A Call for Quilts from the Adirondack Museum

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From Blue Mountain Lake in the Adirondacks comes this &#8220Call for Quilts,&#8221 forwarded here for your information:

Blue Mountain Lake, N.Y. Do you have an exceptional quilt, comforter, or pieced wall hanging made after 1970 that was used in, inspired by, or depicts the Adirondack region?

The Adirondack Museum at Blue Mountain Lake, New York is seeking six to ten contemporary quilts to borrow for a new exhibit, &#8220Common Threads: 150 Years of Adirondack Quilts and Comforters,&#8221 scheduled to open in May 2009.

The Adirondack region has nurtured a vibrant pieced-textile tradition for over a century and a half. From bedcovers, plain or fancy, meant to keep families warm through long Adirondack winters, to stunning art quilts of the twenty-first century, the quilts and comforters of the North Country mirror national trends and also tell a unique story of life in the mountains.

&#8220Common Threads&#8221 will combine the scholarly approaches of social history, art history, and material culture studies to explore themes of women’s work, domestic life, social networks in a rural area, generational continuity among women, and women’s artistic response to life in the Adirondacks.

Curator Hallie Bond will develop the new exhibit that will include quilts from the museum’s textile collection that are rarely on display. Bond has identified the historic pieces, but now needs help in collecting modern examples of pieced work to bring the exhibition up to the present time.

A panel of three quilters and quilting scholars &#8211 Lee Kogan, Edith Mitchell, and Shirley Ware &#8211 will select pieces for the exhibit. For additional information please contact Hallie Bond at the Adirondack Museum, Box 99, Blue Mountain Lake, N.Y. 12812 or (518) 352-7311, ext. 105.

Those interested in the project will receive a complete description of the exhibition, details about the themes that contemporary quilts should illustrate, and an entry form. Submissions will be by photograph and must be received by the Adirondack Museum no later than October 1, 2008.

The Adirondack Museum tells the story of the Adirondacks through exhibits, special events, classes for schools, and hands-on activities for visitors of all ages. Open for the season through October 19, 2008. Introducing Rustic Tomorrow &#8212- a new exhibit. For information about all that the museum has to offer, please call (518) 352-7311, or visit www.adirondackmuseum.org

NYS Archives Research Residency Program

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The Archives Partnership Trust and the New York State Archives announce the availability of awards to support research using state government records held by the Archives. The Larry J. Hackman Research Residency program is intended to encourage product-related research in such areas as history, law, public policy, geography, and culture by covering research-related expenses such as travel, lodging, meals, and copying of records. Award amounts have ranged from $100 to $4,500.

Academic and public historians, graduate students, independent researchers and writers, and primary and secondary school teachers are encouraged to apply. Projects involving alternative uses of the State Archives, such as background research for multimedia projects, exhibits, documentary films, and historical novels, are eligible. The topic or area of study must draw, at least in part, on the holdings of the New York State Archives.

Information on the 2009 Larry J. Hackman Research Residency Program and application forms are available online at www.nysarchivestrust.org For further information contact the Archives Partnership Trust, Cultural Education Center, Suite 9C49, Albany, New York 12230- (518) 473 7091. Applications must be postmarked by January 15, 2009.

Fort Ticonderoga Executive Director to Step Down

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North Country Public Radio is reporting this afternoon that Fort Ticonderoga’s longtime executive director Nick Westbrook will step down (Post Star says next year). According to the report board president Peter Paine says Westbrook will remain &#8220affiliated with the historic site in a scholarly and advisory capacity&#8221 and described the move as &#8220part of a planned transition.&#8221

Ongoing controversy over the loss of the Fort’s most important benefactor has been covered at length on the New York History Blog before.

This weekend the New York Times covered the story:

This summer, the national historic landmark — called Fort Ti for short — began its 100th season as an attraction open to the public with two causes for celebration: the unveiling of a splashy new education center, and an increase in visitors, reversing a long decline.

But instead of celebrating, its caretakers issued an S.O.S., warning that the fort, one of the state’s most important historic sites, was struggling for survival, largely because of a breach between the fort’s greatest benefactor — an heir of the Mars candy fortune — and its executive director.

The problem is money: The fort had a shortfall of $2.5 million for the education center. The president of the board that governs the fort, which is owned by a nonprofit organization, said in an internal memo this summer that the site would be “essentially broke” by the end of the year. The memo proposed a half-dozen solutions, including the sale of artwork from the group’s collection.

Teddy Roosevelt and The Adirondack Forest Preserve

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This post has been cross-posted to Adirondack Almanack, the blog of Adirondack culture, history, and politics.

In the heart of the Adirondacks is the Town of Newcomb, population about 500. The town was developed as a lumbering and mining community &#8211 today tourism and forest and wood products are the dominate way locals make a living. As a result the Essex County town is one of the Adirondacks’ poorer communities ($32,639 median income in 2000).

The folks in Newcomb (and also in North Creek in Warren County) often promote their communities’ connection to Theodore Roosevelt’s ascendancy to the presidency. Teddy’s nighttime trip from a camp in Newcomb to the rail station at North Creek as William McKinley lay dying from a bullet delivered by Leon Czolgosz&#8216-s .32 caliber Iver-Johnson handgun is usually considered Roosevelt’s great tie to the Adirondack region. There is a annual celebration of Roosevelt this weekend, but more of that later.

Roosevelt was the first American president to find the long-term conservation of our natural resources and important goal. According to the great wiki &#8220Roosevelt set aside more land for national parks and nature preserves than all of his predecessors combined, 194 million acres&#8221:

Roosevelt created the first National Bird Preserve, (the beginning of the Wildlife Refuge system)&#8230- recognized the imminent extinction of the American Bison&#8230- urged Congress to establish the United States Forest Service (1905), to manage government forest lands, and he appointed Gifford Pinchot to head the service&#8230- In all, by 1909, the Roosevelt administration had created an unprecedented 42 million acres (170,000 km?) of national forests, 53 national wildlife refuges and 18 areas of &#8220special interest&#8221, including the Grand Canyon.

A longstanding question from Roosevelt’s time still creates raging debates in Newcomb &#8211 should the state keep buying land in Newcomb (and elsewhere) to add to the Forest Preserve while it continues to ban logging?

Here is a short history of the movement to log the Adirondack Forest Preserve prior to 1900:

1798 &#8211 New York State sells 4 million acres of the Macomb Patent for eight pence an acre. Political and corporate interests would control much of the Adirondacks for the next century. In 1855 for example, the state sold three entire townships to a railroad company for five cents an acre, even though the price had been set by law at 75 cents an acre.

In 1885, the Forest Preserve Act was passed establishing the New York State Forest Commission and declaring that &#8220The lands now or hereafter constituting the forest preserve shall be forever kept as wild forest lands. They shall not sold, nor shall they be leased or taken by any corporation, public or private.&#8221

With the establishment of the Forest Preserve came calls to log it. In 1890, the Commission argued that new Forest Preserve lands should be purchased with money from the sales of timber (softwoods over 12 inches in diameter). In 1892, the state legislature established the Adirondack Park within the Forest Preserve and stated it would be &#8220forever reserved, maintained and cared for as a ground open for the free use of all the people for their health or pleasure, and as forest lands necessary to the preservation of the headwaters of the chief rivers and a future timber supply.&#8221

The following year later the State Legislature approved the logging of Tamarack and Spruce 12 inches and up and any size Poplar. The New York Evening Post reported that fifteen bills were rushed to the New York Legislature &#8220nearly all of which are directly to the advantage of the timber and land sharks.&#8221 The following year, the American Forestry Association, the New York State Forestry Association, the Adirondack Park Association, and the Genesee Forestry Association, held a &#8220Forest Congress&#8221 in Albany which opposed the lumbering plan.

The move to log the Forest Preserve created a backlash from conservationists and that, along with a report form the State Comptroller outlining immense fraud, bribery, and illegal cutting, led to inclusion of a formal ban in the New York Constitution in 1894. &#8220The lands of the state, now owned or hereafter acquired, constituting the forest preserve as now fixed by law, shall be forever kept as wild forest lands. They shall not be leased, sold or exchanged, or be taken by any corporation, public or private, nor shall the timber thereon be sold, removed or destroyed.&#8221 The American Forestry Association also opposed this plan.

In 1898, New York Governor Frank Black, pushed for a 40,000 acre experimental forestry station to be run by Cornell Forest School, which was established by the same law. Cornell University started the forestry program but closed its doors in 1903, it was headed by Bernhard Eduard Fernow.

In 1898 Teddy Roosevelt was elected Governor. Roosevelt believed that someday, forestry could be applied to the state’s Forest Preserve &#8211 he said so in his 1900 annual message: &#8220We need to have our system of forestry gradually developed and conducted along scientific principles. When this has been done it will be possible to allow marketable lumber to be cut everywhere without damage to the forests.&#8221

Roosevelt brought in Gifford Pinchot and the United States Division of Forestry who devised a plan to lumber Township 40 in the Totten and Crossfield Purchase. About 25 men were hired under forester Ralph Hosmer and local lumberer Eugene Bruce to survey the woods and lay out a plan to log the Forest Preserve. With the failure of the plan’s adoption came the virtual end to serious attempts to log the Adirondacks en masse.

The annual Newcomb Roosevelt celebration is this weekend (Sept. 5, 6, and 7)

Newcomb Visitor Interpretive Center Opening Celebration (Friday night, Sept. 5, at 6:30 p.m., and featuring Adirondack Folksinger-Songwriter Peggy Lynn)

Craft Fair (Saturday, Sept. 6, 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. and Sunday, Sept. 7, 10 a.m. – 3 p.m. at the Newcomb Central School)

Quilt Show (Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 6-7, 9 a.m. &#8211 5 p.m. at the Newcomb Visitor Interpretive Center).

All Weekend Long: Wagon Rides to Camp Santanoni, Free Pony Rides, Wool Spinning, a Classic Car Exhibit, Historic Guided Tours of Newcomb and Village of Adirondac, the Ty Yandon 5K Memorial Foot Race, and the TR Naturalist Challenge.

Fireworks on Saturday evening, Sept. 6, at the Overlook (Musical Entertainment beforehand)

For more information, contact the Newcomb Chamber of Commerce at (518) 582-3211.

Call for Proposals: Underground Railroad History Conference

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The Planning Committee of the Eighth Underground Railroad (UGR) History Conference is soliciting brief proposals for presentations, panels, and workshops that address the theme &#8220The Underground Railroad, Its Legacies, and Our Communities.&#8221 Proposals should be made for a 60-minute workshop session, for a poster session or exhibition, or for a cultural/artistic activity.

According to the announcement, conference organizers &#8220ask that all proposals allow for significant audience interaction. And, while we urge that proposals focus on the conference theme, we also invite proposals on other important topics concerning Underground Railroad history. See the full call for proposals pdf here.

The Eighth Annual UGR History Conference will be held at College Park, Union College, Schenectady, NY, on February 27-28, 2009. It is sponsored by the Underground Railroad History Project of the Capital Region, Inc.

For more information, consult the web site at http://www.ugrworkshop.com/

Proposals should be submitted to the planning committee by September 30, 2008 by mail at URHPCR, PO Box 10851, Albany NY 12201 or via e-mail at urhpcr [AT] localnet [DOT] com

AASLH Annual Meeting in Rochester September 9-12, 2008

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The American Association for State and Local History Annual Meeting in Rochester beginning September 9th is geared toward &#8220history professionals, historical sites, historical societies, history museums, military museums, libraries, presidential sites, students, suppliers, and more.&#8221

According to their website:

This is your chance to share your passion, ideas, and knowledge with over 800 of your peers in the field of state and local history. You’ll have an opportunity to learn from over 80 sessions and 17 pre-meeting workshops that directly relate to the latest issues and trends that you face. And, you’ll also have an opportunity to have fun while you explore Rochester’s amazing history through the evening events and tours.

Although apparently they’re keeping the costs of the conference pretty quiet (good luck finding it on the website), you can apparently register here.

Amazons 10 Best Selling New York History Books

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Stealing an idea from the Civil War blog TOCWOC, I thought I’d periodically post the ten best-selling books about New York history from Amazon. I took the liberty to separate the wheat from the chaff.

1. Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York

2. Kathy Peiss, Cheap Amusements: Working Women and Leisure in Turn-of-the-Century New York

3. Tom Buk-Swienty, The Other Half: The Life of Jacob Riis and the World of Immigrant America

4. Jill Lepore, New York Burning: Liberty, Slavery, and Conspiracy in 18th Century Manhattan

5. Russell Shorto, The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America

6. John F. Kasson, Amusing the Million: Coney Island at the Turn of the Century

7. Mark Kurlansky, The Big Oyster: History on the Half Shell

8. David McCullough, The Great Bridge: The Epic Story of the Building of the Brooklyn Bridge

9. Mary P. Ryan, Cradle of the Middle Class: The Family in Oneida County, New York, 1790-1865

10. Thurston Moore and Byron Coley, No Wave: Post-Punk. Underground. New York 1976-1980

Call For Papers: When The French Were Here

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As part of the quadricentennial of Samuel de Champlain’s exploration of Lake Champlain, Champlain College in Burlington, Vermont is hosting an international academic symposium on July 2-5, 2009. Scholars from the humanities, social sciences and natural sciences are invited to participate.

The theme, “When the French Were Here,” invites the broadest possible consideration of Samuel de Champlain’s achievements, his life, and of his world as a cultural, social and ideological context.

Scholars wishing to participate should submit an abstract of no more than 200 words, along with a CV by October 1, 2008. Papers to be read will be of fifteen to twenty minutes in length, roughly two thousand words. After the conference, the papers read will be collected and published as conference proceedings.

Abstract submission information can be found online.

The conference hopes to encourage talks from a variety of perspectives that examine Samuel de Champlain and the lake that bears his name. Paper topics might include (but are not limited to):

* Life and achievements of Samuel de Champlain
* France at the time of Samuel de Champlain
* Exploration of the New World — background
* Navigation history
* Military history
* Social history
* Maps and mapmaking
* Contact of civilizations
* Previous centennial celebrations
* “New France” and “New England”
* History, geology and culture of Lake Champlain

Tammis Groft and Museum and History Advocacy

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One of New York’s museum leading lights, Tammis Groft, was recently mentioned over at Suzanne Fischer’s Public Historian blog in a post calling for more blogging about museum and history advocacy:

Among AAM’s projects is museum advocacy on a national level. Recently, they sent Tammis K. Groft, deputy director of collections and exhibits at the Albany Institute of History and Art [above], to Washington as a “citizen-lobbyist” to speak to a committee about the importance of NEH Preservation and Access Grants. She wrote a few blog posts on the subject on the AAM’s advocacy blog. PAG grants are a major way museums of all sizes fund collections stewardship projects, and the funding for the program is slated to be cut by 50% next year. Contact your elected officials to advocate for NEH conservation programs!

The Humanities Advocacy Network is also a great resource for humanities advocacy, including preservation and history programs. You can sign up to get action alerts and email your representatives from the page.

I’d love to see more blogging from AAM or other organizations on museum and history advocacy issues. The wrangling over appropriations can be very opaque, and a human voice really helps to clarify issues and make advocacy work seem much more possible for small museum professionals and those without much lobbying practice. (My occasional posts about Minnesota cultural legislation don’t cut it.)