Documentary

The Oneida Nation Supported American Rebels

June 15, 2015 by Bob Cudmore 2 Comments

James Kirby Martin, a history professor at the University of Houston, traces his interest in the Mohawk Valley to his birthplace in northern Ohio.

Joseph Brant of the Mohawk Nation was born in what is now Ohio in 1743 and Martin was fascinated by Brant’s life. The younger brother of Sir William Johnson’s longtime consort Molly Brant, Joseph Brant and Sir William’s son John led devastating raids in the Mohawk Valley during the American Revolution.

Sir William, Britain’s Indian agent in our region, died in 1774 before the war. However, his good relations with the Iroquois Confederacy kept most of them on the side of the British during the Revolution. [Read more…] about The Oneida Nation Supported American Rebels

Modern Ruin: A World’s Fair Pavilion

May 21, 2015 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

A film screening of “Modern Ruin: A World’s Fair Pavilion,” Matthew Silva’s documentary about an abandoned structure designed by modernist icon Philip Johnson for the 1964 World’s Fair.The film tells the story of the Pavilion from the glory days of the fair, through the years of neglect, up to present day advocacy.

The filmmakers hope this project will be the first step in engaging and informing people about the building in new and exciting ways. This whimsical, futuristic, and soaring structure, constructed for the 1964 World’s Fair in Flushing Meadows Corona Park, Queens, has been left abandoned for the greater part of 50 years. [Read more…] about Modern Ruin: A World’s Fair Pavilion

NYC Hip-Hop History Photograph Exhibit Planned

March 4, 2015 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

The Museum of the City of New York is presenting HIP-HOP REVOLUTION: Photographs by Janette Beckman, Joe Conzo, and Martha Cooper, an exhibition that shows the historic early days of hip-hop culture and music, with its roots firmly in New York, and how it evolved towards the worldwide phenomenon it is today.

Bringing together for the first time the work of three renowned photographers of the hip-hop scene, the exhibition shows the birth of a new cultural movement – with its accompanying music, dance, fashion and style – as it quickly and dramatically swept from its grassroots origins into an expansive commercial industry. [Read more…] about NYC Hip-Hop History Photograph Exhibit Planned

World War One Documentaries Being Screened

January 26, 2015 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Recently rediscovered and digitally converted, The Oyster Bay Historical Society will have another viewing of the World War One documentaries found in it’s collection.

Originally distributed in 1919, these five short documentaries (total run time approximately 60 minutes) include scenes from battles in “No Man’s Land”, the U.S.S. Leviathan, the sinking of battleships by U-Boats, as well as the capture of German prisoners and Armistice Day celebrations. [Read more…] about World War One Documentaries Being Screened

New Exhibits, Film Planned at Historic Saranac Lake

January 15, 2015 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Amy Catania, Executive Director of Historic Saranac Lake has announced that the Saranac Laboratory Museum has received a major grant from the Will Rogers Motion Pictures Pioneers Foundation to support exhibit renovations.

The $20,000 grant, with the possibility of a small additional grant to be announced later, will support the design and installation of two new exhibits to open in 2015. The grant also supports the production of a short film on Will Rogers Memorial Hospital. [Read more…] about New Exhibits, Film Planned at Historic Saranac Lake

ADK 46er History Doc Being Shown In Elizabethtown

August 22, 2014 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

The Adirondack History Center will conclude its summer lecture series with a showing of the documentary The Mountains Will Wait for You at 7 pm on Tuesday evening, August 26 at the museum in Elizabethtown, NY.

The film tells the story of the first woman to climb the 46 High Peaks and a founder of the Adirondack 46ers hiking club. Grace Hudowalski was born in Ticonderoga and recently East Dix, one of the 46 High Peaks, was renamed Grace Peak in her honor. [Read more…] about ADK 46er History Doc Being Shown In Elizabethtown

Jay Heritage Center Celebrates Black History Month

February 6, 2014 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

The Jay Heritage Center invites you to celebrate Black History Month with two exceptional speakers who will talk about the free African American experience in antebellum New York on Saturday, February 8, 2014 10:00am – 12:30pm.

Author, Dr. Myra Young Armstead, Professor of History, Director of Africana Studies at Bard will talk about her book Freedom’s Gardener: James F. Brown, Horticulture and the Hudson Valley in Antebellum America. She will share insights from her research about the free black experience in 19th century New York as revealed in a handwritten diary kept for almost four decades by James F. Brown. [Read more…] about Jay Heritage Center Celebrates Black History Month

Jacob Riis’s Copy of ‘How the Other Half Lives’ Acquired

January 29, 2014 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

The New-York Historical Society has acquired a first edition of Jacob Riis’s How the Other Half Lives: Studies among the Tenements of New York.

The newly acquired volume is heavily annotated by the author with pages scrawled with moral indignation towards slumlords, asides about tenement residents, and copyedits. [Read more…] about Jacob Riis’s Copy of ‘How the Other Half Lives’ Acquired

Civil Rights Film and Discussion Series in Schenectady

January 8, 2014 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

In celebration of African American History Month, and to introduce four documentaries with riveting new footage illustrating the history of civil rights in America, the Schenectady County Historical Society will offer a series of discussion forums centered around four documentary films during the month of February.

Created Equal: America’s Civil Rights Struggle is an initiative of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), as part of its Bridging Cultures initiative, in partnership with the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. Created Equal uses the power of documentary films to encourage community discussion of America’s civil rights history. NEH has partnered with the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History to develop programmatic and support materials. [Read more…] about Civil Rights Film and Discussion Series in Schenectady

Fracking Photo Project Returns To Antique Methods

January 2, 2014 by Enid Mastrianni 2 Comments

The ease and affordability of digital photography has won over almost everyone on the planet. Kodak went bankrupt in 2012, darkrooms have disappeared, and film is an extirpated species. Reacting to the ethereal impermanence and pervasive newness of digital photography, some photographers have gone back in time to reawaken antique photography processes.

Whether it’s love for a printed-on-real-paper tangible object, a longing for the time when saying you were a photographer meant you had arcane training and chemistry skills, or a lust to accumulate gear, the movement to recreate daguerreotypes, tintypes, ambrotypes and other obscure 19th century processes is well underway. The popularity of the contemporary photographic antiquarians who embrace the old methods is documented in a 2011 film aptly called, “Artists and Alchemists.” [Read more…] about Fracking Photo Project Returns To Antique Methods