Author Archives: Editorial Staff

This Week’s Top New York History News

By Editorial Staff on February 28, 2014

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Abolitionist Gerrit Smith’s Birthday Party Planned

By Editorial Staff on February 27, 2014

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Stewards for the Gerrit Smith Estate National Historic Landmark (the Gerrit Smith Estate) invite the public to the annual Gerrit Smith birthday party at 2 p.m. on Saturday, March 8, 2014 to learn about Peterboro in 1864.

Born in Utica March 6, 1797, Smith came to Peterboro when nine years old and, with the exception of his years at college and in Congress, spent his life in Peterboro managing his land business in order to support his reform initiatives. Smith’s influence connected Peterboro to national issues. Continue reading →

Chasing Dreams: Baseball and Becoming American

By Editorial Staff on February 27, 2014

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There are people whose contributions to baseball history went far beyond mere batting averages or stolen bases. They didn’t just play the game, they changed the game. For generations of American Jews and other minorities, they served as athletic, cultural, and ethical role models.

On March 13, 2014 the National Museum of American Jewish History will open a new exhibition, Chasing Dreams: Baseball and Becoming American, being billed as “the first large-scale exhibition to use the story of Jews and baseball as an opportunity to highlight ways in which our national pastime is part of the history, and ongoing story, of how immigrants and minorities of many different backgrounds—including Italians, Asians, Latinos, African-Americans, and many others—become American, to feel a part of the society in which they might otherwise be on the margins.” Continue reading →

NYS Parks, Historic Sites Visitation Tops 60 Million

By Editorial Staff on February 27, 2014

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The New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation (State Parks) today announced that more than 60.1 million people visited New York state parks and historic sites in 2013, and campgrounds had the busiest year on record.

Visitation topped 60 million for the second year in a row despite the fact that some of state’s most popular parks were temporarily closed for repairs due to Superstorm Sandy. Continue reading →

Genealogy: BillionGraves Crowdsourcing App Announced

By Editorial Staff on February 25, 2014

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MyHeritage, the popular online family history network, has partnered with BillionGraves to launch a global crowdsourcing initiative to help preserve the world’s cemeteries.

BillionGraves is a free iOS and Android application that lets users easily photograph and document gravestones and record their GPS locations. The gravestone photographs are then expected to be transcribed by volunteers on the BillionGraves website, resulting in searchable digital data. The app is expected to be available in 25 languages and support Gregorian, Hebrew and Julian dates. Continue reading →

Historic Districts Council Conference, Design Awards

By Editorial Staff on February 25, 2014

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The Historic Districts Council, New York City’s advocate for historic buildings and neighborhoods, will host its 20th Annual Preservation Conference, March 7 and 8 in Manhattan. The conference, New Design + Old Places, will focus on good design for historic buildings and neighborhoods and include the presentation of the first Historic Districts Council Design Awards. Continue reading →

Fair-Weather Patriot: General James Wilkinson

By Editorial Staff on February 24, 2014

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General James Wilkinson was the 5th Commanding General of the US Army, fought along the St. Lawrence River during the War of 1812, and was a spy for the Spanish. Find out more about this colorful character when Matt Dudley presents For King and Countries: The Remarkable Life of an Occasional Spaniard and a Fair-weather Patriot on Saturday, March 1st, 2 p.m. at the St. Lawrence County Historical Association at the Silas Wright House, 3 East Main St., Canton.

This War of 1812 program is part of the St. Lawrence County Historical Association’s Commemoration of the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812, which was fought from 1812-1815. St. Lawrence County was one of the battlefields of the War of 1812. Continue reading →

This Week’s New York History Web Highlights

By Editorial Staff on February 21, 2014

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This Week’s Top New York History News

By Editorial Staff on February 21, 2014

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Subscribe! The New York History Blog reaches more than 5,300 people each day each day via E-mail, RSS, or Twitter or Facebook updates.

Questions about contributions should be directed to editor John Warren.

Enslaved in Rensselaer County: Slavery at Crailo

By Editorial Staff on February 20, 2014

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On Saturday, February 22nd from 11:00am-4:00pm Crailo in Rensselaer, NY will explore the lesser-known world of those who were enslaved by the Van Rensselaers and the history of slavery in New Netherland and New York.

Crailo will be open for special open-house style tours, featuring new interpretation of the cellar kitchen focusing on the role that enslaved people played at Crailo. Continue reading →

98th Annual NYS Archaeological Association Meeting

By Editorial Staff on February 20, 2014

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The New York State Archaeological Association (NYSAA) has issued a Call for Papers for its 98th Annual Meeting on April 11-13th, 2014. The deadline for submissions is March 1, 2014.

The Annual Meeting will be held in the Susquehanna Valley at the Holiday Inn Hotel and Conference Center in Oneonta, NY. The keynote speaker will be David Starbuck, Professor of Anthropology, Plymouth State University. Continue reading →

NYS Museum Exhibit: Franklin Roosevelt’s First New Deal

By Editorial Staff on February 20, 2014

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An exhibition on President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the “First New Deal” in New York has opened at the New York State Museum. On display through May 4, “New York and the First New Deal” will feature bronze bust sculptures of Roosevelt and his wife, Eleanor Roosevelt, as well as other images and artifacts from Roosevelt’s economic revitalization efforts in New York.

The bronze busts are by sculptor Caroline Palmer of Montgomery, New York. Palmer originally created a set of Roosevelt busts for the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum in Hyde Park, NY. She created another set which is currently on loan to the State Museum. Continue reading →

Troy Labor History:
Kate Mullany 150th Anniversary History Walk

By Editorial Staff on February 19, 2014

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The Rensselaer County Historical Society (RCHS) is hosting a special event this Saturday, February 22nd commemorating the 150th anniversary of Kate Mullany’s historic formation of the Collar Laundry Union in Troy. The event begins at 11am at RCHS and includes a walk from RCHS to the Troy Farmers Market at 12pm and concludes with speeches at the Farmers Market at 12:30. This event is free to the public.

At the age of 23 Kate Mullany organized 300 of her fellow laundry workers to strike for higher wages and improved working conditions in the collar laundries. This Saturday, February 22nd, RCHS will commemorate Mullany’s creation of the 1st sustained female labor union in America’s history. The event begins at 11am at RCHS (57 Second St., Troy, NY) where the public will be invited to create strike signs in keeping with the historic celebration of the strike. Continue reading →

Historic Punch Recipes Featured At Albany Institute

By Editorial Staff on February 19, 2014

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On Wednesday, February 26 from 6PM-8PM, the Albany Institute of History & Art will host Potent Potables, which will highlight historic punch recipes and showcase punch bowls from the museum’s collection. The event, which is hosted by the Albany Institute’s Special Events Committee, costs $25 per person to attend and participants must be 21 and over (ID required). Featured punches include Champagne Punch, Cherry Bounce, Lime Rub Shrub, Pumpelly Punch, and Regents Punch.

Punch, an Eastern drink, is from the Hindi word panch, meaning “five,” for its five basic ingredients of rum, water, sugar, juice, and spice. Punch was introduced to the West in the late seventeenth century. By the eighteenth century it had become the drink of choice in England and the American colonies where punch making was considered a social accomplishment. Continue reading →

2014 Public Historians Conference in Saratoga Springs

By Editorial Staff on February 19, 2014

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The 2014 Association of Public Historians in New York State annual conference will be held from March 16-19, 2014 at the Gideon Putnam Hotel in Saratoga Springs.

A tentative conference schedule and registration information has been posted online here.

The purpose of the Association is to promote and encourage a greater understanding of the history of New York State and its local jurisdictions; to promote and encourage the work of the officially appointed local government historians in New York State and its legal jurisdictions; to support and encourage the Office of the State Historian; to foster a spirit of cooperation and collegiality among all public historians in New York State.

Martha Washington Woman of History Awardees Named

By Editorial Staff on February 18, 2014

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Washington’s Headquarters State Historic Site will present two Martha Washington Woman of History Awards. The 2014 Martha Washington Woman of History Award recipient is author/historian Mary Sudman Donovan.

This award is given each year in honor of Martha Washington, a perennially outstanding woman in history who resided in the Hudson Valley with her husband, General George Washington, during the last days of the Revolutionary War. Continue reading →

New Book Challanges Vermont’s Abolitionist Reputation

By Editorial Staff on February 17, 2014

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Vermonters have always been proud that their state was the first to outlaw slavery in its constitution—but is that what really happened?

In a new book, The Problem of Slavery in Early Vermont, 1777-1810 (Vermont Historical Society, 2014), historian Harvey Amani Whitfield challenges this myth by showing that the enslavement of African Americans continued in Vermont for another 30 years, even as anti-slavery sentiment continued to swell.

The Problem of Slavery in Early Vermont, 1777-1810 will be enlightening to Vermont teachers and students, scholars of the early national and antebellum periods of U.S. history, and anyone interested in the history of Vermont. The book can be purchased at the website of the Vermont Historical Society. Continue reading →

A New Warrensburgh History Published

By Editorial Staff on February 16, 2014

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Following five years of planning, research, writing and design, the Warrensburgh Historical Society has released Warrensburg, New York: 200 Years of People, Places and Events (2014) in honor of the town’s Bicentennial Celebration.

Spearheaded by Town Historian Sandi Parisi, the effort involved more than 20 volunteers. The 184-page soft-cover book, laid out as an encyclopedia of Warrensburg history, contains more than 300 photographs and a 19-page index with over 2,300 listings. Continue reading →

Gotham Unbound:
The Ecological History of Greater New York

By Editorial Staff on February 15, 2014

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Gotham Unbound: The Ecological History of Greater New York (Simon & Schuster, June 2014) is Ted Steinberg’s sweeping ecological history of one of the most man-made spots on earth, from Mannahatta to Hurricane Sandy.

This is a heavily researched and well-written book that recounts the four-century history of how hundreds of square miles of open marshlands became home to six percent of the nation’s population – that’s 64,464 people per square mile.

Steinberg brings a unique view of the metropolitan area, not just one of a dense urban goliath but as an estuary once home to miles of oyster reefs, wolves, whales and blueberry thickets. That world gave way to an onslaught of humanity managed by thousands of ecological actors from Governor John Montgomerie, who turned water into land, and John Randel, who imposed a grid on Manhattan, to Robert Moses, Charles Urstadt, Donald Trump, and Michael Bloomberg. Continue reading →

This Week’s New York History Web Highlights

By Editorial Staff on February 14, 2014

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