History, Natural History & the Arts
The National Susan B. Anthony Museum & House has received a $75,000 grant for VoteTilla, a week-long navigational celebration which will take place along the Erie Canal from July 16-22, 2017.
The event is in honor of the New York state women’s suffrage centennial and is a reminder of the work and cooperation required to secure the vote for women. [Read more…] about VoteTilla Flotilla To Mark Suffrage Centennial
Historians, museums, libraries, cultural groups, political leaders and community members are invited to a roundtable discussion on “Social Reform Movements of the 19th Century in the Champlain Canal Region of New York” on Friday, January 20 from 10 am to 2 pm in the Schuyler Room of the Saratoga Town Hall.
Stories gathered at the roundtable will be used to design public humanities programs on themes related to social reform movements during the Industrial Revolution. [Read more…] about Champlain Canal Region Social Reform Movements Roundtable
In honor of President Lincoln’s January 1, 1863 Emancipation Proclamation, and Gerrit Smith’s connection to the copy of the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation in the New York State Library, Retired Navy Commander Owen Corpin will provide a program and prepare the watch fire for the Watch Night commemoration at 4 pm Sunday, December 31, 2016.
The program will begin at the Smithfield Community Center, 5255 Pleasant Valley Road, Peterboro, and will move to the watch fire site on the Peterboro Green. Owen Corpin, a descendant of 19th Century freedom seekers who came to Peterboro, will describe the long wait through the night of December 31, 1862. Corpin organized the first Peterboro Watch Night for the Sesquicentennial of the Emancipation Proclamation. [Read more…] about Emancipation Watch Night in Peterboro New Year’s Eve
In The Dutch Moment: War,Trade, and Settlement in the Seventeenth-Century Atlantic World (Cornell University Press, 2016), Wim Klooster shows how the Dutch built and eventually lost an Atlantic empire that stretched from the homeland in the United Provinces to the Hudson River and from Brazil and the Caribbean to the African Gold Coast. The fleets and armies that fought for the Dutch in the decades-long war against Spain included numerous foreigners, largely drawn from countries in northwestern Europe. Likewise, many settlers of Dutch colonies were born in other parts of Europe or the New World. The Dutch would not have been able to achieve military victories without the native alliances they carefully cultivated. The Dutch Atlantic was quintessentially interimperial, multinational, and multiracial. At the same time, it was an empire entirely designed to benefit the United Provinces. [Read more…] about New Book: The Dutch Moment
Nancy Webster and David Shirley’s new book, A History of Brooklyn Bridge Park (Columbia University Press, 2016), recounts the grassroots, multi-voiced, and contentious effort, beginning in the 1980s, to transform Brooklyn’s defunct piers into a beautiful, urban oasis.
By the 1970s, the Brooklyn piers had become a wasteland on the New York City waterfront. Today, they have been transformed into a park that is enjoyed by countless Brooklynites and visitors from across New York City and around the world. The movement to resist commercial development on the piers reveals how concerned citizens came together to shape the future of their community. [Read more…] about A History of Brooklyn Bridge Park
This week on The Historians Podcast, Peter Ames Carlin, author of Homeward Bound: The Life of Paul Simon. (Henry Holt, 2016) Born in New Jersey, Simon grew up in Queens, New York. Carlin sees Simon’s upbringing in the context of the Jewish immigrant experience in America. You can listen to the podcast here. [Read more…] about Paul Simon Biographer Peter Ames Carlin
A September post on this New York History Blog had some examples of “putting history to work” – showing the value of history for revealing historical precedents, insights or parallels which help shed light on current issues. Demonstrating that value in varied, imaginative ways is an important strategy for building support and securing resources for our history progams.
Here are a few more examples: [Read more…] about Bruce Dearstyne: More Ideas For Putting History To Work
Winnakee Land Trust has announced the Northern Dutchess Trail Project and receipt of a grant in the amount of $14,800 from the 2016 Greenway Conservancy Trail Grant Program.
The grant was one of 22 received in the Mid-Hudson Valley and Capital Region. The Greenway Conservancy Trail Grant Program, funded by NYS Environmental Protection Fund, supports the Greenway’s goal to establish the Hudson River Valley Greenway Trail, a contiguous trail linking cultural and historic sites, parks, open spaces, and community centers from New York City to the Adirondacks. [Read more…] about Winnakee Launches Northern Dutchess Trail Project
The New York State Library commemorates the 75th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor with an exhibit on the 7th floor, the centerpiece of which is a small but interesting collection of papers left by one Private First Class/later Sergeant Archibald Francis McCaw, who preferred to be known as Fran.
From the memo section of Private McCaw’s small five-year diary, it is learned that after basic training he left Brooklyn Army Base for Honolulu, Hawaii aboard the troop transport Republic, arriving on 9/13/1939. He was assigned to Company C of the 35th US Infantry, Schofield Barracks. “It was sure great to begin my time and get it over in a hurry.” Little did he know. [Read more…] about State Library Exhibit Marks 75th Anniversary of Pearl Harbor
Fort Ticonderoga’s “Fort Fever Series” will begin in January and run through April 2017. The lecture series will be held on Sunday afternoons at 2 pm in the Mars Education Center. Tickets are $10 per person and can be purchased at the door; Fort Ticonderoga Members are admitted free of cost. [Read more…] about Fort Ticonderoga’s Fort Fever Series Schedule Announced