Underground Railroad Association Presents Herstory

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In celebration of Women’s History Month (March), the North Country Underground Railroad Historical Association will host a celebration of the role of women in humanity’s great moments, from Miriam at the Red Sea to Catherine Keese who hid fugitives from slavery in Peru, New York, during the Underground Railroad era. The event will be held March 19, 2010 at 7 pm, at the Peru Community Church, 13 Elm Street, in Clinton County.

The evening will include short presentations on women prominent in the success of the underground railroad and a photo journal of the Keese-Smith barn project narrated by the local restoration, history and archeological specialists who are donating their time and skills to the stabilization.

Music and song will be provided by Sounds of the Northway, a trio of local women: Ann Ruzow Holland, Cathie Davenport and Jennifer Van Benschoten who sing and play guitar, piano, flute and violin.

The cost will be $10 for adults, $8 for children and seniors. Proceeds will provide the materials necessary for the stabilization of Peru’s most recognized Underground Railroad hiding place, the Stephen Keese-Smith barn, located at the former Stafford property on Union Road. All labor is being donated for this project.

Illustration: Catherine Keese, Peru NY Abolitionist.

Conference on NYS History Program Announced

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The program schedule and registration form for the 31st Conference on New York State History at Ithaca College on June 3-5 are now available at http://www.nyhistory.com/cnysh/2010CNYSHProgram.htm. This year’s keynote Wendell Tripp Lecture will be &#8220How Historical Enterprise in New York State Became Fractured (and sometimes dysfunctional) in the Twentieth Century” by Michael Kammen, Cornell University.

The Conference on New York State History, now in its thirty-first year, is an annual meeting of academic and public historians, educators, librarians, archivists, museum professionals, publishers, and students of history 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. The conference is self-sustaining and is organized by a Steering Committee of historians from a variety of institutions across the state.

Epic Stories of the Iroquois at the Adirondack Museum

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The Iroquois people are the original residents of what is now New York State. There were five tribes in the first Confederacy: the Mohawk, Seneca, Oneida, Onondaga, and the Cayuga. Eventually, a sixth nation, the Tuscarora tribe, joined the confederation.

On Sunday, March 14, 2010, Mohawk storyteller Darren Bonaparte will share stories and recount the great legends of the Rotinonhsion:ni (Iroquois) Confederacy including &#8220The Creation Story&#8221 and &#8220The Great Peacemaker&#8221 at the Adirondack Museum at Blue Mountain Lake, New York. The program, &#8220Epic Stories of the Iroquois,&#8221 is part of the popular Cabin Fever Sunday series.

Darren Bonaparte is a storyteller, Mohawk historian, artist, teacher, and maker of wampum belts from Akwesasne. He is the author of Creation and Confederation: The Living History of the Iroquois as well as A Lily Among Thorns: The Mohawk Repatriation of Kateri Tekahkwi:tha.

Bonaparte is a former elected chief of the Mohawk Council of Akwesasne. His articles have been published in Aboriginal Voices, Winds of Change, The Nation, and Native American magazine. He is also the creator of &#8220The Wampum Chronicles: Mohawk Territory on the Internet&#8221 at www.wampumchronicles.com.

The presentation will be held in the Auditorium, and will begin promptly at 1:30 p.m. Cabin Fever Sunday programs are offered at no charge to museum members. The fee for non-members is $5.00. There is no charge for children of elementary school age or younger. Refreshments will be served. For additional information, please call the Education Department at (518) 352-7311, ext. 128 or visit the museum’s web site at
www.adirondackmuseum.org .

Also on March 14, the Adirondack Museum Education Department will hold an Open House for Educators from 1:00 p.m. until 4:00 p.m. Area teachers are invited to visit the Mark W. Potter Education Center to discover the variety of hands-on programs available for students in Pre-K through grade 12. All are designed to meet curricular needs. Educators can learn about the museum’s School Membership program and enter to win a day of free outreach classes for their school. For more information, contact Christine Campeau at (518) 352-7311, ext. 116 or [email protected].

Photo: Darren Bonaparte with wampum.

World War II Ship USS Slater Seeks Guides

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The USS Slater, located in the Hudson River north of the Port of Albany is preparing to begin their 13th season. Each year they hire 6-8 part-time tour guides who learn the history and technology of World War II with &#8220on-the-job&#8221 training from veterans, as well as from experts in historic ship preservation. Guides have an opportunity to improve their &#8220people&#8221 skills by interacting with a variety of age groups on a daily basis- the
hours are flexible.

For an application, contact Business Manager Rosehn Gipe at [email protected] or by
phone at 518-431-1943.

NYS Museum: Womens History Exhibit During March

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In celebration of Women’s History Month, the New York State Museum will open a small exhibition March 1 featuring artifacts and images from the woman’s suffrage movement of the early 20th century. &#8220Women Who Rocked the Vote&#8221 will be open through March in the Museum’s front lobby window.

The exhibition chronicles the history of the suffrage movement, which was officially launched when Elizabeth Cady Stanton added the demand for equal suffrage to the Declaration of Sentiments at the first woman’s rights convention in Seneca Falls that she helped organize. Modeled on the Declaration of Independence, the declaration condemned male tyranny. It also claimed for women “all the rights and privileges” of citizenship. News of the convention sparked controversy and helped ignite a national movement.

The centerpiece of the exhibition is a large wooden wagon that was once covered in suffrage banners and hand-painted signs as suffrage activists used the wagon as both a prop and a speaker’s platform. There also are historic images and a large painted banner carried in a massive suffrage parade up Fifth Avenue in New York City. The parade came just 10 days before the November 1917 election which gave women the right to vote in New York State. Two years later the state ratified the 19th amendment to the U.S. Constitution that prohibited sex-based restrictions on the right to vote.

The New York State Museum is a program of the New York State Education Department’s Office of Cultural Education. Founded in 1836, the museum has the longest continuously operating state natural history research and collection survey in the U.S. Located on Madison Avenue in Albany, the Museum is open daily from 9:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. except on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day.

Further information can be obtained by calling (518) 474-5877 or visiting the museum website at www.nysm.nysed.gov.

Photo: Suffrage Parade, NYC 1912

Hudson Valley Cultural History Discussions At Senate House

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In a unique collaboration, the New York Council for the Humanities has joined forces with the Senate House State Historic Site, in uptown Kingston, to offer &#8220Reading Between the Lines: Cultural Crossroads at the Hudson River Valley,&#8221 a free reading and discussion series that runs from March through July 2010, meeting on Saturday afternoons once a month.

Reading Between the Lines is designed to promote lively, informed conversation about humanities themes and strengthen the relationship between humanities institutions and the public. Reading Between the Lines series are currently being held in communities across New York State.

At Senate House, the discussion leader will be A.J. Williams-Myers, Professor of Black Studies at the State University of New York, New Paltz. He will lead discussions of each series book: Les Sauvages Americains: Representations of Native Americans in French and English Literature, by Gordon M. Sayre- Possessions: The History and Uses of Haunting in the Hudson River Valley, by Judith Richardson- The Jesuit Relations: Natives and Missionaries in 17th Century North America, edited by David Alan Greer- and Long Hammering: Essays on the Forging of an African American Presence in the Hudson River Valley to the Early Twentieth Century, by A.J. Williams-Myers. All books are loaned to participants.

In addition to the book discussions, Senate House staff will offer a brief presentation of a related artifact or document from the site’s collections at the end of each session, so that participants can get a taste of the site’s historical treasures.

For more information about Reading Between the Lines: Cultural Crossroads at the Hudson River Valley visit www.nyhumanities.org/discussion_groups.

Massachusetts Historical Society Featured on NBC

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Over one year ago, on January 27, 2009, there was a rare celebrity sighting at the nation’s oldest historical society, the Massachusetts Historical Society (MHS). Actress Sarah Jessica Parker, best known for HBO’s Sex and the City, visited the reading room to work with material from the Society’s manuscript collections as part of filming for the inaugural episode of NBC’s new series Who Do You Think You Are? The program, an American adaptation of the hit British documentary series by the same title, follows well-known celebrities as they discover their proverbial roots, researching their ancestors in an attempt to learn more about their families and themselves.

During her visit, Ms. Parker registered as a researcher and followed the standard MHS rules that apply to researchers working in the reading room. The one, highly unusual exception was that the Society allowed the film crew to follow her and record her as she researched her ancestors. Reference librarian Elaine Grublin spent some time with Ms. Parker in the catalog room, helping her identify and call for the material she wanted to see, and then brought the manuscripts to her in the reading room. Ms. Parker’s examination of the materials led to some surprising discoveries.

After filming wrapped, Ms. Parker stopped in the lobby to chat with a couple of Emerson College students that had also been conducting research. She stayed on into the evening for a tour and the chance to see some of the Society’s treasures, asking detailed questions about the collections. While looking at selected materials from the Adams Family Papers, Ms. Parker noted that her birthday, March 25, was the same date that Thomas Jefferson wrote his last letter to John Adams.

When an MHS staff member pointed out that a portrait of Lieutenant Frederick Hedge Webster, who was killed in action in 1864 while serving in the Massachusetts 54th Regiment, bore an uncanny resemblance to Ms. Parker’s husband, Matthew Broderick, who played Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, also of the 54th, in the film Glory, she enthusiastically agreed.

Unfortunately, the MHS cannot disclose which documents Ms. Parker requested to see or what she learned from her research. Instead, those interested will have to tune in to the series debut on NBC on Friday, March 5, 2010, at 8:00 PM to learn more about the Society’s role in Sarah Jessica Parker’s journey of genealogical discovery and enjoy the MHS and its reading room staff’s 15 minutes of fame.

For more about the Massachusetts Historical Society, visit their website at www.masshist.org.

A New History of the Munsee Indians

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More enigmatic than they should be in this late age, even among historians of New York, the Munsee are less known than the story for which they are best known &#8211 the purchase of Manhattan Island for veritable pittance in 1626. One reason the Munsee (a northern sub-set of sorts of the Lenni Lenape or Delaware, as they were called by Europeans) have been ignored by historians is their rather early refugee status by the 1740s.

Anthropologist Robert S. Grumet’s The Munsee Indians: A History attempts to paint a portrait of the Munsee, whose territory stretched form the lower Hudson River Valley to the headwaters of the Delaware, as an Indian Nation in their own right. Previous histories, particularly those of the Lenape, have generally ignored the important role of the Munsee.

Grumet marshals archeological, anthropological and archival evidence to bring to life the memorial lives of Mattano, Tackapousha, Mamanuchqua, and other Munsee leaders who helped shape the course of American history in the mid-Atlantic before the American Revolution. The Musee emigrated to reservations in Wisconsin, Ontario, and Oklahoma where their descendants live to this day.

Grumet is the senior research associate at the McNeil Center for Early American Studies, at the University of Pennsylvania and author of Historic Contact: Indian People and Colonists in Today’s Northeastern United States in the Sixteenth Through Eighteenth Centuries.

The Munsee Indians: A History is part of the Civilization of the American Indian Series by the University of Oklahoma Press.