There is a new website for New York City landmarks that is worth a look. The site, created by Jeff Heur, provides the Landmark Preservation Commission’s information on thousands of landmark buildings and districts across the five boroughs. The site features a large database of historic photos, official landmark designation reports by city historians, and can show nearby landmarks from your iphone or other location-enabled browser. You can check it out at http://www.nyclandmarks.org.
Month: December 2009
First Edition Washington Irving Classic at NYSHA Library
In observance of the 200th anniversary of the classic work of literature, A History of New York by Washington Irving, the New York State Historical Association’s Research Library will have its copy of the first edition on display from December 2009 through February 2010. Commonly known as Knickerbocker’s History of New York, the book was published in December 1809 and was an immediate success.
Irving, in his satirical history, poked fun at the early Dutch governors of the colony of New Netherlands and their “reigns.” He drummed up interest in the book before its publication by having an announcement published in a New York City newspaper asking for anyone with information regarding the disappearance of an old man named Diedrich Knickerbocker to contact the Columbian Hotel – stating that he had left without paying his bill. Subsequent notices said that if Mr. Knickerbocker was not found, a manuscript that he left behind would have to be published as a book and copies of the book sold to pay off his debt. Finally, a notice appeared advertising the book, A History of New York, by Diedrich Knickerbocker.
New Yorkers, who had become interested in the disappearance of the old man, bought up the book. Most realized the story of Knickerbocker’s disappearance was a hoax since there was no Columbian Hotel in New York, but they went along with the fun, purchased the book, and found it to be highly humorous. Irving’s history became a classic. The book is still in print and the humor within is still appealing today.
The NYSHA Research Library is located next to the Fenimore Art Museum on Route 80 in Cooperstown, N.Y. and is open from 10 – 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. There is no charge to see the display featuring Knickerbocker’s 1st edition and subsequent editions. Also on display is the exhibit Doubleday and the WPA, which details the creation of Cooperstown’s Doubleday Field as a WPA project in the 1930s. The library will be closed for the Christmas holidays from December 23 to January 10. For more information, please call 607-547-1470 or visit www.NYSHA.org.
NY State Archives Student Research Awards Program
The New York State Archives has announced its twentieth annual Student Research Awards program to promote and recognize excellence in student research. The main purpose of the awards program is to encourage students to explore the wealth of historical records in New York State. A secondary purpose is to increase cooperation between schools and organizations that administer historical records useful for education. The New York State Archives encourages the participation of school library media specialists in this project.
The Student Research Awards program is a statewide competition open to all New York State students in grades 4–12. A total of three awards will be given, one each for students in grades 4–5, grades 6–8, and grades 9–12.
Each award consists of a certificate and a cash prize. Certificates of Merit will also be awarded to entries other than the winners that show a heavy reliance on historical records to support research.
Timetable – Entries must be postmarked no later than July 1, 2010.
Recipients will be selected by September 15, and winners will be announced during Archives Month in October, 2010. Entries submitted for competition must be researched and developed during the July 1, 2009 – June 30, 2010 school year.
More information on the Student Research Awards can be found here.
Conference on NYS History Proposals Due Dec. 31
Proposals are due December 31, 2009 for the Conference on New York State History in Ithaca June 3—5, 2010. The conference is an annual meeting of academic and public historians, librarians and archivists, educators, publishers, and other interested individuals who come together to discuss topics and issues related to the people of New York State in historical perspective and to share information and ideas regarding historical research, programming, and the networking of resources and services. Ten to fifteen presentation sessions, workshops, and a keynote address mean more than fifty individuals take part in the program. The conference is self-sustaining and is organized by a committee of historians from a variety of institutions across the state.
Individual paper abstracts, panel proposals, workshop plans, and other program suggestions are invited. Presentations may consider any aspect of the history of New York State over the past 400 years. Diverse theoretical perspectives and innovative methodological approaches are welcomed.
Special consideration is accorded first-time presenters, graduate students, and local government historians. Interested parties are encouraged to discuss proposals and any conference-related ideas with Field Horne, conference chair (e-mail preferred). The Program Committee will meet to consider proposals in mid-January. Applicants will be notified immediately thereafter.
If at all possible, proposals should be submitted as an MS Word document by e-mail to [email protected]. A proposal should be a one-page description of each presentation—not the full manuscript—and must include the following information at the top of the page: paper and/or session titles, names, postal addresses, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses of all participants, and all equipment needs and scheduling requests. It should also briefly discuss sources, methodology, and argument. All program participants are required to register for the conference.
Send proposals to:
Field Horne
Conference on NYS History Chair
Box 215, Saratoga Springs, NY 12866¬0215
(518) 587-4962
[email protected]
Qualified commentators for sessions are needed. Please indicate your willingness, with your areas of expertise, in an e-mail to the conference chair.
The conference is sponsored by New York State Historical Association in collaboration with New York State Archives Partnership Trust and cosponsored by
New York Council for the Humanities.
Photo: Simeon De Witt, A Map of the State of New York. Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division.
Documentary Heritage Program Grants Announcement
The New York State Department of Education has announced the Documentary Heritage Program (DHP) funding for 2010-2011. DHP is a statewide program established in 1988 and administered by the New York State Archives to ensure the identification, sound administration and accessibility of New York’s historical records.
One the most important components of the DHP is the grants program. DHP Grants are designed to encourage more comprehensive documentation of New York State*s history and culture by supporting projects that identify, survey, collect, and make available important records relating to groups and topics traditionally under-represented in the historical record. DHP is administered by the New York State Archives.
Eligible applicants include not-for-profit community organizations, archives, libraries, historical societies, and similar institutions within New York State and consortia or partnerships of such agencies. Also eligible are service providers such as historical service agencies, colleges and universities, professional associations, or other not-for-profit institutions or systems that provide services to historical records programs.
A total of $92,000 is expected to be available for grants projects. Grants will be available in amounts up to $25,000. Applicants may seek support for personnel- purchased services, including qualified consultants- supplies- materials and equipment costing less than $5,000- and travel as required to directly support project activities and outcomes.
Grants in this cycle are for up to 12-month projects, from July 1, 2010 through June 30, 2011. Applications must be postmarked by Monday, February 1, 2010. Tentative date for the announcement of grant awards is June 30, 2010.
Grant Project Types
Documentation – The purpose of a documentation project is to identify and ensure the systematic preservation of papers and records not currently in historical records repositories that provide information on the people, groups, events or changing political, economic or social conditions of New York State. A documentation project typically consists of three phases – planning, surveying, and collecting – and usually takes at least two years to complete. Cost sharing of at least 20% is required for Documentation projects.
Arrangement & Description – Arrangement and description are the processes used to obtain physical and intellectual control over materials held in historic records repositories. Arrangement is the process of organizing materials with respect to their provenance and original order, to protect their context and to achieve physical and/or
intellectual control over the materials. Description is the creation of an accurate representation of a unit of archival material by the process of capturing, collating, analyzing, and organizing information that serves to identify archival material and explain the context and records system(s) that produced it. The objective of archival description is the creation of access tools that assist users in discovering desired
records. Cost sharing of at least 50% is required for Arrangement & Description
projects.
Archival Needs Assessment – Historical records repositories undertake needs assessments to evaluate and plan for archival program development. As a result, a comprehensive needs assessment, carried out by an experienced archivist with the requisite expertise, will pinpoint problems, recommend solutions, set priorities, and guide the development
of archival activity. Cost sharing of at least 50% is required for Archival Needs Assessment projects.
Ineligible Projects
Several types of historical records projects are not eligible for funding under the DHP. These include:
* Projects that do not have primary focus on New York State
* Digitization (projects to create digital records)
* Item-level description and/or indexing
* Oral history and/or video taping
* Newspapers (these are not considered to be historical records under the DHP law)
* Preservation (i.e., the physical work to conserve, restore, or repair records, or reproduction for preservation purposes such as microfilming)
In order to insure that the DHP addresses the New York State Historical Records Advisory Board*s mandate to identify, survey, collect, and make available historical records that relate to under-documented groups or subjects, the State Archives has identified and given priority to specific topical areas for DHP funding. These topics are listed in Priority Levels One and Two below. Although applications for projects
that focus on any under-documented group or subject are eligible for funding, they will receive fewer points during grants review than those in Levels One and Two.
Priority Level One
* Population groups in the 20th and 21st centuries
* Economic change in the 20th and 21st centuries
* World Trade Center disaster, September 11, 2001
* Education policy
Priority Level Two
* Environmental affairs
* Mental health
Priority Level Three
* Other under-documented topics in New York State history
Application Process
Grant application forms and guidelines will be available in October 2009. They may be obtained by emailing the State Archives at [email protected] or by visiting the State Archives Web site at http://www.archives.nysed.gov/a/grants/grants_dhp.shtml.
For further information, contact:
Pamela Cooley/Documentary Heritage Program
New York State Archives
Room 9C71 Cultural Education Center
Albany, NY 12230
Telephone: 518-474-6926
Email: [email protected]
American Antiquarian Society Visiting Fellowships
The American Antiquarian Society (AAS) invites applications for its 2010-11 visiting academic fellowships. At least three AAS-National Endowment for the Humanities ellowships will be awarded for periods extending from four to twelve months.
Long-term fellowships are intended for scholars beyond the doctorate- senior and mid-career scholars are particularly encouraged to apply. Over thirty short-term fellowships will be awarded for one to three months. The short-term grants are available for scholars holding the Ph.D. and for doctoral candidates engaged in dissertation research, and offer a stipend of $1850/month. Special short-term fellowships support scholars working in the history of the book in American culture, in the American eighteenth century, and in American literary studies, as well as in studies that draw upon the Society’s preeminent collections of graphic arts, newspapers, and periodicals. Accommodations are available for visiting fellows in housing owned by AAS.
The deadline for applications is January 15, 2010.
For further details about the fellowships, as well as application materials, please consult our website
The AAS is a research library whose collections focus on American history, literature, and culture from the colonial era through 1876. The Society’s collections are national in scope, and include manuscripts, printed works of all kinds, newspapers and periodicals, photographs, lithographs, broadsides, sheet music, children’s literature, maps, games, and a wide range of ephemera. In addition to the United States, we have extensive holdings related to Canada and the British West Indies. As such, our collections offer ideal resources for research in the history of the Atlantic World.
For detailed descriptions of the collections, please their guidebook, Under Its Generous Dome, available online here.
This Weeks Top New York History News
- Crown Point Bridge Design Recomended
- East India Company Slave Site Uncovered
- Jewish History Scholar Yerushalmi Dies
- NJ Woman Finds Nazi Photo Trove
- Dickens Toothpick Fetches $9,000
- Farmer Hopes For Agricultural Museum
- Funding Leaves Military Museum Lacking
- Little Planned For 30th Olympic Anniversary
- A ’70s Flashback at Capitol
- 200-Yr Old Egremont Inn Destroyed in Fire
- Former Met Director Thomas Hoving Dies
This Weeks New York History Web Highlights
- Cooperstown: Grandma Moses Farmstead Preserved
- Brooklynology: Julius Wilcox (1837-1924), Photographer
- Peeling Back the Bark: Harold Bell, Creator of Woodsy Owl
- Executed Today: 10 Executions That Defined The 2000s
- Talk of New York Sports: Hoop History – Rucker Park
- City Room: Birth of NYC Art-Houses
- HHN: Who Was Lewis Henry Morgan?
- Bowery Boys: Tin Pan Alley, Birth of Modern Pop Music
- Farmers’ Museum: Putting Down Winter Vegetables
- Terra Daily: New Volcano Contributed To Cold Decade
Each Friday New York History compiles for our readers the week’s best stories and links from the web about the history of New York. You can find all our weekly web highlights here.
Low-Cost Courses on Collections Care Offered
Upstate History Alliance (UHA) is offering a low-cost series of four-week online courses in collections care and preservation which provide basic, practical training. The courses are designed for staff, volunteers, board members, or interns at small to mid-sized museums. Each can be taken at the student’s own pace. The courses also offer interaction with qualified instructors and assignments are based on your own collections.
The cost to participate in one of the online courses is $45 for UHA members, $60 for non-members. The cost to participate in the complete series is $150 for UHA members, $200 for non-members. For more information or to register for this course, visit
www.upstatehistory.org.
Here are the course descriptions from UHA:
Introduction to Reformatting with Toya Dubin
February 1, 2010 – February 26, 2010
This course should help you determine the best way to approach a digitization project for varying collections and is intended to take the mystery out of digitization vocabulary, while shedding light on technical issues.
Climate Control for Small Institutions with Michele Phillips
March 1, 2010 – March 26, 2010
This course will allow participants to explore the issues that need to be considered when planning for climate controls including monitoring, testing, environmental analysis assessments, long-range planning, systems design, construction support, and operations training. Low cost-low tech solutions will be offered and discussed, providing participants with the background knowledge to assist them in making informed decisions that can be implemented at their own institutions.
Basic Preservation, Care & Handling of Paper Based Materials with Michele Phillips
April 5, 2010 – April 30, 2010
Learn the mechanics behind the degradation of paper materials and how through passive activities and techniques you can slow down the march of time and safeguard your collections.
Conservation & Preservation of Photographs and Albums with Gary Albright
May 3, 2010 – May 28, 2010
Students will learn about photographs and their many formats – black & white, color, negative, prints, and albums. We will review the major processes, how to identify and date them, how to recognize their deterioration, and what can be done to preserve them.
Do You Recognize These Adirondack Faces?
All bundled up and ready for fun and perhaps just a little mischief! Saranac Lake, New York photographer William F. Kollecker snapped a shot of these adorable children in 1935. The image is now in the collection of the Adirondack Museum at Blue Mountain Lake, N.Y. Sadly, the names of the kids were not recorded on the photo.
The museum will use the photograph in advertising for the 2010 Cabin Fever Sunday Series. The happy little faces will smile out from posters and newspaper ads throughout the North Country. Do you know who they are?
The Adirondack Museum would like to complete the historical record connected with this photo, and learn the names of the children if possible.
If you recognize your mother, grandfather, or even yourself in the photograph, please contact Susan Dineen, Director of Marketing at (518) 352-7311, ext. 121 or email [email protected].
William F. Kollecker produced a rich collection of photographs of the Saranac Lake area. The photos are largely preserved in the Adirondack Collection of the Saranac Lake Free Library. He is recognized today as the most successful and prolific photographer in the village’s history.
According to Historic Saranac Lake, “No other photographer captured the face and feeling of Saranac Lake or portrayed the lives and lifestyles of its citizens with greater accuracy or artistry for a comparable time period.” Among the many faces he captured were those of these children.
Photo: Photograph by William F. Kollecker, ca. 1935 from the collections of the Adirondack Museum.