In 1904, the New York State legislature passed a bill to create the New York State College at Cornell. The bill created a land-grant college with an agriculture focus within Cornell and guaranteed fields of study related to agriculture would receive significant public funding. [Read more…] about Finger Lakes Technology: From Agriculture to Auto Racing
Technology
How American Librarians Helped Defeat the Nazis
“In war, as in everything, information is power. And for the United States and its allies in World War II, an epic battle from an analog age, that meant obtaining and transmitting by hand useful intel — like the development of destructive new weapons — before the Nazis could prevent their enemies from getting it,” Katie McBride Moench writes in JSTOR Daily. [Read more…] about How American Librarians Helped Defeat the Nazis
Made in New York: 25 Innovators Who Shaped Our World
New York has been a hotbed of innovation since its founding. Made in New York: 25 Innovators Who Shaped Our World (SUNY Press, 2023) by Frank Vizard tells the stories behind the innovators and their inventions.
Like many New Yorkers, some came from elsewhere to find success in their new homes. Others were homegrown. Some became famous; others struggled for recognition. All were visionaries and risk-takers who were willing to put their lives on the line if necessary. [Read more…] about Made in New York: 25 Innovators Who Shaped Our World
Asher Durand’s Painted Puzzle of Progress
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
Connecting New York’s Libraries: A Broadband Improvement Project
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
Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the 20th Century
Before 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
The Fulton Fish Market: A History
The 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
Global Foundries: The New GE?
This 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?
When Sullivan County Entered The Dial Telephone Age
It 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
Urban Archive App Adds Newburgh Locations
Newburgh 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
Motion Imagery of Ellis Island Revealed in Stereographs
Stereographs 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
Computer Punch Cards And Amsterdam Carpets
Mark 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
Brooklyn Museum Plans New Entryway Experience
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
Make History Accessible With QR Codes
As the recently appointed historian for the City of Ogdensburg I was stunned at the amount of historical artifacts and research that I had inherited that somehow was crammed into a very small space. I had always been interested in local history and in a previous life had worked as an archivist at the Ogdensburg Public Library, until teaching called me.
Twenty years later I was given the task of not only preserving Ogdensburg’s history, but making it accessible to others. [Read more…] about Make History Accessible With QR Codes
Digital Storytelling: Museums for a New Generation
When the distinguished Commission on Museums for a New Century, organized by the American Association for Museums (AAM), met in 1982 with the purpose of studying and clarifying the role of museums in American society, it had already recognized technology as a major force of change in the museum community. The AAM predicted that “high technology brings a ‘high-touch’ reaction – an increasing need for individual choice and human interaction-” and warned that “museums could affect and be affected by the electronic age… [particularly] in the way they choose to use communication technology in their exhibition halls and educational activities.” [Read more…] about Digital Storytelling: Museums for a New Generation
Peter Feinman: Destroy New York’s Historic Sites
The time has come to destroy the historic sites of New York. These sites occupy valuable space, are of no value, and waste the energy of decent people in an useless effort to preserve the past. Why bother?
Why should anyone assist in this folly. There is no constructive purpose to the continued existence of historic sites.
Schools don’t have field trips to them.
Families don’t visit them.
Adults don’t join the friends groups.
Tourists don’t care about them. [Read more…] about Peter Feinman: Destroy New York’s Historic Sites
Digital Storytelling: QR Codes Explained
One would not have to look far to identify one of these funky looking square bar codes. In the past two years, these QR Codes have started popping everywhere from newspapers and magazines, to real estate signage and billboards. What is a QR Code, and how can you use it to help tell the story of your community? [Read more…] about Digital Storytelling: QR Codes Explained