The National Endowment for the Humanities has awarded The Green-Wood Historic Fund a prestigious Humanities Collections and Reference Resources grant to create a digitized and searchable database of the hand-written records of all interments at Green-Wood in its first century of operation. [Read more…] about Green-Wood Cemetery Digitizing 1840-1937 Burial Registry
Brooklyn
Danny Kaye In The Catskills
It has often been said that the first play Danny Kaye ever saw, he was in.
That would have been in June 1929, at the White Roe Lake House in Livingston Manor, Sullivan County, NY, where the soon-to-be legendary performer got his professional start, and refined his trademark comedy routine. [Read more…] about Danny Kaye In The Catskills
Geographies of Gender at Brooklyn Museum
The Brooklyn Museum is set to celebrate their exhibit Out of Place: A Feminist Look at the Collection during Women’s History Month on March 7th, as part of their First Saturday programs.
Throughout the evening, women and nonbinary artists from across Brooklyn explore how gender maps onto our bodies, our histories, and our political movements. Highlights include an artist talk with Naima Green, a Night Market, and music from Sammus. [Read more…] about Geographies of Gender at Brooklyn Museum
Collections Mystery: The Emancipator Newspaper in 1888
It has long been the conventional wisdom that the Irish in America trend Democratic in their voting tendencies. This was more true in the late 19th Century and in the 1880s, Republican Party election committees were hell-bent on mitigating that trend.
The large Irish population, concentrated as it was in several northeastern cities, made it relatively easy for political parties to ‘segment the market’ and target voters. New York State, with its 36 electoral college votes, was seen as the make-or-break state – a strategic objective for campaign planners.
By the campaign of 1880 senior Irish American Republicans were determined to facilitate an ‘Irish bolt’ from the Democratic party. In New York State, Republican party operatives were especially challenged in this as they had to confront the formidable power of Tammany. Dirty campaign tactics, muckraking, and bigotry contributed to the voter coercion and vote manipulation widely practiced by both parties. [Read more…] about Collections Mystery: The Emancipator Newspaper in 1888
African Arts–Global Conversations Opening in Brooklyn
The Brooklyn Museum has announced African Art–Global Conversations, a new exhibit set to be on view from February 14th through November 15th, 2020.
The exhibition presents diverse African works throughout the Museum’s vast collections, putting African arts in its rightful place within the global art historical canon. [Read more…] about African Arts–Global Conversations Opening in Brooklyn
Decades After Closure, Brooklyn Navy Yard Sails On
A decidedly unglamorous black-hulled cargo barge plying the turbid waters off Staten Island represents the last working evidence of two centuries of New York history. McAllister Towing & Transportation Co.’s Atlantic Trader, a 300-foot container-carrying barge which entered service in 1977 appears to be the last vessel built from the ground up at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
The plodding, anonymous Atlantic Trader had many famous Navy Yard forebears, including the USS Arizona, destroyed at Pearl Harbor where the Second World War began for the United States on Dec. 7, 1941, and the USS Missouri, where the war ended 45 months later with the formal Japanese surrender on her polished teak deck in Tokyo Bay. Other warships built in Brooklyn included the USS Maine, whose 1898 destruction in Havana Harbor helped launch the Spanish-American War; the USS Ohio, a 74-gun ship-of-the-line launched in 1820 that saw action in the Mexican-American War; and eight battleships and eight aircraft carriers completed between 1911 and 1961. Ships built at the yard saw service in every major American conflict from the War of 1812 to Operation Iraqi Freedom. [Read more…] about Decades After Closure, Brooklyn Navy Yard Sails On
When Victoria Woodhull Brought Down Henry Ward Beecher
There is a long history of political and religious leaders preaching one thing in public and practicing something else in private, usually something related to sex.
The list of political figures includes national founders Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, and Aaron Burr and more recently Strom Thurmond, Gary Hart, Bill Clinton, Jesse Jackson, Anthony Weiner, Mark Sanford, Bret Kavanaugh, and Donald Trump.
Contemporary religious leaders “caught with their pants down” include Tony Almo, Jim Bakker, Ted Haggard, and Jimmy Swaggart. In the mid-19th century Henry Ward Beecher bridged both categories as a political and religious figure. [Read more…] about When Victoria Woodhull Brought Down Henry Ward Beecher
Advocates Fight to Preserve Brooklyn Abolitionist Site
Before and during the American Civil War, probably between 1851 and 1863, 227 Duffield Street in downtown Brooklyn was the home of prominent abolitionists Thomas and Harriet Truesdell. The block is officially known as Abolitionist Place.
Harriet was on the organizing committee of the 1838 Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women. Thomas was a founding member of the Rhode Island Anti-Slavery Society. They were colleagues and friends of well-known abolitionists Lewis Tappan and William Lloyd Garrison. Historians and community activists believe the Truesdell home was probably a stop on the Underground Railroad where freedom seekers escaping from slavery sojourned in relative safety during their trip further north or to Canada, but they have been unable to come up with documented proof. Now the building faces imminent demolition unless enough public support is generated to preserve it. [Read more…] about Advocates Fight to Preserve Brooklyn Abolitionist Site
5 Boros to Freedom Educates On NY Slavery
Twenty-five teenagers from United Community Centers youth groups in East New York, Brooklyn were amazed to learn that not only was there slavery in Brooklyn during the Revolutionary era, but that the New Lots African burial ground was now covered over by a park across the street from their community center, a park named after the Schenk slave holding family.
Inconvenient history had been erased, but it might be rewritten thanks to local community groups and the efforts of City Councilwoman Inez Barron and New York State Assemblyman Charles Barron. Community residents are discussing rebuilding the New Lots Library on part of the site and adding a museum honoring enslaved African people who helped build Kings County and then were written out of history. [Read more…] about 5 Boros to Freedom Educates On NY Slavery
New Netherland Institute Announces 2019 Lecture Series
From April to June of this year, the New Netherland Institute will present the 2019 Peter Gansevoort Ten Eyck Lecture Series, which will comprise 10 lectures on various aspects of New Netherland, each at a different venue from New York City to the Capital Region.
The first in the series will be a talk by Russell Shorto at the Brooklyn Historical Society, 128 Pierrepont Street, Brooklyn, on April 16. [Read more…] about New Netherland Institute Announces 2019 Lecture Series