Uncategorized

Finger Lakes Museum Site Submission Process Closed

admin

The Board of Trustees of the Finger Lakes Cultural & Natural History Museum have officially closed the site submission process. Nineteen potential building sites were proposed by seven Finger Lakes Region counties and the City of Geneva before the deadline of July 15th.

Counties that submitted proposals include Cayuga, Schuyler, Seneca, Steuben, Tioga, Tompkins, and Yates. The City of Geneva is partnering with Seneca County on a site that straddles the Ontario/Seneca county line at the north end of Seneca Lake.

The deadline, which had been originally set for June 15th, was extended by the board for 30 days to give some counties more time to complete title searches. The sites are now being toured and evaluated by the project’s Site Selection Committee.

A question arose concerning a 20th site being added to the list when a landowner inquired about submitting a parcel in Ontario County. The board considered the inquiry but determined that the deadline should be upheld in fairness to the counties that worked hard to make submissions on time, according to a press release issued last week. The landowner is not being identified.

The search for a building site has ramped up the level of excitement for the initiative to develop a cultural and natural history museum to showcase the 9,000 square-mile Finger Lakes Region.

Weekly New York History Blogging Round-Up

admin
  • Progressive Historians: Progressive Historians is Hiring
  • Historiann: Why Not Start At The Top?
  • Patell and Waterman: And What, Pray Tell, Is An Automat?
  • The Cranky Professor: &#8220Charming&#8221 in A New Context.
  • Tenement Museum Blog: Tenement Talks on YouTube
  • The Poesten Kill: Early Dutch Farms on The Poesten Kill
  • Mindful Walker: Taking In the Subway’s Old Powerhouse
  • Lost City: Coney Island Tries to Get the City to Listen, Take Two
  • The Bowery Boys: Cafe Wha? The Whys, Wheres, Whos and Hows
  • Berne, New York: 1787 Survey Map
  • Algonkian Church History: William Dick: The Last to Speak Mohican

    • American Mountain Men Return to the Adirondack Museum

    admin

    The grounds of the Adirondack Museum at Blue Mountain Lake will become a lively 19th century tent city with an encampment of American Mountain Men interpreting the fur trade and a variety of survival skills on August 14 and 15, 2009. The group will interpret the lives and times of traditional mountain men with colorful demonstrations and displays of shooting, tomahawk and knife throwing, furs, fire starting and cooking, clothing of both eastern and western mountain styles, period firearms, and more. This year’s encampment will include blacksmithing as well as a beaver skinning and fleshing demonstration.

    Participants in the museum encampment are from the Brothers of the New York,
    Vermont, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts segment of the national American
    Mountain Men organization. The encampment is by invitation only. All of the American Mountain Men activities and demonstrations are included in the price of regular Adirondack Museum admission. There is no charge for museum members. The museum is open daily from 10:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m.

    The American Mountain Men group was founded in 1968. The association researches and studies the history, traditions, tools, and mode of living of the trappers, explorers, and traders known as the mountain men. Members continuously work for mastery of the primitive skills of both the original mountain men and Native Americans. The group prides itself on the accuracy and authenticity of its interpretation and shares the knowledge they have gained with all who are interested.

    An Architecture Kids Camp at Jay Heritage Center

    admin

    From architraves to anthemia, children age eight to eleven can immerse themselves in the world of New York State’s varied architecture during an architecture camp for kids at the Jay Heritage Center all next week (Mon. August 17 to Fri., August 21, 9:30 am to 1:00 pm). The campers will discover the fundamentals of architecture by studying the Greek Revival 1838 Peter Augustus Jay House, along with the two other 19th-century mansions, which are part of the Boston Post Road Historic District. Kids can learn how Hudson Valley architects like Minard Lafever and AJ Davis championed inspirational designs that still capture our imagination.

    With guidance from professionals, each camper will then design and construct their own dream house or a building essential for a city, such as a school or fire department. After learning about the basic principles of zoning, they will organize their buildings on a giant map of the Boston Post Road. Cardboard boxes and other recycled materials are used to create the colorful, bustling mini city. This year the campers will also learn about green building and how historic structures can be environmentally sustainable.

    The cost is $200 per camper. The Jay Heritage Center is located at 210 Boston Post Road, Rye, NY 10580. Limited enrollment. For further information call 914-698-9275 or e-mail [email protected].

    Photo: The Greek Revival Architecture exhibit in the 1907 Carriage House at the Jay Heritage Center, Rye. NY.

    Research Grants Available at the NYS Archives

    admin

    The Larry J. Hackman Research Residency Program supports applicants from a variety of backgrounds with awards for advanced research in New York State history, government, or public policy. Previous residents have included academic and public historians, graduate students, independent researchers and writers, and primary and secondary school teachers. The project must draw on the holdings of the New York State Archives. Projects may involve alternative uses of the Archives, such as research for multimedia projects, exhibits, documentary films, and historical novels.

    The Quinn-Archives Research Residency provides financial support for an individual to spend up to a year in Albany, New York, working in the rich collections of the New Netherland Institute and the New York State Archives. The program is offered because of the generous support of the Doris Quinn Foundation, the New Netherland Institute at the New York State Library and the New York State Archives.

    Endowment earnings and private contributions to the Archives Partnership Trust provide the financial basis for the Hackman Research Program. Contributors have included The Susan and Elihu Rose Foundation, Inc., Henry Luce Foundation, Inc., The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation and The Lucius N. Littaur Foundation. Contributions and endowment earnings enable the Trust to maintain prior years’ award levels, as well as to continue with invitational fellowships to complete priority projects.

    Mapping the Adirondacks at The Adirondack Museum

    admin

    Adirondack Museum Librarian Jerry Pepper will present an illustrated presentation entitled &#8220When Men and Mountain Meet: Mapping the Adirondacks&#8221 at the Adirondack Museum at Blue Mountain Lake on Monday, August 10, 2009. Part of the museum’s Monday Evening Lecture series, the presentation will be held in the Auditorium at 7:30 p.m. There is no charge for museum members. Admission is $5.00 for non-members.

    A contested terrain amid warring nations, a frontier rich in timber and minerals, a recreational and artistic paradise and a pioneering wilderness preserve, the Adirondack Mountains are an intensively mapped region. Using rare and rarely seen maps, drawn from the over 1400 historical maps and atlases in the Adirondack Museum’s collection, &#8220When Men and Mountains Meet: Mapping the Adirondacks&#8221 will chart the currents of Adirondack history, as reflected through the region’s maps.

    The Adirondack Museum introduced a new exhibit in 2009, &#8220A &#8216-Wild, Unsettled Country’: Early Reflections of the Adirondacks,&#8221 that showcases paintings, maps, prints, and photographs illustrating the untamed Adirondack wilderness discovered by early cartographers, artists, and photographers. The exhibition will be on display through mid-October, 2010.

    Jerry Pepper has been Director of the Library at the Adirondack Museum since 1982, he holds Master degrees in both American History and Library Science.

    Photo: &#8220A New and Accurate Map of the Present War in North America,&#8221 Universal Magazine, 1757. Collection of the Adirondack Museum.

    Weekly New York History Blogging Round-Up

    admin

    New York Heritage Adds 16 More Collections

    admin

    The New York 3Rs Association has added sixteen more online collections to its collective digital heritage web site, www.NewYorkHeritage.org. The site now connects more than 200 digital collections from around the state, contributed by libraries, archives, museums and other cultural institutions, and builds on existing digital repository services administered by each of the nine reference and research library resources councils.

    New materials include the Historical Portraits Collection from Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Elmira College’s Mark Twain Archive, the New York Historical Association’s Murder Pamphlet Collection Exhibit , early Robert Montgomery materials housed at the Trinity-Pawling School Collection, Alfred University’s Image Archives, Rochester Medical Museum and Archives, NYU’s Abraham Lincoln Brigade Collection, images from the Onondaga Nation at the Liverpool Public Library, folk art collections at the Crandall Public Library Folklife Center, the Steinmetz Collection of Schenectady, the Almquist Green Lakes Collection housed at the Fayetteville Public Library, and many others from around the state. For an up-to-date list of collections and contributors visit www.NewYorkHeritage.org

    Additionally, The Tools of History regional digitization site, created by the South Central Regional Library Council, has been added, as have been the Rochester Regional Library Council’s Finger Lakes-Genesee Valley Heritage and the Capital District Library Council Digital Collections regional sites.

    A variety of materials can be found among the New York Heritage Digital Collections, including photographs, postcards, correspondence, manuscripts, oral histories, yearbooks and newspapers. Many kinds of institutions from New York State have partnered to make this project possible, including public, academic and school libraries, museums, archives and historical societies. The power of collaboration is what makes this new service possible.

    Participants to New York Heritage Digital Collections are committed to enhancing the site by adding both content and contributing institutions on a regular basis. The goal of the project is to eventually connect one thousand collections and one million items from throughout New York State. All institutions interested in participating in the project are encouraged to contact the 3Rs organization that serves their region.

    The New York 3Rs Association is a partnership among New York’s nine reference and research resource systems. The New York 3Rs was incorporated in 2003 to further the ability of those systems to provide statewide services. The members of the New York 3Rs Association are: the Capital District Library Council, Central New York Library Resources Council, Long Island Library Resources Council, Metropolitan New York Library Council, Northern New York Library Network, Rochester Regional Library Council, Southeastern New York Library Resources Council, South Central Regional Library Council, and Western New York Library Resources Council.