholars at both Marist and Vassar College.

Clooney ended up filming elsewhere. But Ansley received an email from the motion picture team, inquiring about the regatta.

“They seemed really keen on making sure they were as historically accurate as possible,” he said.

Ansley, whose work for the film was supported by Research Services Librarian Elizabeth Clarke and Library Assistant Ann Sandri, sent Clooney’s team scans, photos and information on:

• Original programs sold at the regatta

• The 1936 University of Washington crew team

• The types of uniforms worn by rowers

• Construction of the boats and oars

• Woodcliff Pleasure Park, an amusement park located on what is now the north end of the Marist campus

• Tickets for seats on observation trains that followed along with the races on the river from the rail line on the Hudson’s Ulster County shore

• Crowds of spectators

• Boathouses

A member of Clooney’s team also paid a visit to the Marist campus.

“It was really flattering that they recognized us as the authority on the race,” Ansley said. “They were great to work with. It was a cool experience.”