The Pennsylvania Historical Association (PHA) invites creative individuals to apply for the position of editor of its quarterly journal, Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies.
The editor is responsible for supervising the entier editorial process: soliciting articles, editing, and shaping each individual issue. Assisted by an associate editor, book review editor, and editorial board, the editor is appointed by and works closely with the PHA's governing council. The editor receives an honorarium and office and travel support to advance the interests of the journal. Modest institutional support is necessary.
Qualifications: The editor should be a practicing historian with an established publication record and familiarity with the current state of the field. They should also be experienced in historical writing and editing and able to work cooperatively with and give direction to the editorial team.
Interested individuals should send a letter of intent that includes a statement of purpose and editorial vision, along with a current CV, to:
Dean Marion W. Roydhouse, School of Liberal Arts, Philadelphia University, School House Lane and Henry Avenue, Philadelphia, PA, 19144.
Review of applications will begin on March 1st, 2011. For questions, e-mail roydhousem@philau.edu.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Pennsylvania Historical Association Seeks Journal Editor
By Editorial Staff
11th Mohican and Algonquin People's Seminar
By Editorial Staff
The Native American Institute of the Hudson River Valley and The New York State Museum invites you to submit a paper or other presentation to be given at the 11th Mohican/Algonquian Peoples Seminar held at the NYS Museum in Albany on April 30th, 2011. Topics can be any aspect of Northeastern Native American culture from prehistory to present. Presentations are allotted 20 minutes speaking time.
Interested parties are encouraged to submit a one page abstract that includes a brief biographical sketch and notes any special scheduling and/ or equipment needs. For presentations other than traditional papers, please describe content and media that will be used to make the presentation. Deadline for abstract submission is February 1, 2011.
The Selection Committee, made up of Board members, will notify presenters no later than February 10, 2011. The final paper should meet common publication standards. The paper should be foot noted “author-date” style; sources are cited in the text in parentheses by author’s last name and date, with a reference to a list of books or
sources at the end of the paper. Also, a disc containing the article, bibliography, illustrations (referred to as figure 1, figure 2 etc.) and captions for the illustrations should be submitted to the Board at the Seminar.
Send abstracts to:
Native American Institute of the Hudson River Valley (NAIHRV)
c/o Mariann Mantzouris
PO Box 327
Sand Lake, NY 12153
Council of Parks Releases Report, 2011 Priorities
By Editorial Staff
The 2010 State Council of Parks Annual Report has been released. The Council issues a report annually pursuant to Article 5.09 of the Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation Law. The report provides a summary of regional activities and outlines the Council’s 2011 priorities.
The State Council of Parks Recreation and Historic Preservation consists of the Commissioner of State Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, the Commissioner of Environmental Conservation, Chairs of the eleven Regional Parks Commissions (including a representative of the Palisades Interstate Park Commission), and Chair of the State Board of Historic Preservation. The Regional Commissions are charged with acting as a central advisory body on all matters affecting parks, recreation and historic preservation within their respective regions, with particular focus on the operations of the State Parks and Historic Sites.
The priorities for 2011 outlined in the report are:
1. Park Operations Funding – Keep Our Parks Open!
New York State must provide adequate funding to keep our 213 state parks open to the public and to provide safe, clean and affordable recreational and educational experiences to the 57 million people that visit our facilities each year.
2. State Parks Capital Budget – Reinstitute the $100 Million Commitment.
New York State must reinstitute the State Parks Capital Initiative to provide $100 million annually in capital funding to begin to address the $1.1 billion backlog of park rehabilitation and health & safety needs in our state parks and historic sites.
3. Dedicated Funding Mechanism.
New York State should establish a new dedicated funding source to provide sustainable funding for the state park system.
4. Public-Private Partnerships.
The State Council and Regional Commissions will continue to help establish new “Friends Groups” – 16 new organizations have been started since 2007 – and to help strengthen existing Friends Groups to increase private support for state parks and historic sites. The State Council of Parks also continues to encourage partnerships with for-profit, non-profit and governmental entities for a wide range
of support, from direct monetary contributions and formal concession agreements to operations and programming. A list of such active and recent partnerships appears as an appendix to the report.
5. Private Fundraising Campaign.
During 2011 the State Council will continue to pursue private funding from individuals, corporations, and foundations – building upon the $5.6 million in private support that has been raised since 2009 to support the State Park System.
The full report can be viewed and downloaded as a pdf here: 2010 Annual Report.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Schenectady/Nijkerk Council's Colonial Festival Dinner
By Editorial Staff
The Schenectady/Nijkerk Council Invites you to this year's Colonial Festival Dinner Tuesday, February 8, 2011 with Historical and Marine Artist Len F. Tantillo
Bob Cudmore, Master of Ceremonies at the Glen Sanders Mansion, One Glen Avenue - Scotia, New York
The Schenectady/Nijkerk Council has roots to about 1630, when Arendt Van Curler from Nijkerk established the trading outpost that would become the City of Schenectady. In 1909 the Dutch churches in Nijkerk and Schenectady exchanged tablets memorializing this connection. City-to-City exchanges between inhabitants of the City of Schenectady and the City of Nijkerk have been in existence since 1984.
3:30 p.m. - Throughout Evening, Exhibit
Tantillo's Works with Maps of Early Schenectady & Latest Findings from Archaeological Excavations in the Stockade Historic District Select works by Len Tantillo available for purchase.
4:00 - 6:00 p.m. Heritage Seminar - Conversation with Len Tantillo
Bill Buell, Facilitator, Developing Schenectady's Historical Legacy
6:00 p.m. Cocktail Hour, Hors D'oeuveres, Cash Bar
7:00 p.m. Dinner
Len Tantillo, Illustrator of life and places in early New York Historical Painting: Schenectady Works
Individual Seminar/Dinner combination ticket $60
Seminar only ticket $20
Dinner only ticket $50
Become a Sponsor of the Colonial Festival Dinner with Seminar/Dinner combination tickets & recognition in the program
A Patroon's Table: $1000 for 10 tickets and the host receives an unframed Tantillo print
An Old Dorp Table: $750 for 10 tickets and a 10% discount on up to two Tantillo prints
Stockade Settlers: $150 for 2 tickets and reserved seating (Yes a single person may be a Settler at $75)
For more information call Laura Lee Linder at 518-882-6866
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Life of Fugitive Slave Lavinia Bell to be Presented
By Editorial Staff
One hundred and fifty years ago, few knew about Lavinia Bell, a fugitive from slavery who trekked from a Texas plantation to Rouses Point, New York, in search of freedom in Canada. Now, for the first time, her experiences will be presented to the public in “Never Give Up: The Story of Lavinia Bell,” reenacted by Melissa Waddy-Thibodeaux at Plattsburgh State University’s Krinovitz Recital Hall. The presentation will begin at 7:00 PM on February 11, 2011. The event is free and open to the public.
Ms. Thibodeaux’s visit to Plattsburgh in February will be her first to the North Country. She has already earned national acclaim for her sensitive depictions of Harriet Tubman and Rosa Parks. The North Country location of the premiere of Mrs. Bell’s story, in the region where her vision was at last realized, is as fitting as are the sponsoring organizations: the North Country Underground Railroad Historical Association, Plattsburgh State University, and Clinton Community College.
Ms. Thibodeaux will also offer performance workshops for university and college students during her stay in Plattsburgh. On February 12, she will cross into Canada
where, under the sponsorship of the Negro Community Center in Montreal, she will
introduce Mrs. Bell to a waiting audience.
To see Ms. Thibodeaux portray Harriet Tubman visit You Tube.
To learn more about this event, contact Don Papson at NCUGRHA@aol.com or
(518) 561-0277.
Friday, January 28, 2011
This Week's New York History Web Highlights
By Editorial Staff
- NY Times: A Well-Preserved Road Map to Perdition
- Planet Albany: Establishment Vandalism in Albany
- City Room: 100 Years of NYC Gun-Control Laws
- Wired UK: Laying the 1st Trans-Atlantic Cable
- A New Horizon: Wreck of the U.S.S. Adirondack
- Adirondack Almanack: Lost Ski Areas of the Adirondacks
Each Friday afternoon New York History compiles for our readers a collection of the week's top weblinks about New York's state and local history. You can find all our weekly round-ups here.
Subscribe! More than 550 people get New York History each day via E-Mail, RSS, or Twitter or Facebook updates.
Hudson River School Focus of Major Travelling Exhibit
By Editorial Staff
Forty-five paintings from the collection of the New-York Historical Society will tour the United States in 2011 and 2012 in the major traveling exhibition Nature and the American Vision: Masterpieces of the Hudson River School. Though very seldom loaned, these iconic works of 19th-century landscape painting will now be circulated to four museums throughout the country as part of the Historical Society's traveling exhibitions program Sharing a National Treasure.
Nature and the American Vision will allow audiences to enjoy and study superb examples of the Historical Society's collection of Hudson River School paintings while the galleries of the N-YHS are closed for a transformative $65 million renovation project.
The Historical Society's rich holdings of American art date back to the second half of the 19th century, when the museum acquired, through generous donation, the extensive painting collections formed by pioneering New York art patron Luman Reed (1787-1836). By 1944, the Society was also home to the extraordinary collection of Hudson River School art amassed by Robert Leighton Stuart (1806-1882), another of New York's prominent 19th-century art patrons. Works once belonging to these pioneering American collectors form the core of the traveling exhibition.
"Our mission for the Sharing a National Treasure program is to ensure that audiences throughout the United States have access to the great artworks and priceless artifacts of the New-York Historical Society, New York City's first museum and one of the nation's oldest collecting institutions," stated Louise Mirrer, President and CEO. "Nowhere is this mission more vital than in the traveling exhibition Nature and the American Vision. This tour keeps in public view some of the most important works of Thomas Cole, Frederic Church, Albert Bierstadt, John Kensett, Jasper Cropsey, Asher B. Durand, George Inness and many others: the first artists to have created a consciously American tradition of painting."
The Hudson River School emerged during the second quarter of the 19th century in New York City. There, a loosely knit group of artists and writers forged the first self-consciously American landscape vision and literary voice. That American vision—still widely influential today—was grounded in a view of the natural world as a source of spiritual renewal and an expression of national identity. This vision was first expressed through the magnificent scenery of the Hudson River Valley region, including the Catskills, which was accessible to writers, artists and sightseers via traffic on the great river that gave the school its name.
The exhibition tells this story in four thematic sections. Within these broad groupings, the paintings show how American artists embodied powerful ideas about nature, culture and history—including the belief that a special providence was manifest to Americans in the continent's sublime landscape.
The American Grand Tour features paintings of the Catskill, Adirondack, and White Mountain regions celebrated for their scenic beauty and historic sites, as well as views of Lake George, Niagara Falls and the New England countryside. These were the destinations that most powerfully attracted both artists and travelers. The American Grand Tour also includes paintings that memorialize the Hudson River itself as the gateway to the touring destinations and primary sketching grounds for American landscape painters.
American Artists A-Field includes works by Hudson River School artists who after 1850 sought inspiration further from home. The paintings of Frederic Edwin Church, Albert Bierstadt, Thomas Hill and Martin Johnson Heade show how these globe-trotting painters embraced the role of artist-explorer and thrilled audiences with images of the landscape wonders of such far-flung places as the American frontier, Yosemite Valley and South America.
Dreams of Arcadia: Americans in Italy features wonderful paintings by Cole, Cropsey, Sanford R. Gifford, and others celebrating Italy as the center of the Old World and the principal destination for Americans on the European Grand Tour. Viewed as the storehouse of Western culture, Italy was a living laboratory of the past, with its cities, galleries, and countryside offering a survey of the artistic heritage from antiquity, as well as a striking contrast to the wilderness vistas of North America portrayed by these same artists.
In the final section of the exhibition, Grand Landscape Narratives, all of these ideas converge in Thomas Cole's five-painting series The Course of Empire (c. 1834-36), imagining the rise of a great civilization from an unspoiled landscape, and the ultimate decay of that civilization into ruins scattered in the same wilderness. These celebrated paintings explore the tension between Americans' deep veneration of the wilderness and their equally ardent celebration of progress, recapitulating the larger story told in Nature and the American Vision.
Nature and the American Vision: Masterpieces of the Hudson River School will travel to The Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, TX (February 26- June 19, 2011); the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA (July 30 – November 6, 2011); the Columbia Museum of Art, Columbia, SC (November 17, 2011 – April 1, 2012); and the new Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR (May – August, 2012). The paintings will then return to their renovated home.
The ideas and beliefs explored in the exhibition are also investigated in an award-winning 224-page catalogue by Linda S. Ferber: The Hudson River School: Nature and the American Vision, published by Skira Rizzoli Publications, Inc. Featuring 150 full-color illustrations of works from the acclaimed collection of the New-York Historical Society, the catalogue places the splendid paintings in the traveling exhibition into a broad historical and cultural context. Dr. Ferber received the 2010 Henry Allen Moe Prize for Catalogues of Distinction in the Arts from the New York State Historical Association for the volume.
This Week's Top New York History News
By Editorial Staff
- Conservation Group to Sell Historic Property
- Governor Nominates New Parks Head
- Rail-trail Discussion Turns to History
- A Hudson Pier for Historic Ships?
- Skaneateles Lake Wrecks, Landmarks Found
- Kennedys Fighting to Withhold RFK Files
- Navy Yard's 200-Year History Exhibit
- NJ Historical Society Sells Artifacts to Survive
Each Friday morning New York History compiles for our readers the previous week's top stories about New York's state and local history. You can find all our weekly news round-ups here.
Subscribe! More than 550 people get New York History each day via E-Mail, RSS, or Twitter or Facebook updates.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Still Life Exhibition Opens at The Hyde Museum
By Editorial Staff
On January 29, the The Hyde Collection in Glens Falls opens its latest exhibition - Objects of Wonder and Delight: Four Centuries of Still Life from the Norton Museum of Art.
The show brings together fifty-one works of art from the collection of the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, Florida. The subject matter is still life and the exhibition at The Hyde comprises works in a variety of media including painting, watercolor, collage, sculpture, ceramics, glass, and textiles.
Spanning four centuries, from the Ming dynasty of China to the early twenty-first century, this array of images and objects includes all of the major sub-genres of still life such as tabletop arrangements, flowers, and fruits and vegetables. Arranged thematically, the exhibition illustrates both the diversity and the longevity of the still-life tradition in China, Europe, and the United States.
The exhibition, which runs through April 21, 2011, features some of the most famous artists in Western art history, such as Marc Chagall, Gustave Courbet, William Harnett, Robert Mapplethorpe, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Georgia O’Keeffe, Yinka Shonibare, and Andy Warhol.
At 2:30 pm on January 29th, Dr. Roger Ward, chief curator of the Norton Museum of Art and organizer of the exhibition, Objects of Wonder and Delight, will provide a lively presentation entitled Birds Pecking at Grapes and Other Shiny Objects: Four Centuries of Still Life from the Norton Museum. The talk will be a fast-paced account of the evolution of still-life painting in Europe and America, from Antiquity to the present, and how the diverse collection for which he is responsible has been deployed to create this exhibition.
The exhibition was organized by the Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, Florida.
Illustration: Marsden Hartley (American, 1877–1943): Flounders and Blue Fish, 1942. Oil on rag board. Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, Florida. Bequest of R.H. Norton.
Governor Nominates Rose Harvey, OPRHP Head
By Editorial Staff
Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced the nomination of Rose H. Harvey as commissioner of the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation (OPRHP). OPRHP administers 178 parks and 35 state historic sites and the State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO).
If confirmed by the state senate, Harvey would replace Acting Commissioner Andy Beers who took over after the resignation of Carol Ash in October 2010.
Currently, Harvey is a senior fellow at the Jonathan Rose Companies, where she acts as an advisor and researcher on parks and open space issues, and launched a non-profit organization to fund, design and develop safe, well-managed parks in urban neighborhoods. She was also recently a McCluskey Fellow and Lecturer at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.
For 27 years, Harvey held multiple leadership positions with The Trust for Public Land, most recently as Senior Vice President and National Director of Urban Programs. There, she oversaw all real estate acquisitions, urban park design and developments, managed the finances of a $20 million annual operating budget, and closed between $50 and $75 million worth of land and parks transactions each year across 8 states – a total of nearly $1 billion and more than a thousand new and enhanced parks, gardens and playgrounds in underserved neighborhoods in New York City, Newark, N.J. and Baltimore. She has also established large landscape woodlands and natural areas throughout New York State and the Mid-Atlantic region.
Harvey began her tenure in the parks and open space arena as the Assistant Director for Conservation Easement at the Maryland Environmental Trust, where she negotiated protections of private lands holding environmental significance.
Harvey received her B.A. from Colorado College in 1977 and M.E.S. at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies in 1984. She currently serves on the Board of the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation and the Yale Leadership Advisory Council. In the past she has served on many conservation organizations, including the Appalachian Mountain Club, the Hudson River Institute and Walsh Park Low Income Housing. In addition to multiple state and national awards for her environmental stewardship and advocacy for open space and parks, Ms. Harvey has written multiple articles and op/eds in numerous national media outlets and industry trade journals.
Lucy Rockefeller Waletzky, M.D., Chair of the New York State Council of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, said, "Ms. Harvey has been key to many of the great additions to state parks of the past 20 years. I look forward to working with her to foster strong private-public partnerships that protect and enhance New York's parks, open spaces and heritage. I am also deeply committed to working with Governor Cuomo's administration in preserving our state's recreational landscapes and natural resources."
Kim Elliman, CEO of the Open Space Institute, said, "Rose brings an unparalleled passion for providing all New Yorkers with access to parks and open space. Throughout her 30 year career, she has built an incredible track record of creating and protecting parks, from vest-pocket parks in cities to landscape parks like Sterling Forest. She is singularly qualified for the job and I commend Governor Cuomo for his selection."
Leslie Wright, New York State Director for The Trust for Public Land, said, "Governor Cuomo's selection of Ms. Harvey as Commissioner for the Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation shows that he is serious about maintaining open space and making it accessible to as many New Yorkers as possible. Ms. Harvey's storied career in establishing parks, playgrounds and gardens in urban areas, combined with her ongoing advocacy for open space makes her the ideal candidate to lead this agency."
Photo: Rose Harvey (Courtesy Geraldine R Dodge Foundation)
Brooklyn Museum Acquires Unusual 18th-Cent Painting
By Editorial Staff
The Brooklyn Museum has acquired, by purchase from the London Gallery Robilant + Voena, Agostino Brunias's (1730-1796) painting "Free Women of Color with Their Children and Servants in a Landscape," (circa 1764-96), a portrait of the eighteenth-century mixed-race colonial elite of the island of Dominica in the West Indies. Brunias, a London-based Italian painter, left England at the height of his career to chronicle Dominica, then one of Britain's newest colonies in the Lesser Antilles.
The painting depicts two richly dressed mixed race women, one of whom was possibly the wife of the artist's patron. They are shown accompanied by their mother and their children, along with eight African servants, as they walk on the grounds of a sugar plantation, one of the agricultural estates that were Dominica's chief source of wealth. Brunias documents colonial women of color as privileged and prosperous. The two wealthy sisters are distinguished from their mother and servants by their fitted European dresses.
The painting is a Caribbean version of contemporaneous English works made popular by artists such as William Hogarth and Thomas Gainsborough, whose art often depicts the landed gentry engaged in leisurely pursuits. Free Women of Color with Their Children and Servants in a Landscape and other Caribbean paintings by Brunias, celebrate the diversity of European, Caribbean, and African influences in the region.
Although Brunias was originally commissioned to promote upper-class plantation life, his works soon assumed a more subversive, political role throughout the Caribbean as endorsements of a free, anti-slavery society, exposing the artificialities of racial hierarchies in the West Indies. Among his supporters was Haiti's liberator François-Dominique Toussaint L'Ouverture, who wore on his waistcoat eighteen buttons decorated with reproductions of Brunias's paintings.
"Free Women of Color with Their Children and Servants in a Landscape" will go on view on March 7, 2011 in the European galleries on the portraiture wall between contemporaneous female Spanish colonial and French subjects.
The painting will also be featured in an upcoming Spanish colonial exhibition organized by Rich Aste, Curator of European Art, which is tentatively slated for 2013. Building on the Brooklyn exhibition Converging Cultures: Art & Identity in Spanish America (1996), the upcoming presentation will focus on private art collecting in the colonial Andes and Mexico. Through more than two hundred paintings, drawings, prints, sculpture, and decorative arts from Brooklyn's European and Spanish and British colonial collections, visitors will get a rare glimpse of the private homes of the colonial elite, who acquired and commissioned sacred and profane works of art as signifiers of their faith, wealth, and status.
Image: Agostino Brunias (Italian, ca. 1730-1796), "Free Women of Color with their Children and Servants in a Landscape," ca. 1764-1796, Oil on canvas, 2010.59, Gift of Mrs. Carll H. de Silver in memory of her husband, and gift of George S. Hellman, by exchange.
Old Saratoga: Black History Month, Genealogy, More
By Editorial Staff
A number of interesting events are planned for the Old Saratoga region (Schuylerville, Saratoga, Victory and nearby) for the month of February.
Events kick off with a photo Scanning Session on Tuesday, February 8 starting at 9:30 am in the Saratoga Town Hall in Schuylerville. Get your old photos of the Schuylerville area scanned, archived with the town, and receive a photo CD.
Black History Month will be celebrated on Sunday, February 13 at 1:30 in the Saratoga National Historic Park Battlefield Visitors Center in Stillwater. Did you know that between 400 and 500 black soldiers fought at the Battles of Saratoga? Park Ranger Eric Schnitzer unveils new information about these freed and enslaved soldiers, while dispelling common myths about their service.
The local genealogy group meets on Tuesday, February 15 at 10 am in the Schuylerville Public Library.
The Heritage Hunters of Saratoga County has their meeting on Saratoga County Genealogy: Adventures in Serendipity Genealogy on Saturday, February 19 starts at 1 pm. at the Saratoga Town Hall. The program features Al Clarke explaining how his research in the Doc Lincoln House in Wilton lead to authoring two books and travels to Hawaii.
It is Junior Ranger Day on Sunday, February 20 at 1pm , 2pm, and 3pm at the Saratoga NHP Battlefield. For kids age 5-12! Enjoy one, two, or all three Junior Ranger programs, get your free badge, talk with a National Park Ranger, and see episodes of Liberty’s Kids on the big screen! Reservations required, either by e-mailing
megan_stevens@nps.gov or calling 518-664-9821 ext. 219.
Videotaping Your Reflections of Old Saratoga on Tuesday, February 2 at 9:30 am in the Victory Village Hall on Pine Street. The Village Historian will videotape your memories and stories of local people, places and events for posterity.
Archive Scanning Working Session is planned for Thursday, February 24 at 4:30 pm at Saratoga Town Hall. Volunteers are needed to help the Historian’s Office to continue scanning documents and photos in the historical archive.
Researching Old Saratoga is the topic of the Old Saratoga Historical Association meeting on Thursday, February 24 at 7:30 pm at the Saratoga Town Hall. Saratoga National Historical Park will share an on-going historical research on Old Saratoga.
For more information about these events contact oldsaratogahappenings@gmail.com or on the web.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
After 25 Years, Albany Instiute Director Leaving
By Editorial Staff
George R. Hearst III, chair of the Board of Trustees of the Albany Institute of History & Art, announced Tuesday that he has accepted the resignation of Christine M. Miles, who has served as the Institute’s executive director since 1986.
Citing a personal decision to explore new challenges, Miles tendered her resignation at an executive session of the board, held following its regular meeting on Monday, January 24.
“It is with mixed emotions that the board has accepted Chris Miles’ resignation as director of the Albany Institute,” Hearst said in making the announcement. “Chris’s contribution to the arts in the Capital District cannot be overstated. Not only has the Albany Institute enriched, educated, and stimulated our region under her expert direction, the arts community as a whole has benefited immeasurably from her skill, dedication, and experience.”
Throughout her tenure, Hearst noted, Miles has guided the Albany Institute, the oldest museum in New York State, through numerous advancements and challenges. Her long-range and strategic planning has brought the museum into its fourth century of service, Hearst said, and, especially in recent years, through some of the most difficult times the arts have ever faced.
“For almost 25 years, her vision has established the Albany Institute as one of New York’s most respected and distinguished institutions,” Hearst said. “We will continue to depend on Chris’s dynamic and insightful stewardship as we prepare to enter a new and exciting phase for the museum.”
Miles says her decision to resign as executive director of the Albany Institute was one of the most difficult she has made in her career.
”Obviously, this is not a decision that is made lightly,” she said. “The Albany Institute has been the center of my professional career for a major portion of my life. And, like so many other museums and arts institutions, it currently faces substantial financial challenges. However, I believe that the foundation we have worked to build here will help sustain this magnificent institution as it continues to meet these challenges. I look forward to assisting the board and staff in this time of transition.”
Prior to joining the Albany Institute in 1986, Miles was director of the Fraunces Tavern Museum in New York City, and also held positions as director, curator, researcher, and project director at such prestigious institutions as the Octagon Museum of the American Architectural Foundation in Washington D.C.; the South Street Seaport Museum in New York City; the Museum of the City of New York; and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City.
During Miles’s term as executive director, in 1994, the Institute commenced a major capital campaign to fund a $20 million renovation project that added new buildings and state-of-the-art collections storage facilities, and substantially enhanced the museum’s educational, administrative, and exhibition spaces. The Institute broke ground on the project in 1998 and was closed from 1999 to 2001, when it reopened its new spaces to the public during a Grand Opening Gala.
Miles was also instrumental in helping the Institute gain a number of major grants and awards, according to museum officials, including a $250,000 New Audiences for the Year 2000 Award from the New York State Council on the Arts; a $500,000 National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Challenge, which enabled the museum to build its first true endowment; a $750,000 NEH Preservation and Access grant to aid in re-cataloging the collection, improving intellectual accessibility, and funding completion of the new collections facility; more than $750,000 raised over four years to fund the recent Hudson River Panorama exhibition, launched in conjunction with the statewide quadricentennial celebration in 2009; and, most recently, a $147,000 Museums for America Grant from the Institute for Museum and Library Services to fund a website redevelopment project entitled, Digital Renaissance.
Under her direction, the museum has expanded its outreach to include classrooms and students in 26 states and 42 New York counties. Educational offerings have grown to include home school programs, weekend Art for All programs, Vacation Art Breaks, and summer programs. A wide range of lectures, gallery talks, demonstrations, and performances are held each year, as well as popular community-wide events such as the Institute’s Free Thanksgiving Weekend and annual Museum Gala.
Additional accomplishments include overseeing publication of the Institute’s first book documenting its collections, 200 Years of Collecting (Hudson Hills Press, 1998); and the mounting of numerous nationally and internationally recognized exhibitions, including Thomas Cole: Drawn to Nature (1993); Matters of Taste: Food and Drink in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Art and Life (2002); the 350th Anniversary Celebration of the Founding of Albany (2002); Rodin: A Magnificent Obsession (2005); Excavating Egypt (2006), and Hudson River Panorama: 400 Years of History, Art, and Culture (2009).
Miles has also served on the boards of numerous civic and arts groups, including WMHT Public Television; the Albany County Convention and Visitors Bureau; the Albany-Colonie Regional Chamber of Commerce, the University at Albany Foundation; and the Albany Local Development Corporation. She is a past president of the Museum Association of New York State and the Gallery Association of New York State.
In 2008, the Albany Roundtable selected Miles to receive its prestigious Good Patroon Award for her commitment to making the museum a broadly accessible cultural and educational resource. Established in 1988, the annual award recognizes outstanding contributions to the community by institutions and individuals. In 1996, she received the Women of Excellence Award from the Albany-Colonie Chamber of Commerce.
“Christine is starting a new chapter in her life,” Hearst said. “We are proud and thankful for the outstanding work she has done to make the Albany Institute of History & Art such a vital and vibrant part of our community, and the board wishes her every success in her future endeavors.”
Hearst said that the Albany Institute Board of Trustees will establish a recruitment committee to begin a national search to replace Miles, who will remain as executive director to oversee the transition during the course of 2011.
Photo: Christine Miles, Executive Director of the Albany Institute of History & Art (R) in conversation at a New York Council for the Humanities Event in 2010. Courtesy NY Council for the Humanities.
Quilters to be Featured at Seaway Trail Quilt Show
By Editorial Staff
Quilters who live in the Great Lakes Seaway Trail region of New York and Pennsylvania and have published their own patterns, books or designs, or been showcased in quilting publications, will be featured at the March 19-20, 2011 Great Lakes Seaway Trail Quilt Show held at the Seaway Trail Discovery Center in Sackets Harbor, NY.
The Seaway Trail Foundation has announced that the works of following featured quilters will be on exhibit at the 2011 Great Lakes Seaway Trail Quilt Show:
Betty Alderman of Betty Alderman Designs, Palmyra, NY, is known for her appliqué quilts influenced by 19th century folk art designs. Betty is author of Precious Sunbonnet Quilts.
Judy Allen of Watertown, NY, is the author of The Art of Feather Quilting with more than 100 pattern choices using graceful curved crosshatching.
Linda Glantz, of Holley, NY, is co-owner of Peace Quilts, Inc., Rochester, NY, and co-founder of the International Sister Guild Partnership Program. Her latest book is Flowercolor Inspirations.
Holly Knott of Finger Lakes, NY, is a contemporary art quilter creating designs based on her mother Diane Knott’s watercolor paintings. The pair has co-authored Quilted Garden Delights. Holly publishes quilt and accessory patterns.
Mary Knapp of Watertown, NY, is the designer of the Great Lakes Seaway Trail Lighthouse patterns and has had her award-winning quilts featured in Quilters Newsletter Magazine.
Nancy Murty of Bee Creative Studio in Palmyra, NY, is a quilter-artist-author and fabric designer blending the contemporary with the traditional. Her quilt of her grandfather is on the cover of 500 Art Quilts.
Three of the featured quilters will also speak at the March 19-20, 2011 Great Lakes Seaway Trail Quilt Show that includes demonstrators, and vendors in the nine rooms of the three-story historic former Union Hotel (1817) that now houses the Seaway Trail Discovery Center. The building is accessible and has an elevator.
Show admission is $5 for the two days and includes speakers’ presentations on both days; those with active or retired military ID receive $1 off admission.
The show is co-sponsored by Orleans County Tourism and the Country Barn Quilt Trail, a 22-mile loop tour off the Seaway Trail to more than 40 barns and buildings adorned with painted quilt block patterns. Learn more about the Great Lakes Seaway Trail and the Country Barn Quilt Trail online at http://www.seawaytrail.com/quilting.
Fort La Présentation to Develop Schools Project
By Editorial Staff
A grant of $10,000 has been awarded to the Fort La Présentation Association by the telecom giant AT&T to develop and implement a five-year educational outreach project to elementary schools in the St. Lawrence Valley region.
The curriculum-based Hands-On-History project will provide reproduction 18th- and 19th- century heritage items, interpretive materials and lesson plans which will intrigue students and help teachers meet state and national standards for history and social studies.
Hands-On-History will run as the name suggests. Students will be able to handle, hold or try on the clothes, tools and other gear which will help them explore the history of Fort de la Présentation under the flags of France, Great Britain and the United States from 1749 to 1813.
“We are very grateful to AT&T for the generous funding,” said Barbara O’Keefe, President of the Fort La Présentation Association. “The donation significantly maximizes the Fort Association’s modest financial and in-kind resources to allow us to reach a major goal of our educational strategy.”
“Our thanks also go to our long-time supporter, former State Senator Darrel Aubertine,” O’Keefe continued, “who drew the attention of AT&T to our plans to enrich our children’s learning.”
To ensure the project continues beyond the first year, the Fort Association’s contribution is $4,700. Fort Association board is committing $300 annually in year’s two to five. The $1,200 investment is to maintain printed materials and replace lost or damaged items.
In-kind services worth $3,500 - volunteered by museum, history and education professionals affiliated with the Fort Association – will help develop evaluation criteria, meet curricular goals and promote the new education opportunity to schools across the region.
“By autumn 2011, Hands-on-History should be available to teachers,” said O’Keefe. “We look forward to students experiencing their local history and discovering a first-hand connection to early days in the St. Lawrence Valley region.”
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Roosevelt Historic Site Celebrates FDR Birthday Sunday
By Editorial Staff
The Home of Franklin D. Roosevelt National Historic Site in Hyde Park, NY will celebrate FDR’s 129th birthday on Sunday, January 30th at 3:00 PM in the Rose Garden. The event will include remarks by newly elected Republican U.S. Congressman Chris Gibson (20th District), the U.S. Military Academy at West Point's Honor Guard and Color Guard, a presentation of wreaths and flowers, and a birthday cake and refreshments to follow at the Wallace Visitor Center. In case of inclement weather, the program will be held in the Wallace Visitor Center. For more information, contact Fran Macsali-Urbin at 845-229-2501.
Continental Army Encampment for Washington's Birthday
By Editorial Staff
During the winter of 1782-83, the soldiers of the northern Continental Army anxiously waited, in New Windsor, for news of the peace treaty. Though peace might be announced, Washington still ordered his soldiers to train for battle. On Sunday February 20 from 1:00 to 4:00 PM and Monday February 21, from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM, on Presidents’ weekend, soldiers will bring to life the Continental Army’s final winter encampment with musket and cannon firings, blacksmithing, medical demonstrations and other aspects of daily life at New Windsor Cantonment State Historic Site in Newburgh.
On Sunday at 1:30 & 3:30 PM and Monday at 11:00 AM, 1:30 & 3:30 PM see muskets and cannon fired. Following these firings, children enlist in the Continental Army, drill with wooden muskets and get paid in Continental currency for their service. New Windsor Cantonment State Historic Site is co-located with the National Purple Heart Hall of Honor on Route 300, 374 Temple Hill Road, in New Windsor, NY, just three miles south of the intersection of I-87 and I-84. For more information please call (845) 561-1765 ext. 22.
Following the capture of British forces by the allied armies of France and America, at Yorktown, Virginia, in the fall of 1781, the northern Continental Army returned to the Hudson Highlands. The destruction of the principal British field army in the south broke England’s will to continue the struggle. In the fall of 1782, near New Windsor, 7,500 Continental Army soldiers built a city of 600 log huts near New Windsor. Along with some of their family members, they braved the winter and kept a wary eye on the 12,000 British troops in New York City, just 60 miles away.
Nearby, Washington’s Headquarters, at 84 Liberty Street, in Newburgh, has a full schedule of activities for the Presidents’ weekend to honor our nation’s founding fathers and the soldiers who fought for our independence. Washington’s Headquarters is open Saturday February 19, Sunday February 20 and Monday February 21 from 12:00 to 4:30 PM each day. For more information please call (845) 562-1195.
Photo: Continental Army Soldiers Michael McGurty, from Montgomery, in front and Grant Miller, from New Windsor, in back, Drill in the Snow.
U.S. Intellectual History Conference Announced for NYC
By Editorial Staff
The 2011 U.S. Intellectual History Conference and the Annual Meeting of the Society for U.S. Intellectual History will be held at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, November 17-18, 2011. The event is co-sponsored and hosted by the Center for the Humanities. This year’s theme is “Narratives,” and Pauline Maier will deliver the keynote address. The call for papers is below; the submission deadline is June 15, 2011.
The Conference Committee of the Society for U.S. Intellectual History (S-USIH) invites paper and panel proposals for its fourth annual conference, to be held at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, on November 17-18, 2011. S-USIH is very pleased to announce that the keynote address will be delivered by Pauline Maier of MIT, author of Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution, 1787-1788 and American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence.
This year’s conference theme is “Narratives.” The theme highlights the fact that stories are essential to the study of American thought. Intellectual historians catalogue and interpret the narratives used by the figures they study, and construct narratives themselves in composing their own accounts of the past. The committee invites participants not only to reflect on narrative itself, but to compare and contrast it with other forms of expression, such as argument or declaration. While proposals that relate to the theme are particularly welcome, the conference committee encourages all submissions that are relevant to any aspect of U.S. intellectual history.
The most typical panels will feature three academic papers and one commentator, who will also serve as the panel chair. But submissions for sessions that will use other formats are also invited. Varieties of alternate sessions might include: roundtables (a series of ten-minute extemporaneous presentations on a topic followed by discussion among the panel and audience), discussion panels (in which the papers are circulated online in advance of the conference and the entire session is devoted to discussions of them), brownbags (one-hour long, lunchtime presentations), “author meets critics” events, retrospectives on significant works or thinkers, interviews, or performances. The conference organizers are happy to consider any proposed format that will fit a two-hour long session slot or a one hour-long lunch session (though session organizers should be aware that there are fewer of the latter than the former).
Submissions of both individual papers and complete panels (or alternate-format sessions) will be accepted, as well as applications from those who would be interested in moderating a session. Paper submissions should feature a 200-word abstract of the paper itself, and a one-page CV. Panel proposals must include an abstract of each presentation, a separate description of the panel itself, and one-page CVs for all participants. Submissions for alternate-format sessions must also include a full description of the proposed format. Those interested in chairing a session or commenting should send a CV indicating areas of expertise and interests. All submissions must include a postal and email address, and phone number for each participant. Individual papers in traditional panels should last no more than twenty minutes. All persons appearing on the program will be required to register for the conference and to become members of S-USIH.
All submissions must be emailed as attachments in MS Word or Google docs format. Deadline for submissions is Wednesday, June 15, 2011.
Send all submissions to S-USIH 2011 Conference Committee (usih.2011@gmail.com). Other queries should be directed to Conference Committee Chair
Mike O’Connor at oconnor@gsu.edu.
Monday, January 24, 2011
Go! Grants Available for Non-Museum Professionals
By Editorial Staff
Those interested in learning more about how the museum field functions who work in a New York library, community organization, college or other type of non-profit, can apply for a Go! Grant to attend the 2011 Museums in Conversation conference, from April 3rd through 5th in Buffalo, NY.
Offered to encourage cross-discipline learning and cross-organization collaboration, these special Go! Grants provide up to $500 to cover travel and registration costs to the conference. This opportunity is only available for New York professionals working for non-profits outside of the museum field. Applications are due on February 15, 2011. To learn more visit www.museumwise.org.
Exhibit: African American Women's Literary Societies
By Editorial Staff
"They Kept Their Word: African American Women's Literary Societies and Their Legacy" is a fascinating new exhibit that has opened at the Buffalo & Erie County Historical Society. The exhibit traces the development and influence of African Americans in Buffalo, particularly with regard to women's efforts to improve their economic and intellectual conditions.
The remarkable growth and accomplishments that took place in the Buffalo area during the 1830s and 1840s were due to many factors, including expansion of communication through transportation, newspapers, pamphlets, study groups, and lecture series.
Photo: Mary Church Terrell was an influential African American woman in Buffalo in the 1900s. Photo provided.
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Rare Maps of the American Revolution in the North
By Editorial Staff
The 1776-1777 Northern Campaigns of the American War for Independence and Their Sequel: Contemporary Maps of Mainly German Origin by Thomas M. Barker and Paul R. Huey is the first, full-scale, presentation in atlas form of the two, abortive British-German invasions of New York – events crucial to understanding the rebel American victory in the War for Independence. The book includes 240 pages with 32 full-color illustrations.
The bulk of the maps are from the German archives. The material has previously been little used by researchers in the United States due to linguistic and handwriting barriers. The volume includes transcriptions, translations, and detailed textual analysis of the naval and land operations of 1776 and 1777. It is written from a novel military-historical perspective, namely, British, German, loyalist, French Canadian, and First American.
The attack of Benedict Arnold and Richard Montgomery on Québec City, the colonial assailants’ repulse and withdrawal to the Province of New York and the Hudson River corridor, prior actions in the adjacent St. Lawrence-Richelieu river region of Canada, the Battle of Valcour Island on Lake Champlain, the forts at Crown Point and Ticonderoga, and the Battles of Bennington and Saratoga all receive detailed attention. The last section of the atlas deals with the less known, final phase of combat, in which the Britons, Germans, refugee tories, Québec militia, and Amerindians kept the insurgents off balance by mounting numerous small-scale expeditions into New York.
The significance of the publication is highlighted by Russell Bellico, author of Sails and Steam in the Mountains: A Maritime History of Lake George and Lake Champlain. He writes that Barker’s and Huey’s tome is “a superb work of scholarship based on exhaustive research on both sides of the Atlantic.” J. Winthrop Aldrich, New York State Deputy Commissioner for Historic Preservation, states that the maps “are of significant help now as we continue to build our understanding of what happened in our war for independence, and why. This rediscovered treasure and the illuminating commentary and notes superbly advance that understanding.”
Dr. Thomas M. Barker is emeritus professor of history, University of Albany, State University of New York at Albany. He is the author of numerous books about European military history, especially the Habsburg monarchy, Spain, World War II as well as ethnic minority issues. Dr. Paul R. Huey is a well-known New York State historical archeologist and also has many publications to his credit. He is particularly knowledgeable about the locations of old forts, battlefields, colonial and nineteenth-century buildings, and/or their buried vestiges. He works at the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historical Preservation Bureau of Historic Sites office on Peebles Island in Waterford, New York. The book is co-published with the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum.
Note: Books noticed on this site have been provided by the publishers. Purchases made through this Amazon link help support this site.
Friday, January 21, 2011
This Week's New York History Web Highlights
By Editorial Staff
- Elkanah Watson: Canal Promoter, County Fairs Founder
- Alan Singer: New York Ignores Its Civil War History
- Paradigm Shift: Finding Feminist History in Finding Oz
- Checkered Chicken: Diaries Of A NY Farm Boy
- Subject Matters: Why Students Fall Behind on History
- Vermont Viewfinder: Photographer Thomas Easterly
- Studley Hill Road: The Waterloo of All Cars
- Watershed Post: Grossinger's, Borscht Belt's lost Atlantis
- Irish Times: Controversy of 1926 Census
- History News Network: Cliopatria Awards, 2010
Each Friday afternoon New York History compiles for our readers a collection of the week's top weblinks about New York's state and local history. You can find all our weekly round-ups here.
Subscribe! More than 550 people get New York History each day via E-Mail, RSS, or Twitter or Facebook updates.
Finger Lakes Boating Museum Elects Officers
By Editorial Staff
Trustees of the Finger Lakes Boating Museum that will be built on the Geneva waterfront in 2011 elected officers at their December Board of Trustees meeting.
Bill Oben of Bluff Point, a founding trustee, was re-elected as board president. Following a career in manufacturing management with Dupont and Kodak, he retired to Yates County where he has served on the boards of several other non-profit community organizations, including the Keuka Lake Association and the Yates County Genealogical & Historical Society.
Also re-elected to one-year terms were: Ed Wightman of Hammondsport, vice president; Bill Smith of Pittsford and Branchport, secretary; and Dennis Karalow of Penn Yan, treasurer.
Wightman, a native of the Keuka Lake area, is a retired college professor. In his retirement he restores Finger Lakes wooden boats. He is a past president of the boating museum and is a board member of Wine Country Classic Boats.
Smith, a registered professional engineer, Diplomate of the American Academy of Environmental Engineers, retired from Malcolm Pirnie Env. Engrs. where he was responsible for design, construction and operation of water and wastewater utilities. A consultant in the environmental field, he teaches at RIT.
Karalow relocated to Penn Yan from Virginia where he was the owner and general manager of Connell’s Valet, a drycleaning business in Vienna, VA., for 30 years.
The boating museum reached agreement with the City of Geneva last fall to establish a permanent home on the Geneva waterfront in association with the Visitor Center. The building, which will be located on the current Chamber of Commerce site, is being enabled by a $3.5 million grant provided to the city by state Sen. Michael Nozzolio. Construction is expected to start this spring.
The other members of the 14-member Board of Trustees are Phil Beckley of Geneva, Dave Bunnell of Geneva, Mayor Stu Einstein of Geneva, City Manager Matt Horn of Geneva, Scott Johnson of Hornell, Sam Pennise of Hammondsport, Vince Scalise of Geneva, Keith Toaspern of Penn Yan, Al Wahlig of Hammondsport and Chris Bennett-West of Pultneyville.
The following committee chairs will serve in 2011: Collections, Oben; Communications, Beckley; Finance, Karalow; Membership, Wightman; Nominating, Wahlig; Resource Development, Scalise; and Site Development, Oben.
The boating museum has assembled a collection of more than 100 wooden boats built in the Finger Lakes over the past 100 years, as well as numerous related artifacts and extensive reference material. The collection is stored in the Geneva Enterprise Development Center on North Genesee Street arranged by the Geneva IDA and in Yates County.
Portions of the collection will be displayed on a rotating basis within the new facility, but President Oben emphasized that there will be a lot more to the museum than viewing boats because education, restoration and preservation are the key elements of the museum’s mission.
Also featured will be boat rides on Seneca Lake, active on-water programs including sailing and small boat handling, interactive workshops and displays to engage visitors in the design and construction of boats and boating history materials and programs.
The boating museum is a 501c3 not-for-profit corporation and was chartered by the New York State Department of Education in 1997 to “research, document, preserve and share the boating history of the Finger Lakes region.”
Additional information about the boating museum may be found on its website.
This Week's Top New York History News
By Editorial Staff
- Rare 1770 Map of New York City Restored
- NJ Historical Society Sells Artifacts to Survive
- Edgar Allan Poe's Vigil Ends
- Canada Monument Commemorates Jewish Tragedy
- Abenaki Seek Recognition at VT Leg
- EPA Seeks Divers for Sunken Tug
- Mohawk Valley Historic Site Threatened
- Shelburne Museum Director Departs
- Hubbard Hall Deemed Public Danger
- South Street Seaport May Sell Schooner
Each Friday morning New York History compiles for our readers the previous week's top stories about New York's state and local history. You can find all our weekly news round-ups here.
Subscribe! More than 550 people get New York History each day via E-Mail, RSS, or Twitter or Facebook updates.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Adk Museum Acquires Architecure Collection
By Editorial Staff
The library of the Adirondack Museum at Blue Mountain Lake, New York has acquired the archives of a major Adirondack architectural firm that include what museum officials are calling "the most important collection of historic architectural records in the Adirondack Park."
The Saranac Lake firm began as William L. Coulter, Architect and ended more than a century of notable work as Wareham, DeLair Architects (WDA). Principals in the firm over time included Coulter; his partner, Max H. Westhoff who practiced solo after Coulter’s death; William G. Distin, Coulter’s protégé and Westhoff’s partner; Arthur Wareham, Distin’s partner; and Ronald H. Delair, partner since 1970.
The Adirondack Museum received the materials as a donation from Ronald DeLair, the firm’s final principal. According to museum librarian Jerry Pepper, the process to receive the collection began in the late 1970s. Official transfer of custody was completed in the late summer, 2010.
Pepper notes that DeLair took extraordinary care of the collection over time, and that the extensive material is very well organized. The collection is diverse as well as wide-ranging. The index alone is comprised of forty single-spaced pages.
Including thousands of architectural drawings and renderings for camps, residences, businesses, sanitarium, Olympic facilities, municipal buildings and churches, a certificate signed by President Theodore Roosevelt, as well as forty boxes of records and three-dimensional models, the collection documents some of the region’s most important architects.
Coulter was the first resident architect to establish a practice in the Adirondacks. Distin was a pioneer of the Adirondack style of architecture. A sample of his classic designs include “Camp Mossrock” on Upper Saranac Lake, “Camp Wonundra” built for William Rockefeller in 1934, and Eagle Nest, designed for Walter Hochschild in 1938.
Westhoff was a member of the original class at Pratt Institute and introduced a Swiss motif into the firm’s repertoire. Wareham completed design work for the Trudeau Institute and worked on numbers of libraries and municipal buildings. DeLair designed fewer camps than his predecessors, concentrating on public projects.
Wareham DeLair Architects, which celebrated it centennial in 1997, is the fifth oldest firm in continuous practice in New York State.
In addition to capturing the wide spectrum of regional architecture, the collection also illustrates changing tastes and building technology over time, and provides a unique and invaluable insight into the history of the Adirondacks.
Jerry Pepper says that the DeLair material builds on the Adirondack Museum’s already significant collections of architectural records that include drawings by William West Durant, Grosvenor Atterbury, Augustus Shepard, and John Burnham.
Photo: Trudeau Foundation Research Laboratory, Saranac Lake, NY. Distin and Wareham Architects, 1964. Collection of the Adirondack Museum.
Black History Month at Brooklyn Museum
By Editorial Staff
The Brooklyn Museum's First Saturday attracts thousands of visitors to free programs of art and entertainment each month. The February 5 event celebrates Black History Month and the contributions of African Americans during the thirties, forties, and fifties with programs inspired by the exhibition Lorna Simpson: Gathered.
Throughout the evening, a cash bar will offer beer and wine, and the Museum Café will serve a wide variety of sandwiches, salads, and beverages. The Museum Shop will remain open until 11 p.m.
Some Target First Saturday programs have limited space available and are ticketed on a first-come, first-served basis. Programs are subject to change without notice. Museum admission is free after 5 p.m. Museum galleries are open until 11 p.m. Parking is a flat rate of $4 from 5 to 11 p.m.
Highlights include:
5-7 p.m. Music
The Fat Cat Big Band plays bebop and swing.
5:30 p.m. Film
The Great Debaters (Denzel Washington, 2007, 126 min., PG-13). True story of Melvin B. Tolson, a professor at Wiley College in Texas who inspired students to form the school's first debate team in the segregated South of 1935. Writer Trey Ellis introduces the film and leads a discussion following the screening. Free tickets are available at the Visitor Center at 5 p.m.
6-7 p.m. Discussion
Writer Kalia Brooks on Lorna Simpson: Gathered.
6:30-8:30 p.m. Hands-On Art
Create a triptych portrait inspired by the work of Lorna Simpson. Free timed tickets are available at the Visitor Center at 5:30 p.m.
7 p.m. Curator Talk
Sharon Matt Atkins, Curator of Exhibitions, on Norman Rockwell: Behind the Camera. Free tickets are available at the Visitor Center at 6 p.m.
7-8 p.m. Interactive Project
Bring your photos to contribute to a collaborative artwork on African American history.
8 p.m. Young Voices Talk
Student Guides on American Identities: A New Look.
8-10 p.m. Dance Party
DJ Stormin' Norman, resident DJ of Harlem's Sundae Sermon, hosts a hip-hop and soul dance party highlighting African American contributions to music.
9-10 p.m. Artist Talk
Hank Willis Thomas discusses his installation Unbranded and issues of race and class in magazine advertisements.
9-10 p.m. Performance
The Small's Jazz Club All-Stars play big-band music of the thirties, forties, and fifties.
Photo: Fat Cat Big Band. Photo Courtesy of the Artist.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Saratoga Battlefield's 16th Annual Frost Faire
By Editorial Staff
The 16th annual Frost Faire will be held from 10:30am to 3pm on Saturday, January 22 at Saratoga National Historical Park, located on Routes 4 and 32 in Stillwater. Bring your snow tube for rides on the “Big Hill” (only snow tubes allowed; no sleds or toboggans) and enjoy horse-drawn carriage rides, winter nature treks, Contra Dancing, special exhibits, games (including Giant Soldier Puzzle, Ice Bowling and Bottle Fishing), plus cocoa and cookies by the bonfire. The event is free.
Popular in the 1700s, a “Frost Faire” eased the effects of “cabin fever” with opportunities to visit friends and enjoy winter activities, refreshments and entertainment.
Ongoing activities in the Visitor Center include contradancing, colonial
handwriting demonstration, children’s craft room including decorative tin piercing
and copper embossing, Stillwater town historian’s exhibit.
Cannon firing demonstrations are scheduled for 10 AM, 11 AM, 12
noon, 1 PM, 2 PM, and 3 PM; musket firing demonstrations at 10:30 AM, 11:30
AM, 12:30 AM, 1:30 PM, and 2:30 PM.
This event is sponsored by the Town of Stillwater and Saratoga National Historical Park. For more information on this or other events at Saratoga National Historical Park, please call the Visitor Center at 518-664-9821 ext. 224 or check their website at www.nps.gov/sara.
Illustration: Frost Fair on the frozen Thames River, engraving from Old and New London: The City Ancient and Modern by Walter Thornbury, 1897.
Huntington Painting Returns to Historic Jay Estate
By Editorial Staff
The Jay Heritage Center (JHC) celebrated the recent anniversary of John Jay’s birthday on December 12 with news of an extraordinary gift from one of his descendants. In celebration of the continued restoration of the 1838 Jay House in Rye, Ada Hastings of Great Barrington, Massachusetts and her family magnanimously donated a portrait of John Jay’s great granddaughter that once hung in the mansion’s Drawing Room. The luminescent painting of a young Alice Jay by pre-eminent artist Daniel Huntington is documented in sepia toned family photos from 1886; it is visible hanging in a prominent location next to two other famous artworks originally owned by the Jays of Rye: Gilbert Stuart’s portrait of John Jay (which today is on view at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C.) and Asher Durand’s depiction of Peter Augustus Jay (which belongs to New York Hospital where Peter Augustus Jay served as President of the Board.
The young subject of the painting, Alice Jay, along with her parents and siblings, lived both in New York and at the Rye estate during the mid and late 19th century. Windows into Alice’s life and times, particularly during the Civil War, are well documented in family letters and diaries. Alice’s father, Dr. John Clarkson Jay, was John Jay’s grandson and a vocal opponent of slavery like his grandfather and father before him. Through the local Episcopal church where he served on the vestry, he was instrumental in spearheading efforts in Rye to recruit volunteers for the Union efforts during the Civil War, a campaign which drew enlistments from Alice’s two older brothers, Peter, who became Captain of a local militia, and John, who served as an assistant surgeon. Alice’s sister kept a diary in which she wrote proudly in 1862, “Rye is called the banner town of the county for she has raised more men by volunteering than any of the other towns.”
The artist of the painting, New Yorker Daniel Huntington (1816 – 1906), trained with Jay family friends and esteemed colleagues like John Trumbull (who accompanied Jay as his secretary to Europe during treaty negotiations but also achieved renown as a painter, most notably for his grand scale Declaration of Independence now at the Capitol Rotunda) and Samuel F. B. Morse (whose successful career as an artist preceded his renown as an inventor and earned him the nickname of “America’s Da Vinci.”) Under the tutelage of men like these, Huntington rose to prominence both during and after the Civil War. He was a member of the National Academy of Design for most of his life and acted as its President for 22 years; he was also Vice-President of the Metropolitan Museum of Art for 33 years and helped that institution expand and grow in stature.
Perhaps Huntington’s most recognizable work, The Republican Court, was completed in 1861 at the start of one of our nation’s bloodiest engagements. His tableau harkened back to what was sentimentally remembered as a more harmonious time between the states -- the initial founding of our union --and it represented an idealized assembly of the leaders of that period (Northern and Southern) in a European, court like setting. The image prominently features John Jay and Sarah Livingston Jay and 62 other identifiable personages of the Revolutionary War. Huntington’s painting was reproduced in 1865 as a very popular engraving. The larger original oil painting is owned by the Brooklyn Museum of Art.
Winter hours for the Jay Heritage Center are Tuesday through Friday, 10am - 5pm and by appointment. Please call (914) 698-9275 or contact JHC Program Director, Heather Craane at jayhc@earthlink.net to schedule group or school tours. The Jay Heritage Center’s Exhibit commemorating the 150th Anniversary of the Civil War, “The Jays and the Abolition of Slavery: From Manumission to Emancipation” will open in May 2011.
John Jay’s home in Rye is a National Historic Landmark and a designated site of the Hudson River Valley National Heritage Area selected for its themes of Environment, Landscape and Gardens, Architecture and Freedom and Dignity. It is one of 13 sites on Westchester County’s African American Heritage Trail.
Illustrations: Above, "The Republican Court" by Daniel Huntington (1861, Brooklyn Museum of Art). John Jay is depicted in the crimson robe on the far left and Sarah Livingston Jay is opposite him in white in the right foreground. An engraving based on this painting was recently donated to the Jay Heritage Center. Middle, "Alice Jay" by Daniel Huntington; Below, an 1886 photograph of the Jay Drawing Room. Gilbert Stuart’s portrait of Jay is on the left of the mirror and Asher Durand’s portrait of Jay’s eldest son Peter is on the right.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
University Courts Online History Audience
By Editorial Staff
Historians at The University of Texas at Austin have introduced what they are decribing as a "first-of-its-kind Web site to help the public learn more about Texas, American and world history."
Developed by the History Department, "Not Even Past" is expected to showcase new articles each month from history professors writing about the time periods and areas of history they study. The inaugural article by Professor Jacqueline Jones focuses on life in Savannah, Ga. during the Civil War.
The site is also expected to include book recommendations, movie clips and podcasts, links to historical documents and artifacts, virtual courses, a daily 'fact checker' designed to "debunk historical myths."
"'Not Even Past' is our effort to offer history to a wider audience. All of our former students and literally anyone interested in history will find something interesting on our site," says Professor Joan Neuberger, who studies Russian history.
Visitors to "Not Even Past" will be able to take the virtual courses beginning this semester with Pulitzer Prize finalist H.W. Brands, who will offer a course on American leaders; Charters Wynn, who will offer a course on World War II on the Eastern Front; and Frank Guridy, who will offer a course on Cuban-U.S. relations. Each professor will assign three great books to their virtual students and lead a live chat devoted to each book during the semester.
"The students will have the chance to do some great reading with award-winning teachers who are experts in their fields — with no tests," says Neuberger. "At the end of each semester, they'll be honored at commencement with virtual certificates."
The Web site draws its name from American novelist William Faulkner, who once said, "The past is never dead. It's not even past." Professors and graduate students in the university's History Department developed the site and will produce most of its content.
"During these difficult budget times, we have developed and plan to maintain this Web site with our existing resources thanks to the hard work of our professors and students," says History Department Chair Alan Tully, a scholar in early American political culture. "No other university is doing anything like this. We view it as a way to connect the acumen of our History Department faculty with the inquisitiveness of historically minded members of the general public."
Monday, January 17, 2011
Race Fans Invited to Meet Hall of Fame Members
By Editorial Staff
The New York State Stock Car Association’s (NYSSCA) annual “Meet the New Hall of Fame Members” program will be held on Sunday, January 23rd at the Saratoga Automobile Museum, site of the permanent NYSSCA Hall of Fame exhibit.
Set for 11 am, the popular event will let fans and racers unable to attend Saturday night’s NYSSCA awards banquet meet and listen to the new inductees, drivers Dickie Larkin and Jack Cottrell, car owner Paul Emerick and officials Hertha and Marty Beberwyk.
“It’s my favorite event of the year,” NYSSCA Hall of Fame chairman and Racing in New York gallery coordinator Ron Hedger said. “It brings together the hard-core racing community and the area’s dedicated race fans in a relaxed setting and lets us relive the highlights of the inductee’s racing careers. We’ll have presenters Tom Boggie, Jim King, Hertha Beberwyk and myself on hand to introduce the inductees, who will then make remarks. After that, I usually ask a few questions and then we’ll take questions from the audience, so everyone gets involved in the festivities."
For the first time, the event will be held in the museum’s main gallery instead of the Racing in New York exhibit.
The Saratoga Automobile Museum is located on the Avenue of the Pines in the Saratoga Spa State Park. Visitors should exit I-87, the Adirondack Northway, at Exit 13N, then proceed north on Rt. 9 to the Avenue of the Pines park entrance.
NYSSCA Hall of Fame members will be admitted free of charge with other visitors paying the standard museum admission. The current featured exhibit in the Golub Gallery is “Right Coast Rods” while the Racing in New York gallery features a look at the history of NASCAR in New York.
More information is available online.
Public Input Sought for Bridge Reopening Celebration
By Editorial Staff
The Lake Champlain Bridge Coalition has announced the formation of the Lake Champlain Bridge Community (LCB Community). The New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT) has entrusted the Coalition and LCB Community to create, plan and lead the public festivities that will celebrate the replacement and re-opening of the Lake Champlain Bridge. The celebration will also showcase the reunited regional communities of Addison, Vt. and Crown Point, N.Y.
The LCB Community will hold a public meeting on Monday, January 24, 2011 at 6:00 p.m. at the Crown Point Historic Site Museum. The purpose of the public meeting is to encourage area residents, business owners, and other stakeholders to join the LCB Community and become involved in the celebration planning by serving on a committee, volunteering time or offering ideas. If anyone is unable to attend this meeting, they are still welcome to join the LCB Community or offer their ideas for the event. The committees will plan and organize a proposed two-day event and coordinate fundraising and marketing of the celebration.
“When NYSDOT entrusted the planning of this historic event to us, they emphasized that this should be a ‘grassroots’ celebration,” said Karen Hennessey, co-chair of the LCB Community and owner of Sugar Hill Manor B&B, Crown Point, NY. “That’s why it’s so important for us to reach out to community members and gather input as to what shape and form these celebration activities should take. We welcome everyone’s input—whether or not you can be at the meeting on January 24th.”
The date of the bridge re-opening is yet to be announced by New York’s and Vermont’s transportation departments and Flatiron Construction, the firm constructing the new bridge. Early indications suggest the re-opening will be in early- to mid-October 2011.
“The 1929 celebration of the first Lake Champlain Bridge has been the inspiration and guiding force for this upcoming event,” said Lorraine Franklin, co-chair of the LCB Community and owner of West Addison General Store. “Forty thousand people attended the opening in 1929, and we hope our event will far surpass that landmark celebration. This will be our celebration, and we all look forward to the day the second Lake Champlain Bridge is open.”
Members of the Lake Champlain Bridge Community include area residents, representatives from local business, historical sites, local governments, and chambers of commerce.
