History, Natural History & the Arts
The Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor and the New York State Canal Corporation have announced the release of new educational materials geared for fourth graders learning about the Erie Canal. The Erie Canal Adventure: Unlocking the Waterway Wonders includes a 40-minute video and two lesson plans.
The materials are available for free online at the Erie Canal Learning Hub. [Read more…] about New Erie Canal Educational Resources Available
While there is no way to measure the exact impact of slavery upon the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, we do know the practice involved many millions of Indigenous people who were captured, bound, and sold as enslaved people.
Native Bound Unbound: Archive of Indigenous Slavery is a digital archive that seeks to document and name enslaved Indigenous individuals. [Read more…] about An Archive of Indigenous Slavery (Podcast)
It was 1924. America was in the midst of a roaring economic boom, and so was R.H. Macy & Co.
It had gone public in 1922 and, flush with capital, had bought out competitors, opened a network of regional stores, and transformed its flagship New York City emporium. [Read more…] about Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade: Some History
“Let us talk about turkey,” proclaimed a New York Tribune humor column republished Nov.23, 1888 in The Granville Sentinel. Not Turkey in Europe, nor yet Turkey in Asia. But turkey in America – the esteemed bird that goes so well with cranberry sauce.”
The bald eagle, national bird of the United States, gets prominent attention for months at a time once every four years, when there is a presidential election, but the turkey is heralded every year, the columnist quipped. [Read more…] about Talkin’ Turkey: 19th Century Thanksgiving Newspaper Reports
Nearly everyone has enjoyed the several products derived from the fruit of the cranberry, but few people are familiar with the ecology of this interesting plant or the role it has played in many local economies and histories.
Today the cranberry industry is an important. part of the agricultural economy only in Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Wisconsin. But many other parts of the country were at one time involved in cranberry production. [Read more…] about Cranberry Bogs of Long Island: Some History & Natural History
In the 1800s, most of the commerce at Halfmoon in Saratoga County, NY, was located close to the Mohawk and Hudson Rivers. Joshua Anthony however, developed his spice factory in a remote part of northern Halfmoon on his grandfather’s farm on Farm to Market and Anthony Roads.
The three-story tower in the center of the factory once boasted a windmill that provided power for the machinery. Anthony heated the farmhouse and buildings in the winter with steam from the factory. [Read more…] about Joshua Anthony: The Baking Powder King
America’s first national Thanksgiving holiday was declared by the Continental Congress to commemorate the victory of the American army of General Horatio Gates over British forces commanded by General John Burgoyne in Saratoga, New York on October 17, 1777.
The triumph at Saratoga, America’s turning point in the eight-year War of Independence was the first time in world history an entire British army had been captured. What’s more, the victory reversed a long string of humiliating defeats for the 13 rebellious colonies, including the loss of the revolutionary capital in Philadelphia. [Read more…] about Revolutionary Thanks: America’s First National Thanksgiving Holiday
In 1621, the Pilgrims of Plimoth (or Plymouth) Colony and their Wampanoag neighbors came together to celebrate their first harvest. Today we remember this event as the first Thanksgiving.
But what do we really know about this holiday and the people who celebrated it? [Read more…] about The Pilgrims of Plimoth & The First Thanksgiving
The fabled 1621 “First Thanksgiving” celebrated in elementary school plays across the country was reported on by Edward Winslow in Mourt’s Relation (A Relation or Journal of the Beginning and Proceedings of the English Plantation Settled at Plimoth in New England, 1622) and William Bradford in Of Plymouth Plantation. [Read more…] about Abraham Lincoln’s First Thanksgivings
In 1814, the Richmond Lunatic Asylum at Grangegorman in Dublin started an extraordinary program of asylum building across Ireland, aimed at alleviating the suffering of people with mental illness who were homeless, in prison, or confined in appalling circumstances. [Read more…] about The History of the ‘Lunatic Asylum’ in Ireland