The Albany Times Union is reporting today that the beleaguered Rensselaer County Historical Society (RCHS) is losing the interim executive director, Rachel Tooker, less then six months after she took the post. Members of the organization, including Renssealer County Historian Kathy Sheehan, (who also serves as the society's Registrar) touted her as the leadership necessary to steer the non-profit back to solvency. She will be moving to California where her partner has taken a museum job.
In March, RCHS sent an e-mail warning of dire consequences for the society: "What may have seemed - even ten years ago - a reasonable endowment with sustainable cash reserves has now dwindled to the point where we are no longer able to pay our bills. Without an immediate and substantial infusion of funds (upwards of $150,000), it appears that we will be required to close our doors while we work to implement a prudent fiscal strategy." No communication with members, supporters, or the press suggested Tooker would be leaving before the Times Union's report today.
According to the Times Union, "Tooker said the historical society has charted a new course that will help it correct its financial difficulties. The New York Council of Nonprofits will provide managerial leadership for the historical society."
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Saturday, July 11, 2009
Another Setback for Rensselaer Co. Historical Center
Explorers, Fortunes and Love Letters: A Window on New Netherland
In 1609 the sailors aboard Henry Hudson’s ship the Half Moon laid their eyes upon the entrance to what would come to be known as the Hudson River, and within 15 years the Dutch began to settle the newly discovered land, creating the colony of Explorers, Fortunes and Love Letters: A Window on New Netherland
Join contributors to the book at the Museum of the City of New York on Tuesday, July 14, at 6:30 PM for a discussion moderated by Charles Th. Gehring, Ph.D., Director of the New Netherland Project and the translator of the 17th-century Dutch documents that have opened the world of New Netherland to the 21st century. Participants will include Noah L. Gelfand, Peter G. Rose, and David Voorhees, Managing Editor of de Halve Maen and Director of the Papers of Jacob Leisler Project at NYU
RESERVATIONS REQUIRED: $12 Non-Members, $8 Seniors and Students, $6 Museum Members (including NNI members). A two dollar surcharge applies for unreserved, walk-in participants. For reservations and information please call 212.534.1672, ext. 3395.
This event is presented in conjunction with the exhibition Amsterdam/New Amsterdam: The Worlds of Henry Hudson (through September 27). To mark the anniversary of Henry Hudson’s 1609 voyage to the area now called New York , Amsterdam/New Amsterdam investigates the epic journey and the transatlantic links it set in motion. The exhibition explores the colony of New Amsterdam as it evolved under the wing of the dynamic city of Amsterdam during the Dutch Golden Age. It reveals the character of the young settlement’s economy, culture, politics, and built environment through rare 17th-century paintings, maps, navigational instruments, documents, Native American artifacts, household objects,and archaeological remnants of daily life in New Amsterdam .
Presented in partnership with the Nederlands Scheepvaartmuseum Amsterdam and the New Netherland Project.
Friday, July 10, 2009
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Adk Museum Presents 'The Adirondack Mining Village'
Mining was once a major industry in northern New York State. Small iron mines and forges appeared along Lake Champlain in the late 1700s. In the 1820s, the industry began to grow rapidly, reaching its peak in the mid-to-late 1800s. The story of mining is much more than minerals found and ores extracted. This Monday, July 13, 2009 Dr. Carol Burke will explore human aspects of Adirondack mining in an illustrated program entitled "The Adirondack Mining Village" at the Adirondack Museum at Blue Mountain Lake, New York.
Part of the museum's popular Monday Evening Lecture series, the presentation will be held in the Auditorium at 7:30 p.m. There is no charge for museum members. Admission is $5.00 for non-members.
Burke's presentation reflects an ongoing project that documents accounts of the daily lives or ordinary people who lived and worked in the now abandoned mining villages of Tahawus and nearby Adirondac (known in the 1950s as "The Upper Works"). Dr. Burke will share photographs and recollections of everyday life in these former company towns.
Carol Burke, a Professor at the University of California at Irvine, is a folklorist and journalist whose ethnographic work has produced books that document the lives of Midwestern farm families, female inmates in our nation's prisons, and most recently, members of the armed services. Six months ago she was embedded with an army unit in northern Iraq.
Dr. Burke spends her summers in the Adirondacks and is currently documenting the everyday life of the once-flourishing mining village of Tahawus. Before joining the faculty at the University of California at Irvine, Professor Burke taught at Vanderbilt University, Johns Hopkins University, and the United States Naval Academy.
The broad story of mining in the Adirondacks is one of fortunes made and lost, of suicide, madness, and ambition, and the opening of one of America's last frontiers. Mining shaped the physical and cultural landscape of the Adirondack Park for generations. The Adirondack Museum plans to open the completely revitalized exhibit "Mining in the Adirondacks" in 2012 to share this incredible history.
Photo: Adirondack Village, Near the Upper Works. From Benson J. Lossing's The Hudson, from the Wilderness to the Sea, 1859.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
International Dance Preformances and Workshops
The Iroquois Indian Museum is proud to present a weekend Dance Festival on July 11 and 12, 2009. This two-day event will feature international dancers as well as Iroquois Social Dance performers. On Saturday, July 11th the dance groups will include St.Adalbert’s Polish Dancers, St. Sophia’s Greek Dancers and the Irish dancers Iona Troupe. Each group will perform for approximately 45 minutes beginning at noon. The Iroquois Dancers, Alan Brant and Family, Mohawk from Tyendinaga, will also perform. The Brant Family are returning again by request and, as is the tradition, they will be teaching Iroquois Social Dance to all who wish to participate.
On Sunday the Iroquois Indian Museum will feature two award winning DVD’s: Maria Tallchief at 1:00pm and Jock Soto at 3:00. Both DVD’s compliment the Museum’s current exhibit “Native Americans in the Performing Arts: From Ballet to Rock & Roll. The Mohawk Dancers will perform throughout the day on Sunday as well.
Photo: Alan Brant, leader of the Mohawk Dancers from Tyendinaga.
Underground Railroad Educational and Cultural Grants
The purpose of the Underground Railroad Educational and Cultural (URR) Program is to help preserve the Underground Railroad's legacy and to help demonstrate how the Underground Railroad's widespread operations network transformed our Nation. In addition, the URR also promotes the formation of public- private partnerships to help disseminate information regarding the Underground Railroad throughout the United States, including lessons to be drawn from the history of the Underground Railroad. Applications are due by July 30, 2009.
Eligible Applicants: Nonprofit educational organizations that are established to research, display, interpret, and collect artifacts relating to the history of the Underground Railroad. Other: Each nonprofit educational organization awarded a grant under this competition must create an endowment to fund any and all shortfalls in the costs of the on-going operations of the facility.
Grantees must establish a network of satellite centers throughout the United States to help disseminate information regarding the Underground Railroad. These satellite centers must raise 80 percent of the funds required to establish the satellite centers from non-Federal public and private sources. In addition, grantees must establish the capability to electronically link the facility with other local and regional facilities that have collections and programs that interpret the history of the Underground Railroad.
Applications for grants under the Underground Railroad Educational and Cultural Program--CFDA number 84.345A--must be submitted electronically using e-Application, accessible through the Department's e-Grants Web site at: http://e-grants.ed.gov/. While completing your electronic application, you will be entering data online that will be saved into a database. You may not e-mail an electronic copy of a grant application to us.
As part of the application process, applicants will be required to document their ability to create an endowment, establish satellite centers, and establish the electronic capability described above. For specific requirements on reporting, please go to Reporting Forms
Document Type: Grants Notice
Funding Opportunity Number: ED-GRANTS-061509-001
Opportunity Category: Discretionary
Posted Date: Jun 15, 2009
Creation Date: Jun 15, 2009
Original Closing Date for Applications: Jul 30, 2009
Current Closing Date for Applications: Jul 30, 2009 Applications Available: June 15, 2009. Deadline for Transmittal of Applications: July 30, 2009.
Archive Date: Aug 29, 2009
Funding Instrument Type: Grant
Category of Funding Activity: Education
Category Explanation:
Expected Number of Awards: 2
Estimated Total Program Funding: $1,945,000
Award Ceiling:
Award Floor:
CFDA Number(s): 84.345 -- Underground Railroad Educational and Cultural Program
Cost Sharing or Matching Requirement: Yes
Full Announcement [pdf]
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
History and Culture: Background For Abenaki Day
As part of the lead-up to Abenaki Day at the Adirondack Museum, Christopher Roy (a cultural anthropologist engaged in research related to historically known Abenaki people) penned a few short articles with Abenaki family historian David Benedict may be if interest to New York History readers.
Roy is a 1995 graduate of the University of Vermont. He is completing a PhD program in the Department of Anthropology at Princeton University. Of particular interest to his research are the histories of residence off reserve, questions of law and belonging, as well as the work of family historians in understanding Abenaki pasts, presents, and futures.
The first one, focusing on Dan Emmett and a canoe he built which is in the collections of the museum, has been posted by the Adirondack Museum http://www.adkmuseum.org/about_us/adirondack_journal/?id=156. Another of these short articles was published in the News Enterprise of North Creek [link]. This one focused on John Mitchell, an Abenaki man who lived most of his life at Indian Lake.
The Adirondack Museum has posted a few of them on their Adirondack Journal:
Mitchell Sabattis, Abenaki Farmer, 1855
Maude (Benedict) Nagazoa, Proud Adirondack Abenaki
On Monday, July 20, 2009 Roy will discuss aspects of his research in a program entitled "Searching for Sabattis, and Other Tales of Adirondack Abenaki Adventure " at the Adirondack Museum at Blue Mountain Lake, New York. Part of the museum's popular Monday Evening Lecture series, the presentation will be held in the Auditorium at 7:30 p.m. There is no charge for museum members. Admission is $5.00 for non-members.
Photo: Mitchell Sabattis (1823 - 1906). Collection of the Adirondack Museum.
Abenaki Day at The Adirondack Museum
Abenaki is a generic term for the Native American Indian peoples of northern New England, southeastern Canada, and the Maritimes. Members of the Abenaki Watso family will share the traditions, culture, and heritage of their ancestors at an upcoming event at the Adirondack Museum this Saturday, July 11, 2009. These Native Peoples are also known as Wabanaki (Eastern Abenaki - Maine and the Canadian Maritimes) or Wôbanakiak (Western Abenaki - New Hampshire, Vermont, and southeastern Canada). In the Native language Wôbanakiak translates roughly to mean "People of the Dawn."
A majority of the Watso family who will demonstrate or present at the Adirondack Museum are from the Odanak reserve in the province of Quebec. The Abenaki Nation at Odanak, historically called the St. Francis, is now called the Odanak Band by the Canadian government.
"Abenaki Day" will feature demonstrations of traditional skills from 10:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m. The demonstrations will include: sweet grass and black ash basket making by Barbara Ann Watso; bead work with Priscilla Watso; pounded black ash splint making with John Watso and Martin Gill; and traditional wood carving by Denise Watso.
Rejean Obomsawin will share traditional Abenaki legends that have been passed down by the elders at 11:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. Rejean is a singer, drummer, and guide at the Musee des Abenaki at Odanak.
Jacques T. Watso will offer traditional Abenaki singing and drumming at 10:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m.
Cultural anthropologist Christopher Roy will present a program entitled "Abenaki History in the Adirondacks and in the Adirondack Museum" at 12:30 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. Drawing on the museum's Abenaki collections, Roy will share the findings of his research on the history and contemporary lives of Abenaki people in the Adirondacks and throughout the Northeast.
Christopher Roy is completing a PhD program at Princeton. Of particular interest to his research are the histories of residence off-reserve, questions of law and belonging, as well as the work of family historians in understanding Abenaki pasts, presents, and futures.
The Watso family has strong ties to the Adirondack region. Their ancestors include Sabael Benedict and his son Elijah, Abenaki men familiar to early settlers and explorers of the region, and Louis Watso an Abenaki man well known in the southern Adirondacks in the latter half of the 19th century.
Descendants Sabael Benedict and Louis Watso lived throughout the region, some as full-time residents and others moving back and forth between villages like Lake George and Saratoga Springs and Odanak, an Abenaki village on the lower St. Francis River in Quebec.
This branch of the Watso family also descends from John and Mary Ann Tahamont, basket makers who spent many summers at Saranac Lake around the turn of the last century.
Monday, July 6, 2009
Researching NY Conference Deadline Extended
The deadline for submitting proposals for the Researching New York Conference has been extended to July 10th.
DEADLINE EXTENDED
Researching New York 2009
November 19 & 20, 2009
University at Albany, SUNY
The organizers of the annual Researching New York Conference invite proposals for panels, papers, workshops, roundtables, exhibits, documentary, and media or multimedia presentations on any facet of New York State history -in any time period and from any perspective. The conference will be held at the University at Albany, Albany, New York, on November 19th and 20th, 2009.
We especially invite proposals that explore and interpret not only the exploits of Henry Hudson and Samuel de Champlain, but the many kinds of exploration that have taken place in the ensuing 400 years of New York State's rich and diverse history-including consideration of how we remember, celebrate, interpret, and commemorate historical events.
We are also soliciting commentators for panels. If you would like to participate as a commentator, please send a note to resrchny@albany.edu indicating your area of expertise, along with a one-page vita.
Researching New York brings together historians, researchers, archivists, museum curators, librarians, graduate students, teachers, Web and multimedia producers, and documentarians to share their work on New York State history.
Presentations that highlight the vast resources available to researchers of New York State history, as well as scholarship drawn from those resources, are encouraged.
Proposals are due by July 10, 2009. Full panel proposals, workshops, roundtables, exhibits, film screenings and media presentations are welcome. Partial panels and individual submissions will be considered. For panels and full proposals, please submit a one-page abstract of the complete session, a one page abstract for each paper or presentation, and a one-page curriculum vita for each participant. Individual submissions should include a one-page abstract and one-page curriculum vita.
Submissions must include name, address, telephone number, and e-mail address. Please submit your proposal electronically to resrchny@albany.edu. All proposals must note any anticipated technology or audio visual needs.
If you have any questions or comments, please contact us at resrchny@albany.edu. Further details and program updates will be available at http://nystatehistory.org/researchny.
Researching New York is sponsored by the Department of History and the History Graduate Student Organization, University at Albany, SUNY and the New York State Archives Partnership Trust with support from the M.E. Grenander Department of Special Collections & Archives, University at Albany Libraries.
