This week on The Historians Podcast, the third Highlights Edition of 2022 has excerpts from 12 podcasts including stolen Little League Dreams, an Erie Canal balladeer, human organ transplants, translating Old Dutch and a boy’s life in Ilion, New York. [Read more…] about Twelve Topics from Recent Historians Podcasts
Sports History
A Constitutional Amendment Proposed for Mt. Van Hoevenberg
An Article 14 Constitutional Amendment is being proposed for the Mt. Van Hoevenberg Olympic Sports Complex in the Adirondack Park outside Lake Placid.
At the Mt. Van Hoevenberg complex, the Olympic Regional Development Authority (ORDA) currently manages around 1,220 acres of Forest Preserve classified as Intensive Use by the Adirondack Park Agency (APA). Abutting these lands is 319 acres of land owned by the Town of North Elba.
Together this complex houses the Olympic bobsled and luge track, cross-country skiing and biathlon trails, and associated facilities, with most of the intensive buildings and facilities located on the town lands. These facilities have seen massive upgrades and state spending in preparation for hosting the World University Games in 2023. [Read more…] about A Constitutional Amendment Proposed for Mt. Van Hoevenberg
Cazenovia, The Origins of Soccer & The National “Football” Hall of Fame
In 1947 the citizens of Cazenovia in Madison County mounted a campaign to have the proposed hall of fame or shrine honoring American players of “football” located in their community.
Supporters at the village, town, county, and state levels joined in the effort to bring the hall of fame to Cazenovia. Assemblyman Wheeler Milmoe who represented Madison County introduced Resolution No. 154 in Albany in support of Cazenovia’s claim to fame. Gov. Thomas Dewey also voiced strong support for the idea. There were other places in the nation politicking for having the “football” hall of fame located in their communities. [Read more…] about Cazenovia, The Origins of Soccer & The National “Football” Hall of Fame
American Sporting Prints: 19th Century Horses & Horsemen
The American Turf Register and Sporting Magazine, as early as 1829, had pictures of noted horses, engraved by well-known steel-gravers from paintings by Alvan Fisher [1792-1863] and J. Cone [possibly J. Cone Ruitiar]. A few years later the New York Spirit of the Times was issuing engravings from paintings principally by Edward Troye [1808-1874].
It all amounts to a gallery of horse notables: Fashion, Glencoe, Lightning, Shark, Leviathan, Monarch, and down the list. There are interesting side-lights on the costume of the boys holding their equine charges, one with an Eton jacket and a cap much like that worn by the American troops during the Mexican War, another brave in Hessian boots and epaulets. It is, however, principally the quicker lithographic process that pictured His Majesty the Horse. [Read more…] about American Sporting Prints: 19th Century Horses & Horsemen
Stolen Dreams: Racism & Little League Baseball’s Civil War
In July 1955, when the African American 11- and 12-year-olds on the Cannon Street YMCA All-Star team registered for a baseball tournament in Charleston, South Carolina, it put the team on a collision course with segregation. White teams forfeited their games. [Read more…] about Stolen Dreams: Racism & Little League Baseball’s Civil War
Jack Niflot: Olympic Gold Medal Wrestler
New York State’s connection to Olympic wrestling goes all the way back to 1904, the very first year freestyle wrestling was included in the summer games, when Isidor “Jack” Niflot, then of New York City, but later a longtime Sullivan County resident, won a gold medal in the bantamweight division. [Read more…] about Jack Niflot: Olympic Gold Medal Wrestler
Empire City Race Track in Yonkers: Some History
Early April saw New York State lawmakers adopt the 2022 budget and approve a plan to accelerate the siting of three new full casinos in the metropolitan New York area. This plan will see the casino licenses awarded to those able to cover the $500 million fee and be approved in a selection process.
The obvious first choice for one of the three sites is Aqueduct Race Track in Queens, and another possible location would be Empire City Casino in Yonkers.
Both locations for many years have successfully demonstrated their feasibility by conducting horse sports, and each of the casino facilities are managed by experienced operators, Resorts World at the Big A, and MGM at Empire City.
With Aqueduct in the Big Apple so well known, perhaps this is a good opportunity to delve into the origins of Empire City. [Read more…] about Empire City Race Track in Yonkers: Some History
The Black Cyclone & The Unbearable Whiteness of Cycling
The invention of the wheel has been celebrated as a hallmark of man’s drive for innovation. By the 1890s, Europe and America were obsessed with the bicycle. The new two-wheel technology had a profound effect on social interactions. It supplied the pedal power to freedom for (mainly white) women and created an opportunity for one of the first black sporting heroes.
Around the turn of the twentieth century, bicycle racing as a sporting event reached feverish popularity both amongst the public and within artistic circles. In the early twentieth century racing developed as a distinct facet of modernity. The bicycle was the pre-eminent vehicle of the avant-garde. [Read more…] about The Black Cyclone & The Unbearable Whiteness of Cycling
American Prize Ring, 1812-1881: A New Book Documents the Bare-Knuckle Boxing Era
A new book, The American Prize Ring: Its Battles, Its Wrangles, and Its Heroes, 1812-1881 (2022), reprints important boxing history columns by William E. Harding, one of America’s most prolific sportswriters of the bare-knuckle boxing period.
Harding’s “The American Prize Ring: Its Battles, Its Wrangles, and Its Heroes” appeared as a column in the weekly National Police Gazette from June 4th, 1880, until September 10th, 1881. Although the Gazette, and its editor Richard K. Fox, published several pamphlets on boxing, Harding’s monumental history of American pugilism was never published in book form until now. The columns end just before John L. Sullivan’s first prize fight.
Harding’s columns are here assembled for the first time by Jerry Kuntz, who provides an informative introduction. In a foreward New York Almanack founder and editor John Warren writes that “the importance of Jerry Kuntz’s yeoman work in assembling sporting writer William E. Harding’s columns on pugilism in America cannot be understated. Quite simply, this is the best reference work on bare-knuckle boxing in America…” [Read more…] about American Prize Ring, 1812-1881: A New Book Documents the Bare-Knuckle Boxing Era
Laddie Sanford: Polo Star & Carpet Mill Owner (Podcast)
This week on The Historians Podcast, Bob Cudmore and Dave Greene discuss several stories from Bob’s newspaper columns in the Daily Gazette and Amsterdam Recorder including a look at the life of Laddie Sanford. Laddie Sanford was a polo star, race horse owner and on the board of directors of Bigelow Sanford in 1955 when the carpet company left Amsterdam, Montgomery County, NY. [Read more…] about Laddie Sanford: Polo Star & Carpet Mill Owner (Podcast)