This Weeks New York History Web Highlights
- Old Salt Blog: 250th Anniversary of the Spencer Riot
- NYCO’s Blog: Happy birthday, Fairmount Fair
- New York Public Library Blog: Charting the Future
- Inside the Apple: History of Yankee Ticker Tape Parades
- Virtual Dime Museum: The Coney Island Bowery
- Inside the Apple: William Jay Gaynor, Assassinated Mayor
- Ephemeral NY: The Squatters of ‘-Hardlucksville’
- Confessions of a Preservationist: Saving Main Streets
- Hemmings Auto Blog: Cars From The NYS Museum
- NY Public Library: Historic NY-Philly Baseball Images
- Rural Blog: New NPS Director On Global Warming Threat
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.
Rensselaer County HSs Uncle Sam Exhibition
The Rensselaer County Historical Society and Museum (RCHS) will become the new home for Uncle Sam and his story with the opening of its new permanent exhibition Uncle Sam: The Man in Life and Legend on Wednesday, November 11, 5-7 p.m., at 57 Second Street in Troy.
Samuel ‘-Uncle Sam’ Wilson (1766-1854) is undoubtedly Troy?s most famous son. Arriving in Troy in the late 18th century and participating in the community?s early growth and success, he was also a witness to the expansion of our nation and the development of our national identity.
The Historical Society’s exhibit examines both the real man and the national symbol using objects from the museum?s collections, including archeological artifacts from the site of one of Sam Wilson?s houses and historical prints and images of our national symbol. Visitors will be able to see how the story of Uncle Sam evolved and learn how this real person and national icon continue to impact us today.
Fittingly, Uncle Sam opens on Veterans Day, November 11, 2009. The opening is free and open to all. A modern Uncle Sam will make an appearance at the event and RCHS encourages attendees to wear their Uncle Sam inspired attire. The event will also be the official launch of the Rensselaer County Historical Society?s online Uncle Sam Resource Center.
Photo: WWI Recruiting Poster: ?Uncle Sam Wants You? by Montgomery Flagg. Provided by the RCHS.
The Real Peter Stuyvesant? New Netherlands Fiction
Bill Greer (a trustee of the New Netherland Institute) will talk about painting a portrait of New Netherland in a work of fiction, using his novel The Mevrouw Who Saved Manhattan: A Novel of New Amsterdam
Mostly Spruce And Hemlock Book Party in Tupper
A book-release party for the reprint of the classic Adirondack history “Mostly Spruce and Hemlock” will be held from 7 to 9 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 19, 2009 at the Goff-Nelson Memorial Library, 41 Lake St., in Tupper Lake. The party will feature brief comments from library officials, Tupper Lake Free Press Publisher Dan McClelland, index author Carol Payment Poole, and publisher Andy Flynn. Refreshments will be served, and historical exhibits will be on display throughout the library.
“We see this party as a celebration of Tupper Lake’s heritage,” said Goff-Nelson Memorial Library Manager Linda Auclair. “Louis Simmons gave this community a huge gift in 1976 with ‘Mostly Spruce and Hemlock’ and the library is proud to give the same gift to even more people with a reprinting of this classic volume of Adirondack history.”
In June 1976, Tupper Lake Free Press Editor Louis J. Simmons released the first comprehensive volume of Tupper Lake history in “Mostly Spruce and Hemlock” at a book release party at the Goff-Nelson Memorial Library. It was a fitting location- the research room – the Grace Simmons Memorial Room – was named in honor of Louis’ first wife, a longtime Tupper Lake librarian. Louis Simmons used a lot of photographs from the library’s collection for his book.
At 461 pages and more than 140 photos, “Mostly Spruce and Hemlock” was an instant best-seller in the Tip Top Town and was sold out in less than two years. People have been searching for copies of the book for more than 30 years. Only 2,000 copies of the original were printed.
Simmons used more than four decades of experience at the editorial helm of the Tupper Lake Free Press to write “Mostly Spruce and Hemlock.” A 1926 graduate of the Tupper Lake High School and 1930 graduate of Syracuse University, he was hired as the Tupper Lake Free Press editor in 1932. He retired as full-time editor in 1979 and continued writing and editing until his death on April 4, 1995. He was also the Tupper Lake historian for many years.
“Mostly Spruce and Hemlock” details the early days of life in the village of Tupper Lake and the town of Altamont (the name of the town was changed to Tupper Lake in 2004). Histories are offered on the logging industry, railroading, churches, schools, hotels, Sunmount DDSO and businesses such as the Oval Wood Dish Corporation.
The new “Mostly Spruce and Hemlock” includes all of the original text and photos, but there will be some major differences. It is a paperback book, instead of hardcover, and the cover was redesigned. The original book did not include an index- however, the 2009 version has an index, which was written by author and Tupper Lake native Carol Payment Poole. Tupper Lake Free Press Publisher Dan McClelland wrote a new foreword. And the book is dedicated to Simmons and “Tupper Lakers everywhere.”
The reprinting is a joint project between Hungry Bear Publishing and the Goff-Nelson Memorial Library, which received permission to reprint “Mostly Spruce and Hemlock” as a fund-raiser. The library will receive all the author’s royalties plus a retail percentage for copies it sells directly to the public.
Presale orders for “Mostly Spruce and Hemlock” were taken between March and October 2009- anyone who prepaid for a book may pick it up at the library at the book-release party on Nov. 19. Prepaid orders to be shipped will be sent out as soon as the books arrive. No more orders will be taken until Nov. 19- anyone may purchase a copy at the party or during library hours anytime afterward. The books will also be for sale at various locations throughout the Tri-Lakes beginning the week of Thanksgiving. A print run of 2,000 was ordered for the Second Edition.
Based in Saranac Lake, Hungry Bear Publishing is home of the five-volume “Adirondack Attic” book series (Adirondack history) and the Meet the Town Community guide series. The company is owned and operated by Tupper Lake native Andy Flynn, who personally produced and edited the Second Edition of “Mostly Spruce and Hemlock,” and his wife, Dawn, originally from Bloomingdale.
For more information about the new “Mostly Spruce and Hemlock,” call the Goff-Nelson Memorial Library at (518) 359-9421.
Iroquois Indian Museums Free Fall Party, Nov. 14
The Iroquois Indian Museum in Howes Cave, NY invites everyone to attend a FREE Fall Party on Saturday, November 14 from 3 to 6 P.M. This year’s annual Fall Party kicks off a celebration of the Museum’s 30th anniversary. Visitors can enjoy our current exhibit: “Native Americans in the Performing Arts: From Ballet to Rock and Roll”, view a special tribute display to the late Ray Fadden, play Clan Animal Bingo for prizes, and sample the tasty refreshments.
The Iroquois Indian Museum is a truly unique cultural destination, strategically located just minutes from Howe Caverns. The Museum’s mission is to educate the public about Iroquois art, culture, and history. The Iroquois are those Native American peoples belonging to one or more of the Six Nations: Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, and Tuscarora. They are the original New Yorkers. The Museum houses one of the largest collections of contemporary Iroquois art in the world, alongside important historical and archaeological collections. The Museum features exhibits of both traditional and experimental Iroquois arts, an interactive hands-on Children’s Museum area, and offers a wide range of programs, tours, and special events, many of which can be geared to a group’s specific needs. The Museum building is a work of art in itself, designed in the shape and spirit of the old longhouses that once graced the valleys of upstate New York, but constructed as a fully modern building with a state of the art climate control system. The Museum is wheelchair-accessible, and can accommodate as many as 100 visitors at one time. The Museum also features a forty-five acre Nature Park with three hiking trails. Tours of the Museum and Nature Park can be planned for 1-4 hours, and advance reservations are usually necessary.
Hudson Valley Edith Wharton Lecture Tonight
Alan Price, Professor of English at the Pennsylvania State University will offer a lecture entitled “The Hudson Valley Through Edith Wharton’s French Lens” tonight (Tuesday, November 3rd) at Poughkeepsie’s Marist College. The event will begin at 7 pm in the Hudson River Valley Institute‘-s Henry Hudson Room. A reception with light refreshments will follow.
Dr. Price is the author of The End of the Age of Innocence: Edith Wharton and the First World War (St. Martins, 1996) and co-editor of Wretched Exotic: Essays on Edith Wharton in Europe. He has published numerous essays situating Wharton in literary Naturalism and exploring the cultural-historical context of her fiction, e.g., “International Responses to Edith Wharton,” “Edith Wharton’s War Story,” “Dreiser’s Cowperwood and Wharton’s Undine,” “Lily Bart and Carrie Meeber: Cultural Sisters,” “The Composition of Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence,” “Edith Wharton at War with the American Red Cross.”
The event is sponsored by the Marist College Honors Program, the School of Liberal Arts, and the Hudson River Valley Institute.
The Lenape: Lower New Yorks First Inhabitants
Dr. David Oestreicher will present a lecture, The Lenape: Lower New York’s First Inhabitants on Sunday, November 8, 2:00-4:00 PM at the SUNY Albany Center for Arts and Humanities. For over twelve thousand years, the region that is now lower New York, New Jersey, eastern Pennsylvania and Delaware was home to groups of Lenape (Delaware Indians) and their prehistoric predecessors. By the late 18th and early 19th centuries, however, after a tragic series of removals had taken them halfway across the continent, the broken remnants of these tribes finally came to settle in parts of Oklahoma, Wisconsin and Ontario. By the late 20th century, only a handful of elders could still speak their native language, or had knowledge of the traditional ways.
In this lecture, David M. Oestreicher combines archaeological and historical evidence with decades of firsthand ethnographic and linguistic research among the last Lenape traditionalists. He gives a brief overview of the prehistory of the Mid-Atlantic region, describes how the Lenape and their neighbors subsisted at the time of European contact, why they ultimately left their homeland, and where they are living today.
Dr. Oestreicher touches upon the major historic events involving the Lenape, including the arrival of Henry Hudson —- contrasting Hudson’s own words with Lenape oral traditions collected by Oestreicher and others over the centuries. He relates how the Lenape language, ceremonies, religious beliefs and life ways were impacted by removal from their traditional homeland.
The presentation includes a slide (or powerpoint) program featuring native artifacts, maps, illustrations and photographs of various life activities, and images of some of the most important tribal traditionalists —- the last repositories of their culture. The talk concludes with an account of efforts today by the Lenape to reclaim their ancient heritage and revive long abandoned traditions. Those attending the presentation will have a unique opportunity to learn about our region’s original inhabitants —- not the romanticized Lenape of popular mythology and recent new-age literature, but a special people as they really are.
For further information about this event, please contact:
E. James Schermerhorn
The Dutch Settlers Society of Albany
Phone: (518) 459-0608
http://www.dutchsettlerssociety.org
This lecture is a part of the New York Council for the Humanities Speakers in the Humanities program.
Who Shot Rock And Roll Photography Exhibit Opens
Who Shot Rock & Roll: A Photographic History, 1955 to the Present, which will run from October 30, 2009–January 31, 2010 at the Morris A. and Meyer Schapiro Wing, 5th Floor of the Brooklyn Museum (200 Eastern Parkway) features more than 175 works by 105 photographers, including many rare and never-before-exhibited photographs, that gave the music its visual identity. The exhibit is being billed as the first major museum exhibition on rock and roll to put photographers in the foreground, acknowledging their creative and collaborative role in the history of rock music. From its earliest days, rock and roll was captured in photographs that personalized, and frequently eroticized, the musicians, creating a visual identity for the genre.
The photographers were handmaidens to the rock-and-roll revolution, and their images communicate the social and cultural transformations that rock has fostered since the1950s. The exhibition is in six sections: rare and revealing images taken behind the scenes- tender snapshots of young musicians at the beginnings of their careers- exhilarating photographs of live performances that display the energy, passion, style, and sex appeal of the band on stage- powerful images of the crowds and fans that are often evocative of historic paintings- portraits revealing the soul and creativity, rather than the surface and celebrity, of the musicians- and conceptual images and album covers highlighting the collaborative efforts between the image makers and the musicians.
Who Shot Rock & Roll: A Photographic History, 1955 to the Present is organized by the Brooklyn Museum with guest curator Gail Buckland.
The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated book by Gail Buckland titled Who Shot Rock and Roll: A Photographic History, 1955-Present
Photo: Henry Diltz (American, b. 1938). Tina Turner, Universal Amphitheater, Los Angeles (detail), October 1985. Chromogenic print. © Henry Diltz
New Jersey History Journal Resurrected After 4 Years
The journal New Jersey History, founded as the Proceedings of the New Jersey Historical Society in 1845 and published under the direction of the Society until 2005, has been re-launched under the editorial direction of historians at the New Jersey Historical Commission, Kean University, and the Society. This peer-reviewed journal will be published online twice a year by the Rutgers University Libraries.
Peter Mickulas, editor of New Jersey History, has written New York History to say that the renewal of the Garden State’s premiere historical journal should be of interest to historians of New York as well. “We’re likely to publish (and recruit) items of interest to New York historians and historians of New Netherlands in particular,” he told me in an e-mail, “As the editor, I’m going construe “regional” topics broadly.”
The editorial staff invites scholars, students, and writers to submit scholarly articles aimed at a non-specialized audience for its forthcoming issues. They welcome essays from all disciplines – for example, law, literature, political science, anthropology, archaeology, material culture, cultural studies, and social and political history – bearing on any aspects of New Jersey’s history.
They are also interested in documents, photographs, and other primary source material that could be published with annotations.
The Fall 2009 issue, Volume 124, number 1, is now available online. This issue, the first published in four years, includes the following essays:
* Lucia McMahon, William Paterson University, “‘-A More Accurate and Extensive Education than is Customary’: Educational Opportunities for Women in Early Nineteenth-Century New Jersey”
* Matthew T. Raffety, University of Redlands, “Political Ethics and Public Style in the Early Career of Jersey City’s Frank Hague”
* Richard W. Hunter, Nadine Sergejeff and Damon Tvaryanas, “On The Eagle’s Wings: Textiles, Trenton, and a First Taste of the Industrial Revolution”
* Michael Kazin, Georgetown University, “The Arc of Liberalism and the Career of Harrison ‘-Pete’ Williams”
The issue also presents a new historic “Survey of the Canals and Water Raceways of New Jersey” by the New Jersey Geological Survey and reviews of new and notable scholarship on the history of the state.
NJH is also supported by the New Jersey Digital Highway, which will provide an additional access point for the journal from its website, and will preserve the digital version of the journal via the RUcore preservation platform. Rutgers University Press will help market the new journal, enabling it to reach the broadest possible audience.
For further details email peter.mickulas[AT]sos.state.nj.us or visit the journal homepage.