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Technology

Asher Durand’s Painted Puzzle of Progress

September 19, 2023 by Jaap Harskamp Leave a Comment

Asher Durand, Progress (The Advance of Civilization), 1853. (Virginia Museum of Fine Arts)What Thomas Carlyle in 1829 called the Age of Machinery – later renamed the Industrial Revolution – radically altered conventional modes of being and marked a turning point in man’s relationship with his environment. New production systems delivered an abundance of goods for consumption, but in the process natural resources were depleted, water and soil polluted, whilst fumes contaminated the air. [Read more…] about Asher Durand’s Painted Puzzle of Progress

Filed Under: Adirondacks & NNY, Arts, History, Hudson Valley - Catskills Tagged With: Art History, Asher Durand, Cultural History, Engineering History, Hudson River School, Industrial History, Newburgh, Orange County, Science History, Technology, Transportation History

Connecting New York’s Libraries: A Broadband Improvement Project

August 28, 2023 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

New York Public Library Main Branch Reading Room (provided by New York State Library)The New York State Library has been working with Carson Block Consulting to develop a network assessment process that individual libraries and public library systems could use to improve the performance of library broadband. [Read more…] about Connecting New York’s Libraries: A Broadband Improvement Project

Filed Under: Arts Tagged With: broadband, Libraries, New York State Library, Technology

Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the 20th Century

February 20, 2023 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Slouching Towards UtopiaBefore 1870, humanity lived in dire poverty, with a slow crawl of invention offset by a growing population. Then came a great shift: invention sprinted forward, doubling our technological capabilities each generation and utterly transforming the economy again and again. Our ancestors would have presumed we would have used such powers to build utopia. But it was not so. When 1870 – 2010 ended, the world instead saw global warming; economic depression, uncertainty, and inequality; and broad rejection of the status quo.

Brad DeLong’s Slouching Towards Utopia (Basic Books, 2022) tells the story of how this unprecedented explosion of material wealth occurred, how it transformed the globe and why it failed to deliver us to utopia. [Read more…] about Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the 20th Century

Filed Under: Books, Events, History, New York City Tagged With: Economic History, Financial History, Museum of American Finance, Political History, poverty, Technology

The Fulton Fish Market: A History

November 6, 2022 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

The Fulton Fish MarketThe Fulton Fish Market stands out as an iconic New York institution. At first a neighborhood retail market for many different kinds of food, it became the nation’s largest fish and seafood wholesaling center by the late nineteenth century.

Waves of immigrants worked at the Fulton Fish Market and then introduced the rest of the city to their seafood traditions. In popular culture, the market — celebrated by Joseph Mitchell in The New Yorker — conjures up images of the bustling East River waterfront, late-night fishmongering, organized crime, and a vanished working-class New York. [Read more…] about The Fulton Fish Market: A History

Filed Under: Books, History, New York City Tagged With: Atlantic Ocean, Books, Culinary History, Economic History, Environmental History, fish, Fisheries, fishing, ice, Labor History, New York City, Social History, Technology, The Bronx, Urban History

Global Foundries: The New GE?

August 26, 2022 by Bob Cudmore Leave a Comment

The Historians LogoThis week on The Historians Podcast, Stephen Williams is author of Off the Northway, a collection of columns written by Williams, who retired after 42-years at the Daily Gazette. [Read more…] about Global Foundries: The New GE?

Filed Under: Capital-Saratoga, History Tagged With: Industrial History, Malta, Podcasts, Saratoga County, Technology

When Sullivan County Entered The Dial Telephone Age

August 30, 2021 by John Conway Leave a Comment

telephone operators at the Monticello Telephone CompanyIt was August of 1961, and what was called “the most complex project of its kind ever undertaken by New York Telephone” was just getting underway in Sullivan County, NY.

By March 21, 1965, the project would be complete, and dial telephone service — long taken for granted in most parts of the country — would finally become a reality for the majority of residents. [Read more…] about When Sullivan County Entered The Dial Telephone Age

Filed Under: History, Hudson Valley - Catskills Tagged With: Catskills, New York Telephone, Sullivan County, Technology, telephones

Urban Archive App Adds Newburgh Locations

June 9, 2019 by Editorial Staff 1 Comment

urban archive newburghNewburgh is the first expansion for Urban Archive outside of New York City. Urban Archive, a technology non-profit, had their start in 2016 working with three institutional partners and only a few hundred archival photographs. [Read more…] about Urban Archive App Adds Newburgh Locations

Filed Under: History, Hudson Valley - Catskills Tagged With: Architecture, Historic Preservation, Hudson Valley, Newburgh, Technology

Motion Imagery of Ellis Island Revealed in Stereographs

June 5, 2019 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

Emigrants detained at Ellis Island - Keystone-Mast CollectionStereographs were the latter day virtual reality, an inventive means to immerse the viewer into another place and time. Two photographs are exposed simultaneously but from slightly different perspectives. When the final print is viewed through a stereoscope a depth of field is introduced that brings the photograph more to life.

In 2018 I digitally re-imagined many dozens of American Civil War scenes using an animation process that essentially reveals that same depth of field but on more common 2D screens. In doing so, the need for specific viewing equipment is eliminated and the immersive nature of the stereoscope is maintained. [Read more…] about Motion Imagery of Ellis Island Revealed in Stereographs

Filed Under: History Tagged With: Documentary, Ellis Island, Photography, Technology

Computer Punch Cards And Amsterdam Carpets

April 8, 2015 by Bob Cudmore 2 Comments

mohawkmillsMark Thomann, who has spent much of his working life on restorations of classic carpets, is skeptical of the idea that paper cards used to control carpet weaving in Amsterdam and other places directly foreshadowed development of the computer.

Thomann said, “I have heard that but always thought it a stretch. There is the similarity of the use of punch cards, with a binary system, no hole or hole which would determine position of a strand of yarn. But I have never seen evidence that someone familiar with that industrial technology was at all involved in making computers.” [Read more…] about Computer Punch Cards And Amsterdam Carpets

Filed Under: History Tagged With: Amsterdam, Fiber Arts - Textiles, Industrial History, Technology, Walter Elwood Museum

Brooklyn Museum Plans New Entryway Experience

February 2, 2015 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

unnamed(35)The Brooklyn-based design firm SITU Studio has been selected by the Brooklyn Museum to create a new environment in the entry Pavilion and Lobby to transform the Museum’s entry. Taking a cue from retail and the hospitality sector, the new SITU-designed entry experience will focus on an assemblage of reconfigurable modular furniture designed to connect staff with visitors, while improving traffic and way-finding. [Read more…] about Brooklyn Museum Plans New Entryway Experience

Filed Under: History, New Exhibits, New York City Tagged With: Brooklyn, Brooklyn Museum, Museums, New York City, NYC, Public History, Technology

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