History, Natural History & the Arts
In the early morning hours of July 4, 1919, a fire alarm was sounded in the village of Corinth, Saratoga County. Many residents thought some kids were celebrating Independence Day a bit early, but when the International Paper Mill fire whistle sounded everyone knew it was real.
The popular German-American Club next to a creek on lower Pine Street was ablaze. [Read more…] about Corinth’s 1919 German–American Club Fire
On April 6th 1917 America declared war against Germany. It was the first time in the nation’s history that the United States sent soldiers abroad to defend foreign soil. In May 1917, General John Joseph “Black Jack” Pershing was designated Supreme Commander of the troops in France. He assembled the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) in July 1917 and its involvement on the battlefield tipped the balance in favor of Allied Forces towards the middle of 1918. [Read more…] about ‘Black Devils’ At War In Europe & At Home
When Paris first heard American jazz, it is – from our perspective – impossible to make sense of the cultural thunderbolt that must have hit audiences. This music was so wholly different to European ears that it was either scornfully rejected or eagerly accepted. [Read more…] about Harlem & The Hellfighter Band That Set France Jazz Mad
As we celebrate Women’s History Month it is only fitting that we call attention to the contributions one native New Yorker made to the cause of world peace and social justice.
Born in Brooklyn, New York, on March 12th, 1885, Tracy Mygatt was inspired by her New England ancestors’ religious convictions and translated those spiritual roots into radical social change, one that was highlighted by her own political determination.
After her graduation from Bryn Mawr College in 1908, she devoted her life to a number of reform causes, which included child labor and unemployment, world peace through her association with peace organizations and calls for world government, and an economic system based on democratic-socialist principles. [Read more…] about Trailblazing Women: Peace Activist Tracy Mygatt
Call it an antiquarian newspaper holiday miracle.
“Rather a peculiar thing happened a few days ago,” Lieutenant Howard Smith of Hudson Falls wrote his mother from a military hospital in France on December 26th, 1918. “One of the orderlies of this ward found a picture of me in The Post-Star while he was in another ward. It was an account of my getting a Boche.” [Read more…] about A First World War Holiday Miracle
In economic terms, the Western world made its fortune after the Industrial Revolution(s). Money became the deity of the age. But in the words of John Ruskin, “wise consumption is far more difficult than wise production.”
In the race for material prosperity, the idea of social purpose was lost or forgotten. By the beginning of the twentieth century, both in Europe and America, collective aimlessness deteriorated into vulgarities of excess. [Read more…] about An Age of Opulence In London and New York
In the course of the nineteenth century, powerful and relatively stable explosives were developed. Dynamite became synonymous with radicalism and the moniker “dynamitist” preceded that of terrorist.
On September 16, 1920, a bomb was set off on a busy corner of Manhattan’s financial district. At 12:01 pm, a horse-drawn wagon concealing 100 pounds of dynamite was detonated. The blast killed thirty-eight people. [Read more…] about The First Red Scare: Socialist Suppression and Explosive Anarchism
A new full-color digital graphic novel by the Association of the United States Army Book Program, Medal of Honor: Henry Johnson, recognizes the remarkable acts of Henry Johnson of Albany during the First World War.
[Read more…] about New Graphic Novel Features Harlem Hellfighter Henry Johnson
No one, other than railroad workers, was around on Sept. 5, 1916 when the campaign train of Republican presidential candidate Charles Evans Hughes stopped at the Louisville, Kentucky station, en route to Lexington and eventually upstate New York. [Read more…] about Politics and War Preparations: Charles Evans Hughes in Plattsburgh
This week on The Historians Podcast, Malta town historian Paul Perreault has the story of a famous drawing of Andersonville Prison in Georgia done by a Union prisoner, Thomas O’Dea. Perreault also has an account of the Saratoga Battlefield and the story of a fighting chaplain in World War I, Reverend Francis Kelly. [Read more…] about A Famous Drawing Of An Infamous Prison