History, Natural History & the Arts
Contrary to conventional wisdom, the very first modern traveling art exhibition was not the three-venue, 1913 New York City “Armory Show.” Instead, and a decade earlier, Syracuse and Rochester, New York hosted an important art exhibit.
The novelty of a traveling art exhibition in 1903 is matched by the surprising reason it occurred: a furniture maker’s business deal with an educational institution. [Read more…] about Traveling Art: Gustav Stickley’s 1903 Exhibitions
Upstate New York’s largest urban centers are pursuing economic development strategies that include a major focus on their canal heritage. [Read more…] about Upstate Cities Turn To Canal Heritage For Economic Development
Until recently when long-lost family mementos came to light, there was very little information about the daily life of Frederick and Anna Douglass in Rochester, New York.
There was even less about their five children. Historian Rose O’Keefe put everything she could find in Frederick and Anna Douglass in Rochester, New York: Their Home Was Open to All (The History Press, 2013). Though it had strong content, the book still left questions without answers. What would it have been like to live on the Underground Railroad? [Read more…] about Rochester Underground Railroad Novel Gets Updated Edition
Genesee Valley Park in Rochester, NY was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted in 1890, and it remains a well-used and defining community landscape. An original aspect of the park’s design is a woodland buffer that runs from Elmwood Avenue to the Erie Canal next to the University of Rochester. [Read more…] about Under Threat: Genesee Valley Park in Rochester, NY
Genesee Country Village & Museum, located in Mumford, in the town of Wheatland, Monroe County, has a historical connection with Rochester’s rich brewing scene. The Museum’s founder, John L. “Jack” Wehle, also served as Chairman of the family business, Genesee Brewing, which his father Louis Wehle purchased in 1932. Today, the Museum’s President & CEO is Becky Wehle, granddaughter of Jack Wehle.
Museum visitors interested in learning more about the history of brewing in the region can visit Grieve’s Brewery on the Museum grounds, a reconstruction of a ca. 1803 Geneva, NY brewery. Genesee Country Village & Museum is the only museum in the United States to showcase a working 19th-century brewery. [Read more…] about A Monroe County 19th Century Brewery Offers Great Beer & An Old Time Experience
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced the selection of 19 organizations to receive a total of $3,797,102 in grants for job training programs across the country, including organizations in Rochester and Newburgh, New York.
Funded through the Agency’s Brownfields Job Training Program, these grants provide funding to organizations that are working to create a skilled workforce in communities where assessment, cleanup, and preparation of brownfield sites for reuse activities are taking place. [Read more…] about EPA Grants to Train Environmental Workers in Newburgh, Rochester
The Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation has awarded SUNY distinguished professor of history Michael Leroy Oberg, the SUNY Geneseo Center for Local and Municipal History, and a consortium of six other colleges and universities, a three-year grant of more than $300K for American War of Independence Semiquincentennial student fellowships.
Several of the institutions in the fellowship program have committed $150K of matching funds for the project, bringing the total to over $450K. [Read more…] about America’s 250th Student Fellowships Funded In Western NY
The Architecture of James H. Johnson (Primedia eLaunch, 2020), a historic resource survey and book about the life and work of Rochester architect James H. Johnson (1932-2016), was recognized with a Docomomo US 2021 Modernism in America Award last month in New York City.
Spurred by the loss of one of his key buildings, Our Lady of Mercy Rectory (Greece) in 2013, The Architecture of James H. Johnson is the first in-depth study and documentation of Johnson, whose well-known projects include Rochester’s Liberty Pole, the Mushroom House (Perinton), St. John the Evangelist Church (Greece), and Temple Sinai (Brighton). [Read more…] about Rochester Architecture Book Wins Modernism Award
“A handsome book of 306 pages, just issued, which is receiving highly commendatory notices from the press.”
So announced the abolitionist Liberator about the 1861 publication of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, a book written by Harriet Jacobs about her life in slavery and seeking freedom. Forgotten for many decades, it is one of the only known books written by an enslaved Black woman. Most of the book takes place in the coastal town of Edenton, North Carolina, where Jacobs was born in 1815.
New York State also plays a large, if lesser-known role in the life of Harriet Jacobs, who escaped to the city of New York in 1842 and lived there at two separate times. She also lived in Rochester and in Cornwall, Orange County, where she spent years writing the powerful book that is read and cherished today. [Read more…] about Harriet Jacobs in New York State
This week on The Historians Podcast, an update on a previous program on the origins of the New York State Thruway from Tim Tielman of the Campaign for Greater Buffalo-History, Architecture and Culture. Tielman explains why the Thruway was built some miles south of Rochester. He also delves into historic preservation in greater Buffalo. [Read more…] about Why Does the Thruway Avoid Rochester?