Cultural History

‘Keeping Up With the Schuylers’ Dramatic Tours

October 17, 2011 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Historic Cherry Hill and Schuyler Mansion State Historic Site present to the public, “Keeping Up With the Schuylers,” a dramatic house tour of both historic sites. It is part of the special series: Got Class? Status and Power in Early America presented by Historic Cherry Hill and Schuyler Mansion State Historic Site and funded by the New York Council for the Humanities.

The dramatic tour begins at Historic Cherry Hill in the year 1787. The public will meet the 18th century Van Rensselaer family inhabitants of the Cherry Hill home. The tour continues at Schuyler Mansion State Historic Site where visitors will find the Schuyler Mansion household preparing for the approaching nuptials of General Schuyler’s son, John Bradstreet Schuyler to Catherine Van Rensselaer.

This unique dramatic tour will explore the subtleties of class within Albany’s 18th century elite. The public will be able to compare the households of two of Albany’s prominent citizens and determine for themselves what it meant to be a gentleman in the founding era of the United States. Dramatic tours will be offered to the public on Thursday October 20th at 3:00pm and 5:00pm and on Saturday, October 22nd at 9:30am, 12:00pm and 2:30pm.

The dramatic tour is a ticketed event. The cost of tickets is $12.00 per person. To purchase tickets for this event please call Historic Cherry Hill at 518-434-4791 or email mary@historiccherryhill.org.

Historic Cherry Hill, located at 523 ½ South Pearl Street in Albany, NY, is a non-profit historic house museum built in 1787 and was lived in continuously by five generations of the same family until the death of the last family member in 1963. The museum is currently undergoing a large restoration project and offers a Behind-the-Scenes Restoration tour from April through December, on Wednesday afternoons at 1, 2 and 3pm and Saturday afternoons at 2 and 3pm. Admission is $5 for adults, $4 for seniors and college students and $2 for children between the ages of 12 and 18. An Architecture Hunt for Families is also offered on Saturdays between 1 and 2pm at the admission price of $2 for adults and $1 for children ages 6-11. Visit Historic Cherry Hill’s website at www.historiccherryhill.org for more information.

Schuyler Mansion State Historic Site, located at 32 Catherine Street in Albany, NY, was once the home of Philip J. Schuyler, the renowned Revolutionary War General, US Senator and business entrepreneur. He and his wife Catharine Van Rensselaer descended from affluent and powerful Dutch families. Together they raised eight children in this home. Throughout the Schuyler family occupancy from 1763-1804, the mansion was the site of military strategizing, political hobnobbing, elegant social affairs, and an active family life. Guided tours are available mid-May through October 31st, and are offered on the hour, Wednesday through Sunday, 11:00am to 4:00pm. Admission is $5 for adults, $4 for seniors and college students. Children under 12 are free. Visit www.schuylerfriends.org for more information about Schuyler Mansion State Historic Site.

Illustration: Schuyler Mansion.

New Plaque Honors Edith Wharton

October 16, 2011 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

New York City’s Historic Districts Council and the Historic Landmarks Preservation Center have commemorated the life and work of Edith Wharton, author of “The House of Mirth” and “The Age of Innocence” with a historic plaque. Born in 1862 at 14 West 23rd Street in the Ladies’ Mile Historic District, Wharton was a chronicler of New York City’s Gilded Age and trendsetter for her generation.

The plaque is part of the Historic Landmarks Preservation Center’s Cultural Medallion program. The Center, chaired by Dr. Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel (HDC’s 2011 Landmarks Lion), has installed almost 100 medallions around New York City to heighten public awareness of New York’s cultural and social history.

Distinguished Edith Wharton scholars, including Susan Whissler, executive director of The Mount, participated in the plaque unveiling.

Photo: Photograph taken in Newport, Rhode Island, of author Edith Wharton, wearing hat with a feather, coat with fur trim, and a fur muff. Image courtesy of the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library.

Power in a Union: The Story of American Labor

October 15, 2011 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

There Is Power in a Union: The Epic Story of Labor in America by Philip Dray is an epic, character-driven narrative that moves between picket lines, union halls, jails, assembly lines, corporate boardrooms, the courts, the halls of Congress, and the White House.

Dray (NPR Interview) presents an urgency of the fight for fairness and economic democracy for working people — a struggle that remains especially urgent today, when ordinary Americans are so beset by economic troubles.

From the textile mills of Lowell, Massachusetts, the first real factories in America, to the triumph of unions in the twentieth century and their waning influence today, the contest between labor and capital for their share of American bounty has shaped our national experience. Dray’s ambition is to show us the vital accomplishments of organized labor in that time and illuminate its central role in our social, political, economic, and cultural evolution.

Philip Dray is the author of At the Hands of Persons Unknown: The Lynching of Black America, which won the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award and made him a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and Stealing God’s Thunder: Benjamin Franklin’s Lightning Rod and the Invention of America, and the coauthor of the New York Times Notable Book We Are Not Afraid: The Story of Goodman, Schwerner, and Chaney, and the Civil Rights Campaign for Mississippi. He lives in Brooklyn.

Note: Books noticed on this site have been provided by the publishers. Purchases made through this Amazon link help support this site.

Symposium on 18th Century Mohawk Valley Culture

October 10, 2011 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

An upcoming symposium, “Frontier Style: Culture at the Edge of Empire, Mohawk Valley NY, 1700-1800” looks at clothing, furniture and household decorations to see what they can reveal about a person’s cultural and social status in colonial New York.

Scholars at the 2011 Western Frontier Symposium will discuss the interactions of the Mohawk, Dutch, English, German and slave cultures within this region, their traditions of costume and household design, and their perceptions of each other.

The two day symposium will be held October 15-16 at Fulton-Montgomery Community College in Johnstown, NY. Participating experts in 18th century design and the region’s cultures include Phillip Otterness, David Preston, Timothy Shannon, George Hamell, Mark Hutter, Robert Trent, Mary Elise Antoine and others.

“Frontier Style” looks closely at daily life in the 18th century Mohawk Valley, when this region was the western edge of colonial New York, a frontier space where European and Native American communities were both neighbors and trading partners.

In that diverse multicultural world, personal objects from everyday life like painted German chests or Iroquois body art revealed cultural roots and traditions. Stylistic choices also could suggest a person’s career aspirations, as when decorating exclusively with imported British goods or wearing the latest London fashions.

Symposium presentations include the basics of Mohawk Valley “dressing for success”, local fashions for every budget, regional furniture and architecture, as well as discussion of the dominant ethnic and social cultures of the period.

Admission to the symposium is $20.00 per day with a discount for advance registration. A special symposium package available by advance registration only includes admission to the presentations, printed copies of the papers, box lunches both days, a reception with the speakers and a special 18th century dinner for $135. Registration forms can be downloaded from the web link below.

The biennial Western Frontier Symposium has presented the latest scholarly research about the history and cultures of the Mohawk River Valley since 2005. It is sponsored by a collaboration of regional historic sites and organizations: Old Fort Johnson, Palatine Settlement Society, Montgomery County History & Archives, Johnson Hall State Historic Site, Herkimer Home SHS, Schuyler Mansion SHS, Crailo SHS, Fort Plain Museum, Fort Klock, Historic Cherry Hill, Old Stone Fort Museum, Fulton-Montgomery Community College, NYS Office of Parks, Recreation & Historic Preservation, and the Costume Society of America.

More information and registration forms are available online.

Papers to be presented October 15-16, 2011 include:

* David Preston – “The Texture of Contact: European and Indian Settler Communities on the Iroquoian Borderlands, 1720-1790”

* Phillip Otterness “Neither French, nor English, nor Indians: The Palatine Germans of New York”

* Erica Nuckles – “The Dutch had a very bad Opinion of Me”

* Clifford Oliver Mealy –“ Slaves in the Mohawk Valley, 1750-1800”

* Tim Shannon – ”Dressing for Success on the Mohawk Frontier: Hendrick, William Johnson, and the Indian Fashion”

* George Hamell – “Native American Body Art”

* Scott Meachum – “Native American Calling Cards: War Clubs & Pictographs”

* Mark Hutter – “High Style in the Hinterlands: 18th Century Design for the Fashionable Consumer”

* Kjirsten Gustavson – “Colonial Clothing in Upstate New York”

* Michael Roets – “18th C Mohawk Life: Lower Castle Archeology”

* Wanda Burch – “Collecting Cultures: Sir William Johnson’s Cabinet of Curiosities”

* Cindy Falk – “Mohawk Valley Architecture: Cultures Built in Stone & Wood”

* Rabbit Goody – “Household Goods: 18th Century Fabrics for the Home”

* Robert Trent – “Mohawk Valley Interiors & Furniture: The Stylish Home‘

* Mary Antoine – “German Folk Arts in Upstate New York”

* Deborah Emmons-Andarawis – “Shades of Gentility: Philip Schuyler and Philip Van Rensselaer” (sponsored by the New York Council for the Humanities)

* Ron Burch – “Music in the Johnson Family” (lecture & concert)

Revolution Exhibit Funded For Travel

September 16, 2011 by Editorial Staff 1 Comment

The New-York Historical Society has announced that the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has awarded it a grant of $400,000 to support a traveling program and educational initiatives surrounding its new exhibition Revolution! The Atlantic World Reborn.

Revolution! is the first museum exhibition to explore the revolutions in America, France and Haiti as a single grand narrative from 1763 to 1815, tracing their cumulative transformation of politics, society and culture across the Atlantic world. It will also be the first major history exhibition to be presented by the New-York Historical Society when it fully re-opens its galleries on November 11, 2011, after a three-year, $65 million renovation.

“The New-York Historical Society is deeply grateful to the National Endowment for the Humanities for this very generous endorsement of our mission, which is to engage the broadest possible public in the enjoyment of learning about history,” said Louise Mirrer, President and CEO of the New-York Historical Society. “Through this grant, we will be able to extend the reach of Revolution! and make it accessible to a much wider audience.”

The NEH has awarded the grant through its “America’s Historical & Cultural Organizations Implementation Grant” program, which supports museum exhibitions, library-based projects, interpretation of historic places or areas, websites and other project formats that excite and inform thoughtful reflection upon culture, identity and history.

Revolution! traces how an ideal of popular sovereignty, introduced through the American fight for independence, soon sparked more radical calls for a recognition of universal human rights and set off attacks on both sides of the Atlantic against hereditary privilege and slavery. Among the astonishing, unforeseen outcomes was an insurrection on the French possession of Saint-Domingue, leading to the world’s only successful slave revolt and the establishment in 1804 of the first nation founded on the principles of full freedom and equality for all, regardless of color.

Albany: Got Class? Status and Power in Early America

September 13, 2011 by Editorial Staff 2 Comments

Historic Cherry Hill and Schuyler Mansion State Historic Site present the first of six events in a special series funded by the New York Council for the Humanities called: Got Class? Status and Power in Early America. Dr. Tamara Plakins Thornton, history professor at the State University of New York, Buffalo, will explore the nuances of class in 18th century America in her lecture, Status and Power in Early America, the opening program of the Got Class? series. The lecture takes place on Saturday, September 17th at 2pm at the Carole F. Huxley Theater at the New York State Museum. A reception will follow the lecture.

In early America, wealthy southern planters, northern merchants and Hudson River families like the Schuylers and Van Rensselaers liked to think of themselves as American aristocrats even though they lived in a land with no real dukes and earls. Dr. Thornton’s talk will explore the many ways in which America’s upper classes strove to distinguish themselves from common folk, imitate Old World aristocrats, and establish themselves as an elite. Dr. Thornton is the author of the book Cultivating Gentlemen: The Meaning of Country Life among the Boston Elite, 1785-1860.

This is a ticket-only event and tickets must be purchased prior to September 17th. The registration deadline for the lecture is September 10th, 2011. The cost of tickets are $10.00 per person which includes the lecture and reception following. To register please call Mary at Historic Cherry Hill at 518-434-4791 or email mary@historiccherryhill.org.

DATE CHANGE:30th Annual Iroquois Indian Festival

August 29, 2011 by Editorial Staff 1 Comment

The Iroquois Indian Museum of Howes Cave, New York, will host the 30th Annual Iroquois Indian Festival on Saturday, October 15 through Sunday, October 16 (date corrected 10/14). Festival offerings include Iroquois music and social dance, traditional stories, all-Iroquois art market, games and Native food. [Read more…] about DATE CHANGE:30th Annual Iroquois Indian Festival

Young Al Capone: Scarface in New York

August 20, 2011 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Many people are familiar with the story of Al Capone, the “untouchable” Chicago gangster best known for orchestrating the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. But few are aware that Capone’s remarkable story began in the Navy Yard section of Brooklyn. Tutored by the likes of infamous mobsters Johnny Torrio and Frankie Yale, young Capone’s disquieting demeanor, combined with the “technical advice” he learned from these insidious pedagogues, contributed to the molding of a brutal criminal whose pseudonym, “Scarface,” evoked fascination throughout the world.

Despite the best efforts of previous biographers lacking true insider access, details about Capone’s early years have generally remained shrouded in mystery. Now through family connections the authors of Young Al Capone: The Untold Story of Scarface in New York, 1899-1925, William and John Balsamo, were able to access Capone’s known living associates. Collecting information through these interviews and rare documents, the life of young Al Capone in New York comes into greater focus.

Among the revelations in Young Al Capone are new details about the brutal Halloween Night murder of rival gangster “Wild Bill” Lovett, grisly details on how Capone and his Black Hand crew cleverly planned the shootout and barbaric hatchet slaying of White Hand boss, Richard “Peg Leg” Lonergan, insight into the dramatic incident that forced Capone to leave New York, and more.

Bill Balsamo, considered by some to be one of the premier Capone historians, has invested more than twenty-five years in researching and writing this book. He is the author of Crime, Inc. (now in its fifth printing). John Balsamo worked on the Brooklyn waterfront for more than thirty years while compiling extensive material regarding the life of young Capone.

Note: Books noticed on this site have been provided by the publishers. Purchases made through this Amazon link help support this site.

New Academic Book Takes on ‘Mad Men’

August 13, 2011 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Since it premiered in July 2007, the AMC cable network’s “Mad Men” series has won many awards and been syndicated across the globe. Its imprint is evident throughout contemporary culture—from TV advertisements and magazine covers to designer fashions and online debate. Its creator, Matthew Weiner, a former executive producer on “The Sopranos,” has again created compelling, complex characters, this time in the sophisticated, go-go world of Madison Avenue of the 1960s, with smoking, drinking, and the playing out of prejudices and anxieties of an era long neglected in popular culture. As editor Gary R. Edgerton and a host of other well-known contributors demonstrate in this new title, Mad Men: Dream Come True TV, Mad Men is a zeitgeist show of the early twenty-first century.

Edgerton, who is Chair of the Communications and Theater Arts Department at Old Dominion University in Virginia, has edited this book to provide an academic yet still engaging read that sheds light on the appeal and attraction of the television series, as well as it’s cultural import.

Mad Men: Dream Come True TV features essays that analyze and celebrate the cutting edge TV series. It also includes an interview with the show’s Executive Producer Brett Hornbacher and an episode guide. The book presents essays under five parts: Industry and Authorship, Visual and Aural Stylistics and Influences, Narrative Dynamics and Genealogy, Sexual Politics and Gender Roles, Cultural Memory and the American Dream.

The book is part of the Reading Contemporary Television Series which offers a variety of intellectually challenging responses to what is happening in television today. Other books in the series have tackled CSI, Deadwood, Desperate Housewives, Lost, Sex and the City, The L Word, Six Feet Under, The Sopranos, Doctor Who, 24 and more.

Gary R. Edgerton’s previous books have included The Essential HBO Reader (with Jeffrey P. Jones) and The Columbia History of American Television. He is co-editor of the Journal of Popular Film and Television.

Note: Books noticed on this site have been provided by the publishers. Purchases made through this Amazon link help support this site.

Haunted History Investigation of Herkimer Home

July 20, 2011 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

The doors of the historic Herkimer Home State Historic Site will be opened to the public for paranormal investigations at 6:00 p.m. on Friday, July 29th and Saturday, July 30th. This event marks the first time under NY State ownership that the historic 18th century mansion has been investigated for paranormal activity.

Both nights will begin with a lecture and a Ghost Hunting 101 Class provided by members of the New York Shadow Chasers, a paranormal research group who recently conducted a private investigation of the property. This short class will be followed by public paranormal investigations of the grounds led by Shadow Chaser staff. The public will explore the interior and exterior of the property using paranormal equipment often seen on many popular “ghost hunting” television shows.

Tickets for this event are $25.00 and reservations are required by calling (315) 823-0398. A limited number of tickets will be sold to the public. Proceeds from the tickets will support educational programs at the Herkimer Home.

Formed at SUNY Potsdam in 2002, the Shadow Chasers represent a team of academic professionals who research and document regional folklore. Certified by SUNY CITI Ethics as Social Science researchers, their investigations have covered numerous historic sites and properties throughout New York State, raising thousands of dollars to support local history.

Built circa 1764, the Herkimer Home is the Georgian home of Brigadier General Nicholas Herkimer, A Palatine German farmer, Indian trader, and prominent Mohawk Valley Businessman. As commander of the Tryon County Militia, Herkimer became a hero during the Battle of Oriskany in 1777. Despite a bullet wound to his leg and although greatly outnumbered, he and his command held the field. Following the battle, Herkimer was carried home, where he died in his mansion 10 days later.

Herkimer Home is located on NYS State Route 169, 4 miles southeast of Little Falls, 1/4 mile before NYS Thruway exit 29A. Events are in cooperation with the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation – Central Region. For more information about this and other events planned at the Herkimer Home visit www.littlefallsny.com.