Long Island

Long Island Traditions Annual Freeport Bay House Tours

July 9, 2014 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

On Saturday August 16 and September 13, Long Island Traditions will sponsor its annual bay house tours in Freeport, NY. The tour will include conversations with local bay house owners and will be hosted by folklorist Nancy Solomon, director of LI Traditions. The trip will visit area bay houses on the 1½ hour tour on a traditional flat bottom boat.

The bay houses have a long history, dating from the mid-19th century when baymen harvested salt hay for the farmers during the winter. The bay houses provided shelter, along with storage for fishermen’s traps and duck decoys. The bay houses were originally built by fishermen and baymen and have been passed down from generation to generation within many families. In the Town of Hempstead two of the approximately 20 bay houses that either survived Superstorm Sandy or have been rebuilt during 2013-14 will be featured on this year’s annual tour. [Read more…] about Long Island Traditions Annual Freeport Bay House Tours

Fact And Fiction In Brian Kilmeade’s ‘Secret Six’

June 14, 2014 by Elizabeth Kahn Kaplan 8 Comments

Brian Kilmeade has done historians on Long Island a great favor. With his latest book, George Washington’s Secret Six: The Spy Ring That Saved the American Revolution (Sentinel, 2013), co-authored by Don Yaeger and currently one of the top-selling non-fiction books in the country, he has focused national attention on the role played by the Culper Spy Ring that operated between New York City and Setauket, bringing information about British plans and troop movements across Long Island Sound to Connecticut and on to General Washington.

Using his bully pulpits on Fox & Friends, carried on Fox News Channel daily from 6 AM to 9 AM, and his nationally syndicated radio program, Kilmeade & Friends, from 9 AM to noon, he has elevated the nation’s awareness of the significance of Long Island to the outcome of the American Revolution.

Their story unfolds seamlessly, with well-written descriptions of General Washington’s loss of New York after the Battle of Long Island that set the stage for Washington’s desperate need for information, and ending with Morton Pennypacker’s handwriting analysis that identified Robert Townsend as the key information gatherer. But there’s the rub: Kilmeade and Yaeger have spun more than one story here. This non-fiction book hovers dangerously close to the side of fiction. [Read more…] about Fact And Fiction In Brian Kilmeade’s ‘Secret Six’

AMC’s ‘Turn’: Lively Fiction, But Tenuous Connections to Fact

June 5, 2014 by Elizabeth Kahn Kaplan 35 Comments

Oh, dear. What a disappointment. Many who were thrilled by the news that the AMC Channel was creating “Turn”, a television series to tell the true story of George Washington’s Long Island spy ring were startled to see glaring inaccuracies depicted, from the opening scene on April 6, 2014.

Had the writers not pinned the names of historic figures onto their characters, and instead developed a script of pure fiction about spying, adultery, gratuitous violence and traitorous generals during the American Revolution, one could sit back with feet up and relax with escapist fantasy. No problem. But – when a producer and a network advertise a program as “a true story,” and then proceed not only to bend the truth but, on occasion, to break it across their knees, and when “real” characters bear no resemblance to their flesh and blood namesakes, it is time to protest. [Read more…] about AMC’s ‘Turn’: Lively Fiction, But Tenuous Connections to Fact

Long Island Preservation Excellence Awards Announced

March 31, 2014 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

The Society for the Preservation of Long Island Antiquities (SPLIA) will recognize one project and two organizations for preservation excellence on Long Island.

SPLIA will also present the Howard C. Sherwood Award for exceptional achievement in Historic Preservation and the Huyler C. Held Award for Publication Excellence at a ceremony to be held at 2:00 p.m. on Sunday, April 27, 2014 hosted by Topping Rose House in Bridgehampton, NY.

Receiving awards will be: [Read more…] about Long Island Preservation Excellence Awards Announced

Celebrate Black History Month in New York State

January 28, 2014 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

New York State offers a special window into African American history and American culture. It was a center for 19th century anti-slavery organizations, and home to Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman and many other Abolitionist and Underground Railroad leaders.

Nevertheless, anti-black discrimination remained an issue well into the 20th century, and the National Association of Colored People (NAACP) actually has its roots in the Niagara Movement, whose first meeting in 1905 took place on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls because members were turned away from hotels on the U.S. side. [Read more…] about Celebrate Black History Month in New York State

Smugglers, Bootleggers and Scofflaws:
Prohibition and New York City

January 4, 2014 by Editorial Staff 3 Comments

Using previously unstudied Coast Guard records from 1920 to 1933 for New York City and environs, Ellen NicKenzie Lawson’s Smugglers, Bootleggers, and Scofflaws: Prohibition and New York City (SUNY Press, 2013) examines the development of Rum Row and smuggling via the coasts of Long Island, the Long Island Sound, the Jersey shore, and along the Hudson and East Rivers.

With the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment, “drying up” New York City promised to be the greatest triumph of the proponents of Prohibition. Instead, the city remained the nation’s greatest liquor market. [Read more…] about Smugglers, Bootleggers and Scofflaws:
Prohibition and New York City

Women in Long Island’s Past: A History

November 10, 2013 by Editorial Staff 2 Comments

Women have been part of Long Island’s past for thousands of years but are nearly invisible in the records and history books. From pioneering doctors to dazzling aviatrixes, author Natalie A. Naylor brings these larger-than-life but little-known heroines out of the lost pages of island history in Women in Long Island’s Past: A History of Eminent Ladies and Everyday Lives (History Press, 2012).

Anna Symmes Harrison, Julia Gardiner Tyler, Edith Kermit Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt all served as first lady of the United States, and all had Long Island roots. Beloved children’s author Frances Hodgson Burnett wrote The Secret Garden here, and hundreds of local suffragists fought for their right to vote in the early twentieth century. [Read more…] about Women in Long Island’s Past: A History

An Environmental History of Fire Island

November 2, 2013 by Editorial Staff 4 Comments

Robert Sayre, a retired English professor at the University of Iowa, has spent nearly every summer on Fire Island since 1934. Drawing on his deep interest in Fire Island environmental history Sayre has written Fire Island, Past, Present, and Future: The Environmental History of a Barrier Beach (Oystercatcher Books, 2013).

Syre’s book, which began as an exhibit at the Point O’ Woods Historical Society in 2007 is a concise and readable environmental history of Fire Island from its post-glacial origins to its human uses and its prospects in the age of global warming. [Read more…] about An Environmental History of Fire Island

The Rise and Fall of Southampton College, 1963–2005

October 26, 2013 by Editorial Staff 1 Comment

Southampton College, the easternmost campus of Long Island University, opened with great promise in 1963 and closed in 2005 amidst great acrimony. Located in an idyllic environmental setting on the Atlantic shore of Long Island, it had a nationally recognized marine science program that produced an unprecedented number of Fulbright awards and an impressive number of alumni who went on to careers in prestigious universities and research centers.

David Steinberg, the president of Long Island University since 1985, referred to Southampton as “the jewel in the university crown.” However, an accumulating yearly deficit led Steinberg and the Long Island Board of Trustees to view the campus as an “albatross around the university neck.” [Read more…] about The Rise and Fall of Southampton College, 1963–2005

Historians And Economic Development Councils:
Lessons From Long Island

July 17, 2013 by Peter Feinman 8 Comments

Now that I have become more aware of the Regional Economic Development Councils, I decided to review the ten regions in that program and see if there was any connection with the Path though History. As it turns out, two Path regions have submitted proposals to the Regional Economic Development Councils: Long Island and Western New York. In this post, I would like to focus on what Long Island has achieved as an example for the other 8 regions. [Read more…] about Historians And Economic Development Councils:
Lessons From Long Island