New York Almanack

History, Natural History & the Arts

Publishing

Crooked Lake Review: Finger Lakes History Journal

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The Crooked Lake Review is a local history magazine for the Conhocton, Canisteo, Tioga, Chemung and Genesee River Valleys, and for the Finger Lakes and Lake Ontario Regions of New York State. Crooked Lake is the old name for Keuka Lake, an unusual Finger Lake because it is shaped like a ‘Y’.

According to the their website, the Crooked Lake Review “is a review of the accomplishments of the men, women and families who settled in these regions, built homes, cleared farms and started businesses. It is also a review of the present work and aspirations of the people who were born here or who came to live here.” The first issue of the Review was published in print in May 1988, but since 2006 the Review has been published as an online blog.

Comments and suggestions on the journal are welcome at:

The Crooked Lake Review
7988 Van Amburg Road
Hammondsport, NY 14840

National Archives Launches New Online Print Shop

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The National Archives has announced that it is partnering with Pictopia in a new online Print Shop. Prints of more than 1,200 historical and contemporary photographs, World War I and II posters, drawings and sketches, maps, and ship plans are now available for purchase online. The images are reproduced on archival paper from digital files housed at the National Archives.

Customers can order a print, custom framed or unframed, in a variety of sizes, as well as gift items such as mugs, ornaments, and puzzles that feature the image of their choice. New images will continue to be added to the collection regularly.

Highlights of the introductory collection include:

* Portfolios of some of the nation’s finest photographers, including Ansel Adams, Mathew Brady, Lewis Hine, and Dorothea Lange

* Photographs of the American City—its development and its people and their way of life from the early 19th century to recent times

* Drawings of early sailing ships from the Charles Ware collection

* Architectural drawings of Cape Hatteras, Cape Canaveral, and Execution Rocks lighthouses among others

* Patent drawings for household products, design trademarks, and curious inventions

* Photographs and watercolor sketches of famous American monuments, including the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument, and the Statue of Liberty

* Watercolor illustrations of 19th-century landscapes of the American West

* World War I and II posters from the records of the U.S. Food Administration and the Office of Government Reports

Photo: A U.S. Coast Guard drawing of the lighthouse on Montauk Point, Long Island.

NYS Writers Insitute 25th Anniversary Celebration

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To celebrate the 25th Anniversary of the New York State Writers Institute, former New York State Governor Mario Cuomo and Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Doris Kearns Goodwin will join Institute Executive Director William Kennedy and Director Donald Faulkner on stage to reminisce about the Institute’s past, celebrate its present, and discuss its future. A short video about the Institute highlighting memorable guests and events from its 25 year history will also be screened [you can see some early video samples here]. In addition the Institute will announce the first selections in its list of “25 Uniquely New York Books,” as chosen by 25 renowned New York state writers. The event, which is free and open to the public, will take place on Monday, November 16, 2009 at 8:00 p.m. in Page Hall, 135 Western Ave., on the University at Albany’s downtown campus.

In 1984, Governor Mario Cuomo signed into law the legislation creating the Writers Institute, giving it a mandate to provide “a milieu for established and aspiring writers to work together… to increase the artistic imagination.” Since then the Institute has hosted over 1,000 visiting writer appearances, screened over 400 films, and presented dozens of writing workshops, symposia, and special events, making it one of the premier literary arts organizations in the country.

The video presentation will provide an overview of the history of the Institute, its founding, and growth over the past 25 years. Included will be clips of such memorable guests as Margaret Atwood, Shelby Foote, Joyce Carol Oates, David Sedaris, Hunter Thompson, and Kurt Vonnegut.

“As part of our 25th anniversary, we have invited 25 renowned New York writers to choose their favorite book about New York—state or city,” said Institute Director Donald Faulkner. “Books that focus on New York themes and landscapes have impacted readers for generations. We thought it would be appropriate to draw attention to some of these books to provide a glimpse of the enormous literary traditions that this state and its authors have to offer. This is not intended to be a ‘best of’ list, but a distinctive and slightly unconventional guide to reading more deeply into the spirit of the Empire State,” Faulkner explained. The first ten selections will be released on November 16, with the remaining 15 titles announced throughout the next several months.

Mario Cuomo, one of the great orators and intellectuals of 20th century American politics, served as the 52nd Governor of the State of New York from 1983 to 1994. He has also published several notable books, including political diaries, collections of speeches, and two books on Abraham Lincoln— most recently, “Why Lincoln Matters: Today More Than Ever” (2004). In advance praise, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. called the book, “A thoughtful and challenging meditation on what Lincoln’s wisdom tells us we Americans should be doing today and tomorrow.”

Doris Kearns Goodwin is a Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer, author of bestsellers about Lyndon Johnson, the Roosevelts, and the Kennedys. Her newest book is “Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln,” which, by many accounts, helped shape President Obama’s political philosophy. A former professor of government at Harvard University, and assistant to President Lyndon Johnson, Doris Kearns Goodwin appears frequently as a political commentator on network and public television. A long-time friend of the Institute, she has made three previous appearances as a Visiting Writer (in 1991, 1995 and 2005). She is currently researching her next book which is set partly in Albany— a new biography of Teddy Roosevelt.

For additional information, contact the Writers Institute at 518-442-5620 or online at http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst.

The Real Peter Stuyvesant? New Netherlands Fiction

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Bill Greer (a trustee of the New Netherland Institute) will talk about painting a portrait of New Netherland in a work of fiction, using his novel The Mevrouw Who Saved Manhattan: A Novel of New Amsterdam and the life of Peter Stuyvesant, Director general of the New Netherland colony. The event will take place on November 19th at the Hagaman Historical Society, Pawling Hall, 86 Pawling Street, in Hagaman (Montgomery County), NY at 7 pm.

‘Mostly Spruce And Hemlock’ Book Party in Tupper

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A book-release party for the reprint of the classic Adirondack history “Mostly Spruce and Hemlock” will be held from 7 to 9 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 19, 2009 at the Goff-Nelson Memorial Library, 41 Lake St., in Tupper Lake. The party will feature brief comments from library officials, Tupper Lake Free Press Publisher Dan McClelland, index author Carol Payment Poole, and publisher Andy Flynn. Refreshments will be served, and historical exhibits will be on display throughout the library.

“We see this party as a celebration of Tupper Lake’s heritage,” said Goff-Nelson Memorial Library Manager Linda Auclair. “Louis Simmons gave this community a huge gift in 1976 with ‘Mostly Spruce and Hemlock’ and the library is proud to give the same gift to even more people with a reprinting of this classic volume of Adirondack history.”

In June 1976, Tupper Lake Free Press Editor Louis J. Simmons released the first comprehensive volume of Tupper Lake history in “Mostly Spruce and Hemlock” at a book release party at the Goff-Nelson Memorial Library. It was a fitting location; the research room – the Grace Simmons Memorial Room – was named in honor of Louis’ first wife, a longtime Tupper Lake librarian. Louis Simmons used a lot of photographs from the library’s collection for his book.

At 461 pages and more than 140 photos, “Mostly Spruce and Hemlock” was an instant best-seller in the Tip Top Town and was sold out in less than two years. People have been searching for copies of the book for more than 30 years. Only 2,000 copies of the original were printed.

Simmons used more than four decades of experience at the editorial helm of the Tupper Lake Free Press to write “Mostly Spruce and Hemlock.” A 1926 graduate of the Tupper Lake High School and 1930 graduate of Syracuse University, he was hired as the Tupper Lake Free Press editor in 1932. He retired as full-time editor in 1979 and continued writing and editing until his death on April 4, 1995. He was also the Tupper Lake historian for many years.

“Mostly Spruce and Hemlock” details the early days of life in the village of Tupper Lake and the town of Altamont (the name of the town was changed to Tupper Lake in 2004). Histories are offered on the logging industry, railroading, churches, schools, hotels, Sunmount DDSO and businesses such as the Oval Wood Dish Corporation.

The new “Mostly Spruce and Hemlock” includes all of the original text and photos, but there will be some major differences. It is a paperback book, instead of hardcover, and the cover was redesigned. The original book did not include an index; however, the 2009 version has an index, which was written by author and Tupper Lake native Carol Payment Poole. Tupper Lake Free Press Publisher Dan McClelland wrote a new foreword. And the book is dedicated to Simmons and “Tupper Lakers everywhere.”

The reprinting is a joint project between Hungry Bear Publishing and the Goff-Nelson Memorial Library, which received permission to reprint “Mostly Spruce and Hemlock” as a fund-raiser. The library will receive all the author’s royalties plus a retail percentage for copies it sells directly to the public.

Presale orders for “Mostly Spruce and Hemlock” were taken between March and October 2009; anyone who prepaid for a book may pick it up at the library at the book-release party on Nov. 19. Prepaid orders to be shipped will be sent out as soon as the books arrive. No more orders will be taken until Nov. 19; anyone may purchase a copy at the party or during library hours anytime afterward. The books will also be for sale at various locations throughout the Tri-Lakes beginning the week of Thanksgiving. A print run of 2,000 was ordered for the Second Edition.

Based in Saranac Lake, Hungry Bear Publishing is home of the five-volume “Adirondack Attic” book series (Adirondack history) and the Meet the Town Community guide series. The company is owned and operated by Tupper Lake native Andy Flynn, who personally produced and edited the Second Edition of “Mostly Spruce and Hemlock,” and his wife, Dawn, originally from Bloomingdale.

For more information about the new “Mostly Spruce and Hemlock,” call the Goff-Nelson Memorial Library at (518) 359-9421.

Revisiting Great Literature With Penguin Classics on Air

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“Penguin Classics On Air” is an online radio series devoted to the discussion and exploration of some of Penguin Classics’ more than 1400 titles from many eras, cultures and regions of the world. The program is hosted by Penguin Classics Editorial Director Elda Rotor and features in-depth conversations on new, timely and rediscovered classics between Elda Rotor or Classics editor John Siciliano and scholars, translators, or experts of a specific Penguin Classic.

The show wraps up with Associate Publisher Stephen Morrison offering a sampling of the Classic by reading the first pages from one of the works discussed. In addition, each episode of “Penguin Classics On Air” features a review by Alan Walker, Senior Director of Academic Marketing, on one of the Classics he’s recently read, as he fulfills his mission to read one Penguin Classic by an author per letter of the alphabet from A to Z.

As a sample of the goods, take a look at The Birth of Knickerbocker: Washington Irving’s A History of New York. Elda Rotor interviews Betsy Bradley, the introducer and editor of Washington Irving’s A History of New York , Irving’s popular first book is an early nineteenth century satirical novel of colonial New Amsterdam. It follows the fictional historian Diedrich Knickerbocker as he narrates the development of New York cultural life—from the creation of the doughnut to the creation of Wall Street. Alan Walker introduces listeners to The Emigrants by Gilbert Imlay and Stephen Morrison offers up the opening to Washington Irving’s beloved story “Rip Van Winkle.” in his segment, “First Pages.”

Four New Diaries By Upstate New York Teenagers

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Four new books provide readers with first person narratives of rural Upstate New York teenage life in the 1860s through the 1890s. These accounts of young peoples’ lives on the farm, or in the home, offers a unique perspective and serves as an important primary resource in the study of American history.

The first is A Darned Good Time by 13-year old Lucy Potter of Taylor, New York (in Cortland County) in 1868. She writes of classes, teachers, friends, boys, a new stepmother, an invalid aunt, and complains about upstate New York weather.

Second in the series is My Centennial Diary – A Year in the Life of a Country Boy by 18-year old Earll Gurnee of Sennett, New York (near Skaneateles) in 1876. He writes of school, family life, social life, farm life, girlfriends, and hard work. His teacher gets arrested for being too brutal to children, he juggles two girlfriends, he plows, cuts hay, cleans out the horse barn….then wonders why his back hurts!

Third in the series, My Story – A Year in the Life of a Country Girl, is by 15-year old Ida Burnett of Logan, New York (in Schuyler County) in 1880. Ida churned butter, milked cows, sewed her own underwear, canned fruit, but also had time for boys and parties. She lived in the country in Upstate New York and in the whole year did not venture any farther than twenty miles from home. The book will be released soon.

The fourth (forthcoming) will be Home in the Hills by 14–year old Edna Kendall of Altay, New York (in Schuyler County) in 1891. It will be available in early 2010.

You can check out these and more publications from the New York History Review Press at http://www.newyorkhistoryreview.com.

History News Service Seeks Contributors

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The History News Service, founded in 1996 by Joyce Appleby and James M. Banner, Jr., continues to distribute op-ed pieces that contextualize current events and issues in historical terms to over 300 newspapers and wire services in North America. HNS op-eds have appeared in such newspapers as the Los Angeles Times, the International Herald Tribune, the Miami Herald, the San Francisco Examiner, the Chicago Tribune, Newsday, the Boston Globe, and similar newspapers around the country. The McClatchy Wire Service, successor to the Knight-Ridder-Tribune Wire Service, also received HNS articles for distribution to its large net of subscribers.

Holding itself out as a syndicate of professional historians, HNS defines that term broadly and accepts submissions (while making no promises) from graduate students and proven independent writers of history as well as from experienced academic scholars. It places no restrictions on the subjects covered nor on the eras or regions from which historical understanding of current matters may be gained. Thus, historians from all fields and of all subjects are invited to submit proposed articles to co-directors Joyce Appleby (appleby-AT-history.ucla.edu) and James M. Bannner, Jr. (jbanner-AT-aya.yale.edu), both of whom should receive texts simultaneously. Full guidelines, examples of how to write op eds, an archive of past HNS op eds, and other information may be found at www.h-net.org/~hns.

SUNY Press Announces Indigenous Studies Series

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State University of New York Press has announced a new series in Indigenous Studies, the SUNY series in Ethnohistories of Early America (Edited by James Carson, Queen’s University and Greg O’Brien, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro). This series showcases cutting-edge research in the field of ethnohistory, focusing on what is now the United States and Canada from the time of initial contacts between American Indians and Europeans through the era of the early republic United States, ca. 1800.

“Ethnohistory” is defined broadly to be more than American Indian history or the history of Indian-European relations-though that is expected to be the primary area of focus. We will also consider works in the time period on any subset(s) of the North American population that is examined and written about through cultural and/or cross-cultural analysis using ethnohistorical research methodology. To encourage a diverse readership, particularly students, all books in the series will be available simultaneously in hardcover, paperback, and electronic DirectText editions.

Manuscripts and proposals should be sent to:

Dr. Gary Dunham
Executive Director, SUNY Press
194 Washington Ave., Suite 305
Albany, NY 12210
Phone: 518-472-5000 / Fax: 518-472-5038

Direct all questions to:

Professor James Carson
Department of History
Queen’s University
Kingston, ON K7L 3N6 Canada

Professor Greg O’Brien
Department of History
The University of North Carolina at Greensboro
PO Box 26170
Greensboro, NC 27402-6170

SAGE Publications Offers Free Access to Journals

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SAGE Publications is offering free trial access to their online journals through October 31 by going to this page and registering. The free trail include, among a lot of others, the following titles which historians in and of New York might find interesting:

Accounting History
Crime, Media, Culture
Critique of Anthropology
Cultural Geographies
Feminist Criminology
Feminist Theory
Games and Culture
History of Psychiatry
History of the Human Sciences
Journal of Consumer Culture
Journal of Contemporary Ethnography
Journal of Contemporary History
Journal of Family History
Journal of Material Culture
Journal of Peace Research
Journal of Planning History
Journal of Social Archaeology
Journal of Urban History
Labor Studies Journal
Law, Culture and the Humanities
Media, Culture & Society
Media, War & Conflict
New Media & Society
Race & Class
Studies in History
Television & New Media
Theory, Culture & Society
War in History