History, Natural History & the Arts
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The Tramp and Trail Club of Utica, Inc., is the oldest hiking club in New York State. The first outing was held April 30th, 1921.
Led by Abigail Dimon, Seventeen Tramps and Trailers hiked from the Elm St. entrance of Roscoe Conkling Park (Utica) west to Third St. (now Valley View Rd.) and on to Cascade Glen. [Read more…] about New York’s Oldest Hiking Club Celebrating 100 Years
The Oneida County History Center (OCHC) has installed History Makers, a new exhibit saluting a few of Utica’s African American citizens who belong in history books. [Read more…] about Black History Makers of Utica Exhibit Installed
In 1844 New York State published a volume on birds in Natural History of New York. Written by James E. DeKay with hand-colored lithographs by John William Hill, it was the State’s first attempt at a comprehensive scientific cataloging of New York’s birds. At the time about 301 species of birds were known to be present in the state.
Sixty years later another effort was made to bring together the State’s bird knowledge. The first of the two-volume of Birds of New York – Water Birds and Game Birds – was published to much acclaim. The book was a collaboration between wildlife artist Louis Agassiz Fuertes and author Elon Howard Eaton. Birds of New York listed an additional 100 species – several of which were then “well known,” but unknown in the 1840s. The book would serve as a model for those that followed.
[Read more…] about Birds of New York: Scientific Cataloging In Historical Context
Before F. W. Woolworths’, Whitney’s, or even Myer’s department store, there was Pease’s Great Variety Store, located in the Temple of Fancy at 516 and 518 Broadway in Albany, NY.
As with other fancy goods stores, Pease’s catered to the middle and upper middle class selling highly decorated goods like ceramics, prints, furniture and other decorative household items that progressively thinking people might have wanted to purchase. [Read more…] about America’s First Christmas Card & An Early Albany Department Store
A young wildlands advocate Paul Schaefer was enamored of activist John Apperson from the day he first met him.
It was about 1931. Apperson was an General Electric engineer fighting to protect Lake George and other wild places. As Schaefer said, it was the pure sense of joy that Apperson exuded about conservation in the Adirondacks which galvanized young people looking for a cause.
These were very important years for the Adirondacks, as for the nation. The 1932 national election loomed, as the Great Depression sucked hope and savings from so many. One can imagine the anxiety that gripped the country and the opportunity for hucksters, demagogues, as well as statesmen. [Read more…] about Al Smith, John Apperson, FDR & The Fight That Expanded NYS Forests
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What really happened at Donnelly’s Corners in the spring of 1929?
The question haunts the exciting and thought-provoking novel, The Power Line (Outskirts Press, 2020) by Christopher Shaw.
According to Shaw, the project began in the seventies when the guide and regional historian Abel St. Martin began recording the memories of older people around Saranac Lake and Lake Aurora in the Adirondacks. [Read more…] about New Novel: The Power Line by Christopher Shaw
Beginning in the 1940s, medical wear began the journey towards what we know and easily recognize today.
What we call “scrubs” originated as the white gowns and drapes that were worn by surgeons and operating staff. At first, everything was white – the doctor’s coats, the operating gowns and the nurse’s uniforms. Operating rooms were also a gleaming sanitary white, with bright task lighting. [Read more…] about Medical Scrubs: A Short History
April 11, 1919, New York Governor Al Smith signed the “Historians Law.” The first law of its kind in the United States, the Historians Law allowed for every village, town, and city in the state to have a municipal historian to gather and preserve historical records.
The Association of Public Historians of New York State (APHNYS), the organization for the state’s municipal historians, is set to host its first virtual annual meeting and conference on Monday and Tuesday, September 21-22, 2020. [Read more…] about Municipal Historians Annual Meeting Goes Virtual
The New York State Museum has announced programming to commemorate the 19th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Beginning Friday, September 11, 2020, a display of World Trade Center artifacts will be added to the Windows on New York exhibition in the museum’s Madison Avenue lobby window. [Read more…] about NY State Museum Commemorating 9/11