History, Natural History & the Arts
Over the last three-plus decades, Bill Kauffman has written about and interviewed upstate New York novelists, politicians, and civic activists who have given the region much of its interest to the author.
Upstaters: Poets, Pols, Prophets and Bush-League Heroes of Upstate New York (SUNY Press, 2026) collects these into a single volume. [Read more…] about Upstaters: Poets, Pols, Prophets & Bush-League Heroes
Everyone laughed when I said I was writing a book called Smut. “You,” they would say, pointing fingers at me, “you writing about obscenity?” Nonetheless, I did write about an obscenity trial in Ithaca, NY in 1883 and laughed as I transcribed the trial testimony to the page.
I found writing Smut fun, and I hope that readers might also find it informative, and interesting, curious, and fun too. [Read more…] about Historian Carol Kammen: Smut & The Human Condition
About 1768, New York’s first paper mill was established, but throughout the 1700s New Yorkers suffered from a lack of paper, no more so than during the American Revolution. The industry grew from the need for paper and owes its early history to the rise of printing in America. [Read more…] about Small & Scarce: Early New York Paper Making History
Charity Clarke was born in the colonial city of New York on June 28, 1747, and lived through the momentous times that gave birth to the United States. She grew up on her father’s “Chelsea” estate (now the Chelsea neighborhood) in Manhattan.
Clarke married the Rev. Benjamin Moore, the pastor of Trinity Church, in 1778. Their son, Clement Clarke Moore was author of the poem A Visit from St. Nicholas or The Night Before Christmas. [Read more…] about Charity Clarke Moore: American Revolutionary Writer
The following essay was first published in the Commercial Advertiser (NYC) on November 15, 1822.
On the 18th of September, 1822, a large party of ladies and gentlemen visited the Pine Orchard [two years later the Catskill Mountain House would officially open here], situated on one of the lofty summits of the Catskill mountains, and about twelve miles from the village of Catskill [Greene County, NY]. [Read more…] about ‘Distance Scarcely Bounds’: An 1822 Visit to the Catskills
Donna (D.M.) Green never intended to publish a book for the general public. “My first idea was just to write a book for my kids and grandkids,” the Hope Falls writer recalls. “But after my husband, Jeff, proofread In the Moment, In the Forest, he encouraged me to consider getting it published.”
And we’re so glad she took his advice! Readers of In The Moment, In The Forest (Troy Bookmakers, 2024), a beautifully written book of day-by-day journal entries, accompany Green for one full year as she observes and records the natural wonders of her beloved North Country. [Read more…] about Adirondack Author Sees Magic & Mystery Outside Her Door
The work of novelist William Kennedy marks the union of encyclopedic knowledge, built over ninety-eight years spent soaking up the city of Albany, and a profound empathy for human experience in all its forms, from the underworld of gangsters, gamblers, and hustlers to the heights of power and politics.
In the recently published Library of America edition of The Albany Trilogy, three of Kennedy’s greatest works set in New York’s capital take readers through vastly different but interrelated lives. [Read more…] about William Kennedy’s Albany Trilogy: An Interview with Paul Grondahl
A soon to be published biography of Andy Rooney (1919-2011) carries readers through the arc of a true American original, a New Yorker who was once one of the country’s most popular television and newspaper commentators.
Born in Albany, he attended Albany Academy, and later Colgate University in Hamilton, NY, before he was drafted into the United States Army in August 1941. [Read more…] about An New Biography Explores Andy Rooney’s Lucky Life
Zoe Anderson Norris (1860–1914) was a woman ahead of her time. A Kentucky-born belle turned fearless Manhattan journalist, she used her pen as a weapon in the fight for justice.
From exposing slumlords and corrupt politicians to advocating for impoverished immigrants, she captured the injustices of her era with a wit and tenacity that still resonate today. [Read more…] about Zoe Anderson Norris: A Queen of Bohemia
Established in 1989, the quadrennial International Conference on the State of Mark Twain Studies is the oldest and largest gathering of scholars interested in the field of Mark Twain Studies.
The conference consists of traditional paper sessions, a keynote address, a number of special presentations, and comradery with old and new acquaintances. The conference culminates in an evening picnic at Quarry Farm, one of the most important structures in the life of Mark Twain. [Read more…] about International State of Mark Twain Studies Conference
Two hundred and fifty years ago, the Declaration of Independence marked the birth of the United States. But two essays of that era appealed even more directly to Americans’ feelings.
In January 1776, Thomas Paine ― a recent immigrant to America ― published Common Sense. His straightforward argument upended the fraud of monarchy and dismantled the idea of aristocratic privilege that had dominated the world for centuries. [Read more…] about Tom Paine’s War: The Words That Rallied a Nation
An outspoken critic of the National Socialist (Nazi) Party, Jewish photojournalist Gisèle [Gisela] Freund fled her native Germany in 1933 with Adolf Hitler’s rise to power. Having settled in Paris, she obtained her PhD at the Sorbonne in 1936 and would become the most talented chronicler of the vibrant and multi-national bohemian community of artists and writers that made its home in Paris during the 1930s.
By 1939, Freund had photographed many of the greatest writers and artists of the twentieth century, amongst them Henri Matisse, Samuel Beckett, T. S. Eliot, Virginia Woolf, Jean Cocteau, André Breton, Colette, André Malraux, Paul Valéry, Tennessee Williams, Peggy Guggenheim, Simone de Beauvoir, and Jean-Paul Sartre. [Read more…] about The Battle for Ulysses in Paris & New York
In Printing Nueva York: Spanish-Language Print Culture, Media Change, and Democracy in the Late Nineteenth Century (NYU Press, 2026) by Kelley Kreitz, who leads the digital mapping project C19LatinoNYC.org, uncovers the network of Spanish-language writers and editors in 19th-century New York, whose media innovations fueled anti-colonial struggles and democratic ideals.
At the end of the nineteenth century, New York City was a vital hub for writers from Latin America, providing a haven of press freedom and the latest printing technology. [Read more…] about Printing Nueva York: Spanish-Language Media and Democracy
Steven Damman disappeared from outside a supermarket in East Meadow on Long Island on Halloween, 1955. He was not yet three years old. Still unsolved, the case has intrigued many over the ensuing years – none more so than Newsday journalist John Valenti.
For Nothing is Hidden, Valenti’s new novel, is the culmination of his meticulous research into the case mixed with his years of observations covering Long Island. He presents a fictional version of the disappearance, substituting the Goodson family for the Dammans, while hewing close to the facts. [Read more…] about A Long Island True Crime Story Becomes New Novel
When we talk about slavery in Early America, we often focus on plantations: their large, fertile fields, their cash crops, and the people who labored on those fields to produce those cash crops under conditions of enslavement.
But what about the ordinary objects that made slavery work? The shoes, axes, cloth, and hoes? What can these everyday objects reveal about the economic and social systems that sustained slavery in the early United States? [Read more…] about How Northern Manufacturing Fueled Slavery
Zerah Colburn (1832–1870) was a mechanical engineer, author, and prominent technical journalist who specialized in steam locomotive and railway design. He was known for his sharp intellect, influential writings, and volatile personality.
The Saratoga born Colburn “had a career of breakneck speed; he was a restless man, quick of brain and quick of temper; he fell into jobs and fell in with people, but then throughout his life, fell out with them too,” it’s been put diplomatically. [Read more…] about Few Friends and Many Foes’: Early Railroad Engineer Zerah Colburn
On March 24, 1800, Forlorn Hope was published within a prison in New York state, edited by an incarcerated person. In the intervening 200+ years, over 700 prison newspapers have been published from U.S. prisons in all fifty states.
The NYS Library has provided JSTOR with access to rare prison newspapers from their holdings. JSTOR has digitized those newspapers and made them freely available to the public as part of their collection, American Prison Newspapers, 1800s-present: Voices from the Inside. [Read more…] about New York State Prison Newspapers: Voices from the Inside
James Fenimore Cooper’s knowledge of the French and Indian War may have been sketchy, but he was interested enough in its history to contemplate a visit to Lake George, which he finally did with a party of Englishmen in August, 1824.
Lord Edward Stanley (1799-1869), who would later become the 14th Earl of Derby and thrice Great Britain’s Prime Minister during the reign of Queen Victoria, was the leader of that party. His account of the visit to Lake George was committed to his journals, portions of which were published in 1930 in a limited edition of fifty copies commissioned by his grandson. [Read more…] about The Lake George Trip That Inspired ‘Last of the Mohicans’
Emily Post (1872-1960), one of America’s most influential figures in the field of etiquette, lived a life that combined a deep understanding of social protocol with the pulse of New York City’s energetic, ever-changing culture.
Though most famous for her book Etiquette in Society, in Business, in Politics, and at Home (1922), her personal life and experiences — particularly during her time living in Greenwich Village — revealed a complex, multi-dimensional woman who balanced the traditional with the modern. [Read more…] about Emily Post in Greenwich Village
Thirty-one years ago, noted novelist and shipwreck hunter Clive Cussler traveled from his residence in Colorado to speak at the 5th Annual Shipwreck Weekend at Lake George, held September 24–25, 1994. By then, Cussler’s Dirk Pitt novels were runaway best sellers. [Read more…] about Clive Cussler at the 1994 Shipwreck Weekend at Lake George
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