History, Natural History & the Arts
Walking into any of the 32 libraries and reading centers across Clinton, Essex and Franklin counties, visitors find friendly staff and programs tailored to local communities.
Less visible is the organization making that possible: the Clinton-Essex-Franklin Library System (CEFLS). [Read more…] about More Than Books: The North Country Library System Story
The Fort Plain Museum and Historical Park has announced the finalists for the 2026 James Kirby Martin Book Prize.
The award honors the memory and scholarly contributions of the late historian James Kirby Martin, the Hugh Roy and Lilli Cranz Cullen University Professor of History at the University of Houston and a member of the Fort Plain Museum board. [Read more…] about James Kirby Martin Book Prize Finalists Announced
Almost 20 years ago when New York Almanack was founded I signed up for Amazon.com’s affiliate program in order to earn a small percentage from the sales of New York State related books noticed here on the site.
Today, Independent Bookstore Day, we’re switching to Bookshop.org, which allows Almanack readers to buy from independent bookstores of their choosing – supporting the Almanack AND their favorite bookstore! [Read more…] about New York Almanack Book Purchases Now Support Local Booksellers
In 1903, Ashkenazi Jews in Ukraine suffered systemic discrimination and severe poverty. Brutally enforcing residency laws, officers conducted nighttime raids and expelled those who lacked proper paperwork. A wave of (state-sanctioned) antisemitic attacks throughout the Russian Empire caused panic and displacement.
This persecution preceded the terrifying pogrom in Kyiv (Kiev) in October 1905. By that time, the Dibner family, like many fellow Jews, had fled from repression to New York City and settled in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. [Read more…] about Bern Dibner: Electrical Engineer, Industrialist, and Historian of Science
The principles of beauty and artistic taste and its appreciation in nature and art are very personal, yet aesthetics can often be shared. During the nineteenth century the industrial revolution, first in Europe and later North America, left a dearth of creative aesthetics among inhabitants. Many felt the impersonal civilization, where industrialization forced movement from agrarian societies to urban social life, stripped creativity and aesthetic expression.
Like the industrial revolution itself, what would become an international trend originated in England and would be spread to British colonies and former colonies of the Empire, with origins in the 1850s. This was an arts and crafts movement, spurred on by those with both a grasp of mechanical design and a gift for expressing themselves in writing and lecture, such as John Ruskin, Thomas Carlyle and William Morris. Art of pre-industrial times, produced by the skills of craftsmen, were championed and embraced by the movement. [Read more…] about Philistine Elbert Hubbard, Roycroft, and the Arts & Crafts Movement
An outspoken critic of the National Socialist (Nazi) Party, Jewish photojournalist Gisèle [Gisela] Freund fled her native Germany in 1933 with Adolf Hitler’s rise to power. Having settled in Paris, she obtained her PhD at the Sorbonne in 1936 and would become the most talented chronicler of the vibrant and multi-national bohemian community of artists and writers that made its home in Paris during the 1930s.
By 1939, Freund had photographed many of the greatest writers and artists of the twentieth century, amongst them Henri Matisse, Samuel Beckett, T. S. Eliot, Virginia Woolf, Jean Cocteau, André Breton, Colette, André Malraux, Paul Valéry, Tennessee Williams, Peggy Guggenheim, Simone de Beauvoir, and Jean-Paul Sartre. [Read more…] about The Battle for Ulysses in Paris & New York
The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in America are often described as a “Golden Age” of book collecting. Driven by a desire for cultural aura, wealthy individuals and prestigious institutions acquired unique manuscripts and incunabula as well as rare printed books. Well-stocked bookcases were considered an emblem of wisdom. Part of Europe’s literary heritage was shifted across the Atlantic to the United States.
The antiquarian book trade flourished; specialist auction houses reflected the spending power of the era’s elite. Some critics have referred to this collecting rage as a “gentle madness.” It was worse than that. [Read more…] about Gabriel Wells: Manhattan Bookseller & Biblioclast
Musicologist and composer Charles Louis Seeger Jr., a pacifist and conscientious objector, was the father of folk singers Pete Seeger, Mike Seeger and Peggy Seeger all of whom were associated with anti-war movements later in the twentieth century. His younger brother Alan Seeger was a Greenwich Village poet and bohemian who had settled in Paris in 1912.
When Germany declared war on France he joined the French Foreign Legion and was killed in 1916 in action at the Battle of the Somme. His writings were published posthumously and would cement his reputation as an American war poet. In France, his memory is revered to this day. [Read more…] about Poems, Books & Bullets: The Seeger Family & World War One
Cornell University Press (CUP) was the first university press in the United States, founded in 1869 in the school’s College of the Mechanic Arts, as mechanical engineering was then called, because engineers knew the most about operating a steam-powered printing press.
(Cambridge University Press is both the oldest publishing house in the world and the oldest university press, having published its first book in 1584; Johns Hopkins University Press has been in continuous operation since 1878). [Read more…] about Cornell University Press: America’s First University Press
At the start of Elizabeth I’s reign in 1558, a desire was expressed that the role and position of the Church of England should be explained. As a consequence, a stream of devotional and exegetical publications designed for Protestant edification flooded the market. Printers gained a prominent place in the process.
From the outset women were active participants in the trade. They looked after the well-being of young apprentices in the shop and worked alongside men as printer’s devils and compositors. They managed the distribution of printed matter, the sale of stationery and kept the books. [Read more…] about Elizabeth Glover & The Founding of Harvard University Press
In early October 1900, the Glens Falls Insurance Company announced receipt of an illustration for publication in their 1901 calendar. The painting was by F.C. Yohn, a commercial artist, whose numerous-creative works dramatically portrayed Americana.
Yohn’s 1900-produced painting interpreted the death scene of Colonel Ephraim Williams, a British provincial officer from Massachusetts, who perished in the Battle of Lake George on September 8, 1755. [Read more…] about F.C. Yohn: Artist & Illustrator of New York History
The Gilder Lehrman Institute in New York City has announced the 2025 Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize will be awarded to Edda L. Fields-Black for her book Combee: Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River Raid, and Black Freedom During the Civil War (Oxford University Press, 2024).
The book tells the story of the Combahee River Raid, one of Harriet Tubman‘s most extraordinary accomplishments, based on original documents and written by a descendant of one of the participants. [Read more…] about Book About Daring Harriet Tubman Raid Wins Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize
Four locals, all with publishing experience, have teamed up to revitalize the 52-year-old independent Purple Mountain Press (PMP), a publisher of local and regional New York State history books located in the Catskills.
Brett Barry, Rebecca Rego Barry, Carolyn Bennett, and Lee Hudson took ownership of the press last month, they said in an announcement sent to the New York Almanack. [Read more…] about Catskills Publisher Purple Mountain Press Under New Ownership
In the first decades of the 18th century, Paraclete Potter was a successful newspaper publisher, bookseller, investor, and civic-minded entrepreneur based in Poughkeepsie, New York.
He lost his money in a real estate crash in 1840, but he’d made political friends over the years, and got a patronage appointment in Wisconsin, where he rebuilt his life. [Read more…] about Paraclete Potter: Poughkeepsie Publisher & Politician
Our Adirondack bookshelf here in North Bolton got a bit deeper after a serendipitous stop at an out-the-way, used bookstore recently. When Sally Brillon, owner-operator of 1786 Wilson Homestead Books and Antiques near Salem, NY, learned where we lived, she pulled a box of books from behind her desk.
It included early editions of Seneca Ray Stoddard’s guidebooks, Russell Carson’s Peaks and People of the Adirondacks, collections of W.H.H. Murray’s Adirondack writings and Woodcraft by George Washington Sears, aka Nessmuck, among others. [Read more…] about Rare Indeed: A Bookstore on the Back Roads of Washington County
William Bradford (1663-1752) was born in village of Barwell, Leicestershire, where his father was a printer and a member of the Society of Friends (Quakers). As a youngster, he was apprenticed to Andrew Sowle, London’s foremost Quaker printer, and subsequently married his master’s daughter. In 1682, the couple joined William Penn’s new North American colony.
Eight years later Bradford set up Pennsylvania’s first printing press, but continuous interference by the authorities and attempts to curb his independence made him decide to move to the city of New York. In 1693 he was appointed official printer to the Colonial government. He settled in Pearl Street, Manhattan; his offices were located at Hanover Square. [Read more…] about Walter Lippmann’s Stereotype: From Printing to Politics
Twenty-five miles north of New York City on the eastern shore of the Hudson River lies Tarrytown in an area called Tappan Zee (Tappan for the local people of the Lenape; zee is Dutch for sea) in Westchester County, NY. It was home to the Weckquaesgeek who cultivated the land, fished and hunted there. [Read more…] about Printing Machinery & Bibliophily: A New York History
Brooklyn Public Library has shared its 2024 BPL Book Prize longlist honoring outstanding works of nonfiction and fiction, the list is selected by librarians and library staff, who draw on their broad knowledge of literature and the many populations they serve. [Read more…] about Brooklyn Public Library Announces 2024 BPL Book Prize Longlist
SUNY Press has announced a new series, Studies in New York Law, edited by Albert M. Rosenblatt. Studies in New York Law is expected to highlight key legal issues and cases that have shaped New York (and the nation’s) history. Combining legal analysis with a focus on specific cases or events, books in the series will address the theoretical and practical applications of New York law as it has evolved over time. [Read more…] about SUNY Press Launches New ‘Studies in New York Law’ Series
In 1727, Benjamin Franklin and friends formed the Junto Club (from the Spanish junta or assembly) in Philadelphia, a debating society that probed questions of morality, politics and philosophy. The group was composed of twelve members drawn from diverse backgrounds, but they all shared a spirit of inquiry and a desire to improve society.
Access to books was limited at the time. Most of them were imported and expensive. There were no public libraries. [Read more…] about Black Librarians & America’s Battles Over Books
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