New York Almanack

History, Natural History & the Arts

Cultural History

Edgar Allan Poe’s European Legacy

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Poe’s pocket watchA hundred years ago the Edgar Allan Poe Museum was founded in Richmond, Virginia. To celebrate the anniversary author and preeminent Poe collector Susan Jaffe Tane donated the pocket watch that Poe carried on him whilst writing his short story The Tell-Tale Heart shortly before he moved to the city of New York where he spent his last years.

In this tale the murderous narrator compares the thumping of his victim’s heart to the ticking of a clock. [Read more…] about Edgar Allan Poe’s European Legacy

Walt Whitman On How To Read Leaves of Grass

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how Fred Vaughan, an omnibus driver, might have looked Walt Whitman’s original essay, “A Backward Glance O’er Travel’d Roads,” was printed at the end of the 1891-92 edition of Leaves of Grass. The following adaptation is an attempt to quite radically “translate” its disorganized, disgressive, awkward “Whitmanese” into the standards of prose clarity expected by 21st century readers.

When I say prose clarity, I am not only referring to a very aggressive copy edit. I have also subjected it to a critical, discerning lens of historical perspective. The result is Whitman’s clearest directions on how to read Leaves of Grass. — Mitchell Santine Gould, Curator, LeavesOfGrass.org. [Read more…] about Walt Whitman On How To Read Leaves of Grass

Joseph Brant’s Face: A State Capitol Mystery

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Portrait of John Francis BrinesA recent article in the Albany Times Union, “The Enduring Mystery of a Mohawk Warrior Bust at the Capitol,” (online edition, July 22, 2022) noted that there is a sculpted face of Joseph Brant on the exterior of the State Capitol building in Albany, New York.

Researched and written by journalist Chris Carola, it questions why Brant, a Native American who supported the British during the American Revolution – and who wreaked havoc on a number of white settlements – was honored by having his visage on such a prominent edifice. [Read more…] about Joseph Brant’s Face: A State Capitol Mystery

Rough And Tumble: A Short History of Eye Gouging

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Retired NYPD officer Thomas Webster, dubbed the 'eye gouger,' attacks a DC police officer in a still from January 6th videoLast week Thomas Webster, a 20-year veteran of the NYPD, was sentenced to the stiffest sentence so far – 10 years – for his actions while attacking the U.S. Capitol on January 6th in an effort to keep Donald Trump in power. In the effort to identify the insurrectionists, Webster was given the name “eye-gouger” for his attempt to gouge the eyes of a Washington D.C. police officer.

It’s a long American tradition. Eye gouging, not insurrection. [Read more…] about Rough And Tumble: A Short History of Eye Gouging

Amsterdam’s Polish Cowboy and Other Tales

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The Historians LogoThis week on The Historians Podcast, Bob Cudmore’s history columns from Daily Gazette and Amsterdam Recorder provide information for this chit chat podcast with producer Dave Greene.

Hear stories about Amsterdam’s connections with Ukraine, World War II, Amsterdam’s link with singer Jeff Buckley’s popular version of “Hallelujah” by songwriter Leonard Cohen and the story of Jack Patton, the Polish cowboy from Amsterdam. [Read more…] about Amsterdam’s Polish Cowboy and Other Tales

Native Communities The Topic of Thomas Paine Studies Podcast

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Institute for Thomas Paine StudiesThe Institute for Thomas Paine Studies interviewed Dr. Joe Stahlman, a scholar of Tuscarora descent whose research focuses on culture and history as well as on the ongoing socio-economic and health and wellness issues among Native communities.

This podcast covers Dr. Stahlman’s museum philosophy, the upcoming 250th Commemoration of the American Revolution, and he offers valuable perspective on indigenous studies and decolonization in museums, on museums as vital spaces of reconciliation, and of peace as an unsung and transformative historical subject. [Read more…] about Native Communities The Topic of Thomas Paine Studies Podcast

Julien Levy & Art at the Heart of Manhattan

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Berenice Abbot’s portrait of Julien Levy in ParisThe late 1920s and 1930s were crucial years in New York’s rise as an international artistic center. Cultural contacts between Europe and the United States multiplied. American artists who had studied in Paris returned with fresh ambitions; dollar rich patrons were willing to finance new initiatives; the First World War had unsettled European artists and gallerists, many of whom settled in New York. They were joined by others who fled the Nazi threat. Manhattan was turning into a Mecca of modernism where a multi-national cohort of artists, dealers and investors mixed and mingled.

By our standards the art world was relatively small. At any one time in that epoch, there were probably fewer than fifteen galleries active in New York with only a handful concentrating on contemporary art. A pioneering role was played by Alfred Stieglitz’s 291 Gallery on Fifth Avenue. Operational since 1905, the gallery introduced the Parisian avant-garde to an American audience. In modernist Manhattan, Stieglitz was the Godfather. [Read more…] about Julien Levy & Art at the Heart of Manhattan

Ralph Waldo Emerson in the Capital District in 1852

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Ralph Waldo Emerson courtesy the Library of Congress Throughout the 1840s, members of the commercial and professional classes of New York’s Capital Region cities established “Young Men’s Associations,” loosely based upon the Young Men’s Christian Association recently founded in England. In Schenectady, ten prominent men formed their own Young Men’s Association in an attempt to bring culture to their growing city of 10,000.

Although the Association required an annual fee of $2, members and ladies were allowed to attend the lectures for free. The entrance fee for men who were not members was 25 cents. “The association is the only place in our city, aside from the pulpits, where you are able to find any discoursing,” announced its founders in the Schenectady Reflector. “It is the only place where an amusement of a miscellaneous nature is to be found…It is the only place where the clerk, the mechanic, or lawyer, can spend an hour (profitably) out of his store, workshop, or office.” [Read more…] about Ralph Waldo Emerson in the Capital District in 1852

Art and The French Revolution

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The Historians LogoThis week on The Historians Podcast, Susanne Dunlap discusses her book The Portraitist, a novel based on the life of 18th century French artist Adélaïde Labilleo-Guiard, a feminist whose life went on amid the changes and terror of Paris in the French Revolution. She must find a way to carve out a life and a career — and stay alive in the process. [Read more…] about Art and The French Revolution

Seminar on the American Revolution Call for Papers

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Fort Ticonderoga Seminar on the American RevolutionFort Ticonderoga is seeking proposals for the Nineteenth Annual Seminar on the American Revolution to be held Friday-Sunday, September 22nd through 24th, 2023. [Read more…] about Seminar on the American Revolution Call for Papers