Books

The Sanatorium in Context: A Virtual Book Talk

January 27, 2022 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Historic Saranac Lake will host “Place of Treatment, Place of Isolation, Place of Community: the Sanatorium in Context,” a virtual talk set for Thursday, February 3rd.

Public historian Tegan Kehoe will share stories from her book Exploring American Healthcare through 50 Historic Treasures (Rowman & Littlefield, 2022). The book presents a history of health and medicine through the lens of historic sites and artifacts in museums around the country. She will focus on her chapter on Saranac Lake, comparing and contrasting the patient experience with other sites of medical care. [Read more…] about The Sanatorium in Context: A Virtual Book Talk

New Book On The Hill: A Tipi In A NYC Shantytown

January 23, 2022 by Editorial Staff 3 Comments

The book The Hill (Autonomedia, 2021) by Gabriele Schafer traces the steps of how a shantytown went from the anonymity of waist-high huts hidden in the weeds, to a tour-bus, school-group and celebrity stop; from addicts and recluses just getting by, to a drug supermarket; from a close-knit encampment, to a crime scene that entangles everyone from drug dealers, to users, to cops, to Schafer and Nick Fracaro… when one day tragedy strikes.

In the middle of the night on Thanksgiving 1990, the same weekend that the film Dances with Wolves opened, life partners Schafer and Fracaro erected a 25-foot-tall replica of a Lakota tipi in New York City’s then longest-existing shantytown, known as “The Hill,” located at the foot of the Manhattan Bridge at Canal and Chrystie Streets. [Read more…] about New Book On The Hill: A Tipi In A NYC Shantytown

Amsterdam’s Arts: Visual Artists, Actors & Singers

January 21, 2022 by Bob Cudmore Leave a Comment

This week on The Historians Podcast, Jerry Snyder of Historic Amsterdam League has stories from a new booklet called Amsterdam’s Arts, focusing on visual artists, actors, singers and more with ties to Amsterdam, New York. [Read more…] about Amsterdam’s Arts: Visual Artists, Actors & Singers

The Irish Diaspora: Tales of Emigration, Exile and Imperialism

January 17, 2022 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

The Irish American Heritage Museum will host Historian Turtle Bunbury, author of new book The Irish Diaspora: Tales of Emigration, Exile and Imperialism (Thames & Hudson, 2021) on Wednesday, January 19, 2022 who will share stories of Irish emigrants and their descendants.

Through the compelling stories of the great Irish pioneers who left their homeland and in the process profoundly influenced their adoptive countries, Bunbury takes some overlooked events and characters and weaves them into a history of the Irish abroad. [Read more…] about The Irish Diaspora: Tales of Emigration, Exile and Imperialism

New Book Considers New York’s Defunct Liberal Party

January 17, 2022 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Book purchases made through this link support New York Almanack’s mission to report new publications relevant to New York State.

Beginning in 1944 and lasting until 2002, the Liberal Party offered voters an ideological seal of approval and played the role of strategic kingmaker in the electoral politics of New York State. The party helped elect presidents, governors, senators, and mayors, and its platform reflected its founders’ social democratic principles.

In practical politics, the Liberal Party’s power resided in its capacity to steer votes to preferred Democrats or Republicans with a reasonable chance of victory. This uneasy balance between principle and pragmatism ultimately proved impossible to maintain. [Read more…] about New Book Considers New York’s Defunct Liberal Party

Rochester Architecture Book Wins Modernism Award

January 5, 2022 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

The Architecture of James H. Johnson (Primedia eLaunch, 2020), a historic resource survey and book about the life and work of Rochester architect James H. Johnson (1932-2016), was recognized with a Docomomo US 2021 Modernism in America Award last month in New York City.

Spurred by the loss of one of his key buildings, Our Lady of Mercy Rectory (Greece) in 2013, The Architecture of James H. Johnson is the first in-depth study and documentation of Johnson, whose well-known projects include Rochester’s Liberty Pole, the Mushroom House (Perinton), St. John the Evangelist Church (Greece), and Temple Sinai (Brighton). [Read more…] about Rochester Architecture Book Wins Modernism Award

The History of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s ‘The Secret Garden’

December 31, 2021 by Bob Cudmore Leave a Comment

This week on The Historians Podcast, garden historian Marta McDowell, author of Unearthing the Secret Garden: The Plants and Places That Inspired Frances Hodgson Burnett (Timber Press, 2021), a deep look at the classic children’s book The Secret Garden (1911). [Read more…] about The History of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s ‘The Secret Garden’

Alice Green’s New Book Covers Social Justice Activism

December 9, 2021 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

The new book We Who Believe in Freedom: Activism and the Struggle for Social Justice (King Jesus Press LLC, 2021) by Alice Green, with foreward by Paul Grondahl, is an inspirational book that exposes readers to weighty topics such as police abuse and accountability, criminal justice and prison reform, and political abuse of power in Albany, NY.

The book, part memoir and part history, Green deals with these topics through her life experiences as a life-long advocate, highlighting the impact they have had on Albany’s black communities since the early days of enslavement, up to the present. [Read more…] about Alice Green’s New Book Covers Social Justice Activism

A Guide to Mosses of the Northern Forest

November 19, 2021 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Book purchases made through this link support New York Almanack’s mission to report new publications relevant to New York State.

The new book Mosses of the Northern Forest: A Photographic Guide (Cornell University Press, 2021) by Jerry Jenkins is an essential companion for those interested in stewardship and conservation of the Northern Forest Region. [Read more…] about A Guide to Mosses of the Northern Forest

A New Guide To History Hikes In Eastern New York and Western Mass

October 23, 2021 by Editorial Staff 1 Comment

Book purchases made through this link support New York Almanack’s mission to report new publications relevant to New York State.

The new book Paths to the Past: History Hikes through the Hudson River Valley, Catskills, Berkshires, Taconics, Saratoga & Capital Region (Black Dome Press, 2021) by Russell Dunn & Barbara Delaney, with foreword by Mark King, Executive Director, Mohawk Hudson Land Conservancy, looks at thirty-one guided hikes and walks that explore the rich variety of landscapes in eastern upstate New York that offer still-visible evidence of the area’s history from prehistoric Native American settlements to abandoned 20th-century industries. [Read more…] about A New Guide To History Hikes In Eastern New York and Western Mass