• Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to secondary sidebar

New York Almanack

History, Natural History & the Arts

  • Email
  • RSS
  • Adirondacks & NNY
  • Capital-Saratoga
  • Mohawk Valley
  • Hudson Valley & Catskills
  • NYC & Long Island
  • Western NY
  • History
  • Nature & Environment
  • Arts & Culture
  • Outdoor Recreation
  • Food & Farms
  • Subscribe
  • Support
  • Submit
  • About
  • New Books
  • Events
  • Podcasts

Biography

An Abandoned Canal Hides Deep In The Adirondack Woods

October 22, 2020 by Mike Prescott 2 Comments

Contemporary-Arial-Photograph-of-the-Canal-photo-Rick-Rosen-2008-540x405 Farrand Benedict, surveyor and professor of mathematics and engineering at the University of Vermont in Burlington, wrote a proposal for a canal across the Adirondacks in 1846.

His plan was to use the Black River Canal with its connection to the Erie Canal at Rome and build a railroad from Boonville, on the Black River Canal, to Old Forge. He was then going to utilize the Fulton Chain of Lakes, Raquette Lake, Long Lake, the Raquette River and the Saranac Lakes with various lock systems, dams, and inclines to the Saranac River for canal boat traffic. [Read more…] about An Abandoned Canal Hides Deep In The Adirondack Woods

Filed Under: Adirondacks & NNY, Capital-Saratoga, History, Mohawk Valley Tagged With: Adirondack Park, Biography, Farrand Benedict, Fulton Chain, Lake Champlain, Long Lake, Newcomb, Transportation History, University of Vermont

Mapping Empire in the Chesapeake

September 25, 2019 by Liz Covart Leave a Comment

ben_franklins_worldHow do empires come to be? How are empires made and who makes them?

What role do maps play in making empires?

Christian Koot is a Professor of History at Towson University and the author of A Biography of a Map in Motion: Augustine Herrman’s Chesapeake (NYU Press, 2017). Christian has researched and written two books about the seventeenth-century Anglo-Dutch World go better understand empires and how they are made. He joins us in this episode of Ben Franklin’s World to take us through his research and to share what one specific map, Augustine Herrman’s 1673 map Virginia and Maryland, reveals about empire and empire making. [Read more…] about Mapping Empire in the Chesapeake

Filed Under: History Tagged With: Biography, British Empire, Chesapeake, Dutch History, Early America, Early American History, Empires, Mapmakers, Maps, Maryland, New Netherland, Podcasts, Virginia

Biography And A Biographer’s Work

June 5, 2019 by Liz Covart Leave a Comment

ben_franklins_worldHave you ever had one of those really interesting conversations where the person was so fascinating that you wished the conversation didn’t have to end?

In this episode of Ben Franklin’s World, Flora Fraser joins us for one of those conversations. We’ll talk about biography, and in doing so, she’ll tell us what it was like to grow up as the daughter and granddaughter of two famed, British biographers and about the genre of biography and how it developed in the United Kingdom. [Read more…] about Biography And A Biographer’s Work

Filed Under: Books, History Tagged With: Biography, Books, British Empire, Early American History, Podcasts, Royals, womens history, Writing

Researching Biography: Runaway Slave Ona Judge

November 21, 2018 by Liz Covart Leave a Comment

ben_franklins_world

How do historians and biographers reconstruct the lives of people from the past?

Good biographies rely on telling the lives of people using practiced historical methods of thorough archival research and the sound interrogation of historical sources. But what does this practice of historical methods look like?

In this episode of Ben Franklin’s World: A Podcast About Early American History, the final episode in the Omohundro Institute’s Doing History series about biography, Erica Dunbar, the Charles and Mary Beard Professor of History at Rutgers University and author of Never Caught: The Washingtons’ Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave Ona Judge (Simon & Schuster, 2017), takes us into the archives to show us how she recovered the life of Ona Judge. You can listen to the podcast here: www.benfranklinsworld.com/212

[Read more…] about Researching Biography: Runaway Slave Ona Judge

Filed Under: Books, History Tagged With: Biography, Early American History, George Washington, Podcasts, Runaway Slave Ads

Considering John Marshall (Conclusion)

November 14, 2018 by Liz Covart Leave a Comment

ben_franklins_world

Can a biography help us explore big historical questions?

Can knowing about the life of John Marshall, the fourth Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, help us better understand the Supreme Court and how it came to occupy the powerful place it has in the United State government?

The Doing History: Biography series continues in this episode of Ben Franklin’s World: A Podcast About Early American History and explores these questions with Richard Brookhiser, author of John Marshall: The Man Who Made The Supreme Court (Basic Books, 2018). You can listen to the podcast here: www.benfranklinsworld.com/211

[Read more…] about Considering John Marshall (Conclusion)

Filed Under: Books, History Tagged With: Biography, Books, John Marshall, Podcasts, Political History, Supreme Court

Considering John Marshall

November 7, 2018 by Liz Covart Leave a Comment

ben_franklins_world

For 34 years, John Marshall presided as the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court. During his service, Marshal transformed the nation’s top court and its judicial branch into the powerful body and co-equal branch of government we know it as today.

The Doing History: Biography series continues in this episode of Ben Franklin’s World: A Podcast About Early American History as Joel Richard Paul, a professor of law at the University of California, Hastings Law School and author of Without Precedent: Chief Justice John Marshall and His Times (Riverhead Books, 2018), joins us to explore the life of John Marshall and how he wrote his biography. You can listen to the podcast here: www.benfranklinsworld.com/210

[Read more…] about Considering John Marshall

Filed Under: Books, History Tagged With: Biography, Books, John Marshall, Podcasts

Considering Biography In Early American History

October 31, 2018 by Liz Covart Leave a Comment

ben_franklins_worldBiography. Since the earliest days of the United States, and even before the thirteen colonies came together to forge a nation, Americans have been interested in biography. But why?

What is it about the lives of others that makes the past so interesting and fun to explore?

This episode of Ben Franklin’s World: A Podcast About Early American History marks the start of the Omohundro Institute’s four-episode Doing History series about biography. This series will take us behind-the-scenes of biography and how historians and biographers reconstruct the lives of people from the past. You can listen to the podcast here: www.benfranklinsworld.com/209

[Read more…] about Considering Biography In Early American History

Filed Under: Books, History Tagged With: Biography, Early American History, history, Podcasts

Primary Sidebar

Help Support The Almanack

Subscribe to New York Almanack

Subscribe! Follow the New York Almanack each day via E-mail, RSS, Twitter or Facebook updates.

Recent Comments

  • peter Waggitt on Raines Law, Loopholes and Prohibition
  • Anthony St Phillips on War of 1812: Carrying the Great Rope
  • Kenneth Boede on When Sullivan County Was A Sportsman’s Paradise
  • Robert Hunt on Westchester County’s Katharine Harrison, Accused Witch
  • Lisa Nevins on Westchester County’s Katharine Harrison, Accused Witch
  • Nancy Begley Pennell on Irish Immigrant, Medal of Honor Winner Terrence Begley Being Honored in Albany
  • arc skuta on MicroHistory and Migration: From Moltrasio to London, New York and Montreal
  • Nancy Robinson on Former Saratoga and North Creek Railway Purchased
  • Bernard McCann on Zoar Valley Improvements Update
  • Arlene Steinberg on Record Broken for Oldest Bear Hunter

Recent New York Books

The Motorcycle Industry in New York State
Unfriendly to Liberty
weeds of the northeast
Putting Out the Planetary Fire: An Introduction to Climate Action and Advocacy
Seneca Ray Stoddard An Intimate Portrait of an Adirondack Legend
rebels at sea
The Great New York Fire of 1776
politics of trash
Indivisible
Virginia Venture Misha Ewen

Secondary Sidebar

Mohawk Valley Trading Company Honey, Honey Comb, Buckwheat Honey, Beeswax Candles, Maple Syrup, Maple Sugar
preservation league