History, Natural History & the Arts
The city of New Rochelle has a relevant place in the founding history of the United States. It was here that in 1689 a small community of French Protestant refugees would settle.
Known as Huguenots, they exercised considerable influence on America’s course towards self-determination. George Washington descended from a Huguenot refugee on his mother’s side. [Read more…] about Huguenots & New Rochelle’s Spirit of Liberty
This week on The Historians Podcast, Kimberly Hess discusses A Lesser Mortal: The Unexpected Life of Sarah Cochran (Books Fluent, 2021). Cochran lived in Pennsylvania and headed companies that processed coal and coke. A distant ancestor of Hess, Cochran advocated for women’s suffrage and was a philanthropist. [Read more…] about The Coal Queen of Western Pennsylvania
This week on The Historians Podcast, town historian Todd Langworthy on how Lily Dale in the Town of Pomfret in Western New York became a center for spiritualism. Pomfret also was the place where the Women’s Christian Temperance Union began and where the first farmers’ Grange was founded. And the town is home to the village of Fredonia and the SUNY College at Fredonia. [Read more…] about Spiritualism, Temperance, the Grange and More (Historians Podcast)
In the autumn of 2015, the Adirondack Research Consortium in partnership with the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government held a panel to discuss the diminishing demography of the Adirondacks. The all-male affair it convened to lead this conversation was typically partisan, casually excluding the perspectives, positions and participation of those primarily burdened with the labor of Adirondack propagation.
While this august assembly of middle-aged men sat pondering the problem with pie charts and furrowed brows, back home in the mountains, the keystone species of the demographic ecosystem – Adirondack mothers – got on with the business of raising children in a climate that is notably inimical to their interests even within the auspices of nation that is generally hostile to the working conditions of those who shoulder the bulk of the responsibility for social reproduction. [Read more…] about Adirondack Gentrification: Depletion (The Devil’s Due, Part 3)
The shortage of children that closed the Raquette Lake School a decade ago was not due to a housing deficit. On the contrary, Raquette was chockablock with housing when the school failed, much of it sitting empty for most of the year.
While Raquette boasts some unusual features – some of its structures are accessible only by lake – it shares this same predicament with most other gentrifying Adirondack places, lake-locked or otherwise: plenty of lodging and nowhere to live.
How can any community with so many vacant dwellings suffer from a housing crisis? [Read more…] about Adirondack Gentrification: Dispossession & Chronic Displacement (Part 2)
Elizabeth “Lee” Miller started her career in the fashion industry. Having been model and assistant to surrealist artist and photographer Emmanuel Radnitzky, better known as Man Ray, she had the drive and talent to pursue her own professional ambition. During the Second World War, she was one of five accredited female photo-journalists accompanying American troops.
In a turbulent life traumatic events in her youth and maturity took their toll and may have hampered the appreciation of her contribution. Full recognition of the artistic value of her work is long overdue. [Read more…] about Modernist Misogyny & Lady Penrose of Poughkeepsie
The new documentary Floating Ideas: How the Erie Canal Helped Shape America is set to premier on WCNY-TV on June 29th at 9 pm. The half-hour documentary examines the spread of ideas along the Erie Canal with emphasis on women’s rights, suffrage, and the quest for social justice. [Read more…] about Documentary Explores Erie Canal’s Role in Shaping America
This week on The Historians Podcast the guest is Marguerite Kearns, author of Unfinished Revolution: Edna Buckman Kearns and the Struggle for Women’s Rights (SUNY Press, 2021). The book explores how Edna Buckman Kearns’s focus on women’s suffrage and world peace affected her family then and now. [Read more…] about Marguerite Kearns: Unfinished Women’s Rights Revolution (Podcast)
When the 19th Amendment was ratified in 1920, millions of Native American women still could not vote. The U.S. government did not recognize them as citizens. And if U.S. citizenship required renouncing tribal sovereignty, many Native women didn’t want it. But early-twentieth-century writer, composer, and activist Zitkála-Šá was determined to fight for both. [Read more…] about Layered Citizenship: Amended Podcast’s Final Episode
When Benjamin Franklin traveled to Paris in 1776 seeking support for the Revolution, the old charmer became a popular guest at the city’s glittering salons. His successor Thomas Jefferson continued his PR work and established contacts with the city’s most prominent salonnières. Thomas Paine too was a visitor of various salons. Thanks to their socio-diplomatic involvement, the American Revolution became a central topic of discussion at such gatherings. [Read more…] about Salons: American Rebels, French Etiquette and Lesbian History