An exhibit made celebrating Vermont Jewish Women will be on display at the Vermont’s History Museum in Montpelier January 14 – March 31. Eighteen large panels depicting the life stories of 20 Jewish women from all walks of life, ages 12 to 101, who live and work in communities from Brattleboro to St. Johnsbury, Burlington to Andover, and Rutland to Woodstock will be on display. Each woman’s story is illustrated with a large photographic portrait, archival photos, an essay, and selected quotes and anecdotes in the women’s own words.
There will be an opening reception on Thursday, January 14th from 4:30 pm – 6:30 pm with the exhibit creators —- Ann Buffum and Sandra Gartner —- as well as some of their subjects. The reception will also celebrate the Vermont Women’s History Project as it passes from the Vermont’s Commission on Women to its new home at the Vermont Historical Society. For more information, contact Tess Taylor at 802-479-8505.
Month: December 2009
US Fish Commission Annual Reports Available Online
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has placed online the annual reports of the United States Fish Commission, also known as the United States Fish and Fisheries Commission, from 1871-1940 and 1947-1979 in PDF format. The Commission was also part of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service and these annual reports present comprehensive overview of the U.S. Fish Commission’s activities for each year. The reports are helpful for historians of commercial fishing areas in New York State including Long Island, the lower Hudson River, the St. Lawrence River, and Lake Erie. The entire collection can be found here.
The U. S. Fish Commission was established in 1871. By 1881 the Commission was known as the U.S. Fish and Fisheries Commission. The Bureau of Biological Survey was established in 1885. In 1903 the name was changed to Bureau of Fisheries. The Bureau of Fisheries was transferred on July 1, 1939, from the Department of Commerce to the Department of the Interior. In 1940 the Bureau of Fisheries and the Bureau of Biological Survey were consolidated to form the Fish and Wildlife Service.
Beginning in July 1946, during the transition from war to peace, the Annual Report became a series of Quarterly Reports which presented a summary of bilogical investigations conducted by the Division of Fishery Biology and a general resume of progress of investigations during the entire year. 1957 was the last issue of Annaul Reports of the Fishery Biology, Department of Interior.
The Fish and Wildlife Act of 1956 created the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries and the Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife within the Fish and Wildlife Service, Department of Interior. The Report of the Bureau of Commerical Fisheries for the Calendar Year 1958…- (published in 1962) was the first report for calender year 1957 and reviewed, in detail, the organization of the Bureau, the history of fishery administration and the operation of the Bureau’s predecessor organizations, U.S. Fish Commission and the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries.
The Report of the National Marine Fisheries Service for Calendar Year 1970-1971 covers the period of transition of the Federal fisheries agency from the Deparment of Interior to the newly formed National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce.
Photo: A diagram of a gill net used for Salmon on the St. Lawrence River from the 1871 U. S. Fish Commission annual report.
National Archives Launches New Online Print Shop
The National Archives has announced that it is partnering with Pictopia in a new online Print Shop. Prints of more than 1,200 historical and contemporary photographs, World War I and II posters, drawings and sketches, maps, and ship plans are now available for purchase online. The images are reproduced on archival paper from digital files housed at the National Archives.
Customers can order a print, custom framed or unframed, in a variety of sizes, as well as gift items such as mugs, ornaments, and puzzles that feature the image of their choice. New images will continue to be added to the collection regularly.
Highlights of the introductory collection include:
* Portfolios of some of the nation’s finest photographers, including Ansel Adams, Mathew Brady, Lewis Hine, and Dorothea Lange
* Photographs of the American City—its development and its people and their way of life from the early 19th century to recent times
* Drawings of early sailing ships from the Charles Ware collection
* Architectural drawings of Cape Hatteras, Cape Canaveral, and Execution Rocks lighthouses among others
* Patent drawings for household products, design trademarks, and curious inventions
* Photographs and watercolor sketches of famous American monuments, including the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument, and the Statue of Liberty
* Watercolor illustrations of 19th-century landscapes of the American West
* World War I and II posters from the records of the U.S. Food Administration and the Office of Government Reports
Photo: A U.S. Coast Guard drawing of the lighthouse on Montauk Point, Long Island.
Folk Art: New Joseph Hidley Painting Comes to Light?
A newly discovered piece of folk art appears to be the early work of Rensselaer County artist Joseph H. Hidley. The work, a small graphite drawing signed “Drawn by Joseph Hidley, 1841, age 11,” was purchased at a Massachusetts auction by Halsey Munson, a Decatur, Illinois a dealer in early American furniture, accessories and folk art. Although the authenticity of the piece has not yet been definitely established, it is an early townscape of the Hudson River village of Saugerties, similar in style and composition to Hidley’s other work.
Joseph Hidley’s short career is well represented in regional, state, and national museum collections. If authenticated, “Saugerties” would be the earliest known work of Hidley who painted genre scenes, religious allegories, and land and townscapes while also working as a taxidermist and house, sign, and wagon painter.
The work is remarkably similar to a portion of William Wade and William Croome’s Panorama of the Hudson River from New York To Albany, which was published in 1846. The finding suggests that Hidley may have known William Croome, and copied his work before it was published.
The first step, according to Munson, is authenticating the work. “In all of this, I’ve spent a considerable amount of time studying the published Hidley works and comparing them with the piece I have,” Munson told me via e-mail. “Even allowing for my understandable desire for this piece to be right, I’ve found enough solid points of similarity to give me quite a bit of confidence that this could easily be by Joseph Hidley.”
The image shows the first lighthouse at the mouth of the Esopus Creek at Saugerties, built in 1838 with funds appropriated from Congress, to guide ships away from nearby shallows and into the Esopus Creek when Saugerties was a major port. The light used five whale oil lamps with parabolic reflectors and was replaced in 1869, by a lighthouse that still stands. The foundation for the original lighthouse can still be seen adjacent to the existing lighthouse.
Photo provided by Halsey Munson.
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Dutch Legend: St. Nicholas and American Santa Claus
Elisabeth Paling Funk will give a free lecture, entitled “From the Old World to the New: St. Nicholas in Dutch Legend and Celebration and the Birth of the American Santa Claus,” at the Historic Elmendorph Inn, North Broadway in Red Hook on Wednesday, December 16, at 7:30 pm- refreshments will be served after the lecture. The event is sponsored by the Egbert Benson Historical Society of Red Hook.
Elisabeth Paling Funk PhD attended the University of Amsterdam, received her BA in English, cum laude, from Manhattanville College and an MA and PhD from Fordham University. She is an independent scholar, editor, and translator.Her articles on Dutch-American and early American Literature have been published in the U.S. and the Netherlands. She is preparing her dissertation, “Washington Irving and His Dutch-American Heritage . . . ” for publication as a book. Dr. Funk is a former trustee of the New Netherland Institute.
Photo: Sinterklaas in the Netherlands in 2007.
Massachusetts Historical Society Research Fellowships
The Massachusetts Historical Society (MHS) will offer about 30 research fellowships for the academic year 2010-2011, including at least two long-term research fellowships made possible by the National Endowment for the Humanities. In addition to approximately 20 short-term fellowships, the Society will help to provide at least 11 New England Regional Fellowship Consortium grants for projects that draw on the resources of several participating institutions, and at least two long-term MHS-NEH fellowships for study at the MHS. Each summer the Society offers 2-3 fellowships for K-12 teachers. During 4 weeks of on-site research at the MHS, teachers prepare a curriculum or comparable project based on primary documents to enhance instruction in American history, language arts, or science.
An independent research library and manuscript repository, the MHS’s holdings encompass millions of rare and unique documents and artifacts vital to the study of American history, many of them irreplaceable national treasures. A few examples include correspondence between John and Abigail Adams, such as her famous “Remember the ladies”- several imprints of the Declaration of Independence- and Thomas Jefferson’s architectural drawings. The MHS was founded in 1791, and in the absence of other local and state historical society’s played a national role into the latter part of the 19th century.
For more information about the Society’s research fellowships visit their web site at
www.masshist.org/fellowships or contact Conrad E. Wright at [email protected] or 617-646-0512.
Application deadlines:
MHS-NEH fellowships, January 15, 2010-
New England Regional Fellowships, February 1, 2010-
MHS Short-Term fellowships, March 1, 2010.
This Weeks Top New York History News
This Weeks New York History Web Highlights
- EJ Forbes: Boscobel, Dyckman Hudson River Home
- Great Lives In History: Mary Edwards Walker’s Medal of Honor
- Ephemeral NY: Manhattan’s 19th Century Girl Gangsters
- Confessions of a Preservationist: Rochester’s Times Square Building
- Brooklynology: Brooklyn Mohawks
- Bowery Boys: America’s First Christmas Tree Market
- AHA Blog: Annual Meeting Updates, Highlights, Tweets
- Virtual Dime Museum: Smuggler’s Tomb
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.
SUNY Fredonia May Launch Public History Program
The History Department at SUNY Fredonia is considering creating a graduate certificate program in Public History that will provide training in historical methods, archival methods, exhibition planning and preparation, and historic resource management.
They envision a program that would require 15-18 graduate credit hours (5-6 courses), including course work in Public History and applied skills, historical research methodology, directed readings, and an internship and/or practicum. The courses would be available to both full- and part-time students and all courses included in the program would be applicable to an Interdisciplinary M.A./M.S. at SUNY Fredonia.
So that they can best tailor the program to meet the needs of the Western New York community and their own students, they have created a brief survey about interest and possible enrollment in the program or related courses.
The survey, which should only require a few minutes to complete, will provide valuable feedback as they move forward with planning the program. All responses will remain anonymous and will be used for no other purpose than preparing our program proposal.
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=kW5y9yOM8_2feUapbRP49TIA_3d_3d