Cultural History

Great Crash of 1929 Anniversary Walking Tour

admin

The Great Crash of 1929 will be the subject of the Museum of American Finance&#8216-s 22nd annual guided walking tour of Lower Manhattan on October 30, 2010, 1:00 PM to 4:00 PM. This unique walking tour, which is the only regularly scheduled event that commemorates the Great Crash of 1929, the Panic of 1907 and the 1987 stock market collapse, delves into the political, financial, real estate and architectural history of Wall Street and New York City.

The tour shows that despite such adversities as the Great Fires of 1776 and 1835, financial panics of the 19th century, the 1920 Wall Street explosion, the Crash of 1929, the stock market collapse of 1987, the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack and the financial crisis of 2008, New York and Wall Street have always recovered their position as the world’s financial capital.

Tour meets at the Museum of American Finance and costs $15 per person. For information and reservations please contact Lindsay Seeger at 212-908-4110 or [email protected].

Museum Seeks Pre-1945 African American Art

admin

The Brooklyn Museum is inaugurating a new collecting initiative that will focus on the acquisition of works by African American artists that were created between the mid-nineteenth century and 1945. In the first three years, the Museum is seeking to raise a minimum of $500,000 for this ongoing dedicated purchase fund, together with gifts of works of art. The project has already received $100,000, with an additional $100,000 to be given as a matching grant, from Museum Trustee Saundra Williams-Cornwell and her husband, Don Cornwell. Additionally, the promised gift of a major painting, Dream of Arcadia after Thomas Cole (1852) by Robert S. Duncanson, has been given by Museum Trustee Charlynn Goins and her husband, Dr. Warren Goins. Ms. Cornwell and Ms. Goins are both initiators of the project, along with former Trustee Tracey G. Riese.

Additional funds, which will go toward matching the Cornwell’s contribution, will be raised through a benefit dinner to take place on January 19, 2011, from 7 until 10 p.m. at the studio of Brooklyn-based artist Mickalene Thomas. This event is being guided by a steering committee chaired by Ms. Cornwell, Ms. Goins, and Ms. Riese. Individual tickets range from $500 to $1,000, and tables are available from $5,000 to $15,000. Introductory events for this newly initiated purchase fund took place this past February at the Swann Auction Galleries in New York, followed several weeks later by a dinner at the home of Museum Director Arnold L. Lehman and Pamela Lehman.

&#8220This important new collecting initiative signals a deeper commitment by the Brooklyn Museum in building collections that are distinguished by the diversity of the artists represented. It will expand and enrich the Museum’s exceptional holdings of American art and will parallel what is already under way with our contemporary holdings. We are enormously grateful for the exceptionally generous gifts from our Trustees that will inaugurate this important undertaking,&#8221 states Arnold Lehman.

&#8220The purchases and gifts made possible by this project will take their place in our current presentation of one of the largest and most important collections of historic American art in the United States and will allow us to celebrate more fully the long and rich tradition of African American artistic production,&#8221 states Teresa A. Carbone, Andrew W. Mellon Curator of American Art and Managing Curator, Arts of the Americas and Europe. Dr. Carbone has worked closely with the steering committee on the implementation of the project.

During the past decade the Brooklyn Museum has significantly increased its holdings of works by contemporary African American artists, including Nina Chanel Abney, Nick Cave, Robert Colescott, Renee Cox, Rashid Johnson, Rashaad Newsome, Lorraine O’Grady, Adrian Piper, Michael Richards, Lorna Simpson, Shinique Smith, Mickalene Thomas, Hank Willis Thomas, Kara Walker, Kehinde Wiley, Fred Wilson, and Hale Woodruff.

Since 1940, when the Brooklyn Museum was the New York venue for the landmark exhibition The Negro Artist Comes of Age, the Museum has actively sought to showcase the work of African American artists. The Museum has also presented landmark survey exhibitions including Two Centuries of Black American Art (1977), Black Folk Art in America (1982), Facing History: The Black Image in American Art, 1710-1940 (1990), Alone in a Crowd: Prints of the 1930s and 1940s by African-American Artists (1996), and Committed to the Image: Contemporary Black Photographers (2001).

Beginning in the 1960s, the Museum has also presented several monographic exhibitions by black artists, among them Jacob Lawrence (1960 and 1987), James Van Der Zee (1978), Romare Bearden (1982), Martin Puryear (1988), Glen Ligon (1996), Kerry James Marshall (1998), Kehinde Wiley (2004), Jean-Michel Basquiat (2005), and Aminah Brenda Lynn Robinson (2006).

About the Leadership

· Saundra Williams-Cornwell, a Brooklyn Museum Trustee since 2003, practiced law in New York for a decade. She has served on the boards of the Manhattan Theater Club, the Continuum Health Partners, and the Brooklyn Heights Association. She is a Chair of the Community Investment Committee of the Board of the United Way of New York City. She and her husband collect twentieth-century African American Art.

· After a career in the financial-services industry, Charlynn Goins, a Brooklyn Museum Trustee since 2003, is also the Chairman of the New York Community Trust. She is an independent trustee of New York Life Insurance Company’s Mainstay Funds and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She is a graduate of Barnard College and Columbia Law School. Ms. Goins and her husband collect African American art, with a focus on nineteenth-century paintings.

· Tracy Riese is founder and president of T.G. Riese & Associates, Ltd., a branding and communication consultancy serving public and private organizations. She previously held positions at Revlon, RJR Nabisco, Chemical Bank, Young & Rubicam, Burson- Marsteller, and Sotheby’s, where she helped form their corporate art advisory service. She is currently on the boards of A Better Chance, the Hunter College Foundation, and of El Museo del Barrio. She and her husband live in Manhattan and collect contemporary art and twentieth-century furniture and design.

Illustration: Robert S. Duncanson (American, 1821-1872). Dream of Arcadia after Thomas Cole, circa 1852. Oil on canvas, 24 X 42 inches. Charlynn and Warren Goins, promised gift to the Brooklyn Museum.

CFP: Latino Folk Culture, Expressive Traditions

admin

The New York Folklore Society has announced a Graduate Student Conference on Latino Folk Culture and Expressive Traditions to be held on November 20, 2010 at New York University, 20 Cooper Square, 4th Floor, NYC.

For over 65 years, the New York Folklore Society (NYFS) has held an annual conference, typically with guest speakers, such as master artists and academic scholars, who have addressed a particular theme. This year, in collaboration with NYU’s Latino Studies and Latin American Studies Departments, NYFS seeks to encourage young scholars to continue their studies and become active contributors to the fields of folklore, ethnomusicology, anthropology and more. Read more →

Seaport Museum NY Hosts Alfred Stieglitz New York

admin

For the first time in nearly 80 years, legendary early twentieth century photographer Alfred Stieglitz’s iconic New York City photographs will be displayed together as part of the groundbreaking, new exhibition “Alfred Stieglitz New York,” at Seaport Museum New York in Manhattan. The exhibition opened September 15th and runs through January 10, 2011.

Stieglitz – a central figure in the history of photography and modern art and husband of artist Georgia O’Keefe – lived in New York City for most of his life and chronicled its dramatic transformation into the archetypal metropolis of soaring skyscrapers, subways and electric lights. These works have not been displayed together since 1932, when Stieglitz featured them at his own gallery, An American Place.

“Alfred Stieglitz New York,” featuring 39 vintage Stieglitz photographs, is organized into three galleries. The first evokes the spirit of 291, Stieglitz’s pioneering gallery, which cemented his reputation as an impresario of European modern art. It will include a facsimile of a lantern slide show, the first time Stieglitz’s lantern slides have ever been exhibited – and prints from 1893 to 1916. The second gallery presents portraits taken from the windows of his midtown Manhattan apartment and gallery in the 1930s, when Stieglitz re-engaged New York as a subject for his photography. The third and final gallery examines the explosion of imagery of New York in popular culture and fine arts, including works by renowned photographers Paul Strand, Lewis Hine and Berenice Abbott.

“Stieglitz is one of the most distinguished American photographers, and Seaport Museum New York is thrilled to be the first cultural institution to bring these beautiful and important images together under one roof,” said Mary Ellen Pelzer, president and CEO of Seaport Museum New York. “This exhibition will give everyone, from lifelong New Yorkers to visitors, a unique look at the emergence of the modern city through the eyes of a masterful observer. It exemplifies our commitment to telling the ongoing story of New York in bold and unexpected ways.”

“Alfred Stieglitz New York” is curated by Dr. Bonnie Yochelson, former curator of prints and photographs at the Museum of the City of New York, who also authored the exhibition’s catalogue. The photographs were brought together from several leading national art institutions, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Philadelphia Museum of Art as well as from private collectors.

“Georgia O’Keefe famously remarked, ‘Stieglitz was always photographing himself.’ Indeed, he never went far from his home or place of work to photograph,” stated Yochelson. “During Stieglitz’s lifetime, New York became a symbol of the modern city, and this show provides the rare opportunity not only to better understand how Stieglitz saw New York, but to compare his personal vision with the idea of New York in popular culture and among other photographers with different points of view.”

Photo: The Terminal, Alfred Stieglitz Collection, Courtesy of the Board of Trustees, National Gallery of Art, Washington.

Harlem Vice: Playing the Numbers

admin

In New York City during the 1920s, an employee of the New York Clearing House, an august downtown financial institution composed of the city’s elite banks, would descend every day and mark three numbers on a chalkboard, each of which was meant as a general economic indicator to be used by the financial industry. Two of these numbers were immediately copied down by a different sort of employee and phoned uptown to a different sort of bank, one whose doings possessed a good deal more relevance for the hundreds of thousands of African Americans who had recently transformed the sleepy neighborhood of Harlem into a budding “black metropolis.”

The uptown bankers, known colloquially as “kings” and “queens,” dealt not in stocks and bonds but in millions of paper slips, each one marked in pencil and each one representing a one, five, or maybe a ten-cent bet placed by a resident on the outcome of a three-digit number derived via a set formula from that day’s Clearing House results. “Playing the numbers” was a cultural institution in Harlem, one that about half the neighborhood’s population seems to have engaged in each day, one that tied them in strange ways to the city’s licit economy, but one that has been strangely understudied by scholars, who in the past have trained their focus largely on the high-cultural manifestations of Harlem’s remarkable flowering.

Playing the Numbers: Gambling in Harlem Between the Wars takes a different tack, utilizing the authors’ remarkable research to tell a story that illuminates the lives of the ordinary Harlemites who most often form little more than a colorful backdrop to accounts of the Harlem Renaissance. For a dozen years the “numbers game” was one of America’s rare black-owned businesses, turning over tens of millions of dollars every year. The astronomical success of “bankers” like Stephanie St. Clair and Casper Holstein attracted Dutch Schultz, Lucky Luciano, and organized crime, fresh off Prohibition and in need of a new hustle, to the game. By the late 1930s, most of the profits were being siphoned out of Harlem. All in all, Playing the Numbers reveals a unique dimension of African American culture that made not only Harlem but New York City itself the vibrant and energizing metropolis it was.

Interestingly, the authors of Playing the Numbers are four Australian academics who received a grant from their government to research this remarkable phenomenon. You can get a taste of the data itself on an innovative website they’ve produced called Digital Harlem: Everyday Life, 1915-1930, which won the Roy Rosenzweig Fellowship for Innovation in Digital History this year from the American Historical Association.

Note: Books noticed on this site have been provided by the publishers. Purchases made through this Amazon link help support this site.

Month of the Macabre At Historic Huguenot Street

admin

October is the month of the macabre at Historic Huguenot Street in New Paltz. The six-acre site, continually occupied for over 330 years and lived on by Native Americans as far back at 8,000 B.C., is filled with the stories of those who have come before us. Two events this weekend help kick off the month, which will wrap up the organization’s popular Haunted Huguenot Street event at the end of the month.

Tonight, Friday, October 1st, from 8 to 9:30pm, HHS will host a Lantern Walk in its historic burial ground. The autumn night is the perfect time to venture into the graveyard, one of the region’s oldest. By the flame of the lanterns, guests will learn about the tragedies and triumphs of the people buried there. The dead are among us on Huguenot Street.

On Saturday, October 2nd, from 10am to 12pm, HHS will take a small group of individuals underground to the organization’s archives. Here, among documents, photos and images that go all the way back to 17th Europe, Curatorial Assistant Ashley Hurlburt will select glimpses of the ghoulish and the macabre from the archives. Space is limited to 15.

he cost is of each program is $12 per person or $10 for Friends of Huguenot Street. Advance reservations are strongly recommended. Individuals may register online at www.huguenotstreet.org or call 255-1889 to register over the phone. Both programs leave from the DuBois Fort Visitor Center, which is located at 81 Huguenot Street in downtown New Paltz.

Haunted Huguenot Street will be offered on the evenings of Friday, October 29th to Sunday, October 31st. More information about this event is also available at the website for Historic Huguenot Street.

Alien Resident Files Opened to Public

admin

For the first time, more than 300,000 case files on alien residents of the United States who were born 1909 and prior are now open to the public at the National Archives at Kansas City. These files, known as “Alien Files” (commonly referred to as “A-Files”) were transferred to the National Archives from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) and are only a small part of the millions of case files that will eventually be transferred and opened to the public.

“The A-files are a key to unlocking the fascinating stories of millions of people who traveled to the United States in search of opportunity, including my own grandfather” said Archivist of the United States David S. Ferriero. “They include information such as photographs, personal correspondence, birth certificates, health records, interview transcripts, visas, applications and other information on all non-naturalized alien residents, both legal and illegal. The snapshot of American life that develops from each file can, in some cases, serve as a one-stop-shopping for researchers.”

The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), the predecessor agency of USCIS, began issuing aliens Alien Registration numbers in 1940, and on April 1, 1944, began using this number to create the A-Files. A-Files document the famous, the infamous, the anonymous and the well-known, and are an historical and genealogical goldmine. These files contain an abundance of relatively modern immigration documents in one file, making them a rich source of biographical information.

A-Files are eligible for transfer to the National Archives when 100 years have passed since the birth date of the subject of a file. These transfers to the National Archives ensure that these records will be saved and made available to the public. The National Archives at Kansas City will maintain A-Files from all USCIS district offices except San Francisco, Honolulu, Reno, and Guam. These files will be housed at the National Archives at San Francisco because of the significant research use of related immigration files there. Files to be housed at the National Archives at San Francisco are currently being prepared for transfer.

A-Files may be viewed in person by appointment at the National Archives at Kansas City or copies of files may be ordered for a fee. Additional information on requesting A-Files may be found here.

For more information about these records, contact Elizabeth Carrington, archivist, at 816-268-8093 or [email protected].

Fort Montgomery to Host 18th Century Music

admin

Fort Montgomery State Historic Site will host an evening of music performed in Late Eighteenth Century America on Saturday, August 28th, from 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm.

Visitors will hear music popular during and after the American Revolution, performed by members of the Fort Montgomery State Historic Site staff and friends. This vocal, violin, and harpsichord performance will include music by Arne, Handel, Webbe, Linley the Younger, and others. Listeners will experience a concert similar to entertainments enjoyed by America’s founding fathers. The event is free.

The Fort Montgomery Visitor Center is located at 690 Route 9W,1/4 mile north of the Bear Mountain Traffic Circle in Fort Montgomery, NY 10922. For more information, call (845) 446-2134.

Mark Twain in the Adirondacks

admin

As fans of Mark Twain the world ‘round await the fall release of his unexpurgated autobiography a century after his death, scholars, authors, teachers, and other admirers of Twain will gather on the time-carved shores of Lower Saranac Lake to draw a more intimate portrait of the writer and humorist and explore his indelible contributions to American life and letters.

On Saturday, August 14, Dr. Charles Alexander of Paul Smith’s College, Dr. Margaret Washington, Associate Professor of History at Cornell University, and beloved children’s author Steven Kellogg of Essex, NY, will headline the day-long “Mark Twain in the Adirondacks” program at Guggenheim Camp on Lower Saranac Lake.

Doors will open at 9:30 a.m. At 10:00 a.m., Dr. Alexander will explore Twain’s surprising connections to the Adirondacks, focusing on his retreat from the outside world to the Kane Camp on Lower Saranac Lake in 1901 and the little-known essay, “The United States of Lyncherdom”, Twain wrote when the news of lynchings in Missouri reached him there. So incendiary, Twain allowed publication of the essay only after his death.

At 11:00 a.m., Steven Kellogg will read passages from Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and share why he counts it among his favorite books. Dr. Washington will continue the focus on Huck Finn, guiding the audience through critical debates over the work since its publication in 1885 and Twain’s straightforward treatment of slavery and race.

Following their formal presentations, Kellogg, Washington and Alexander will invite the audience to participate with them in an open-ended conversation about Twain and his lasting influence and power to provoke even today, 100 years after his death.

In November, the University of California Press will publish the first of three volumes of Twain’s half-million word autobiography, most of which the author dictated to a stenographer over the course of the four years before he died in 1910. According to New York Times reviewer Larry Rother, “a very different Twain emerges, more pointedly political and willing to play the angry prophet” (NYT 10 Jul 2010).

“Mark Twain in the Adirondacks” will be held at the rustic Guggenheim. Complimentary coffee, tea and pastries will be provided in the morning and ice cream donated by Stewart’s Shops will be served during the afternoon conversation. People are encouraged to pack a lunch.

A $5 donation is requested for Guggenheim program. Optional hour-long boat tours to the privately-owned Kane Camp where Twain stayed will be offered in the afternoon, starting at 2:00 p.m. Sign-up for the tours is on a first come, first serve basis, beginning when the doors open at 9:30 am. Tickets for the boat tours are $20 each, which includes entrance to the talks at Guggenheim Camp.

“Mark Twain in the Adirondacks” is a joint project of Historic Saranac Lake, John Brown Lives!, Paul Smith’s College, Keene Valley Library, and Saranac Lake Free Library. On July 23, Keene Valley Library hosted Huck Finn Out Loud—a twelve-hour marathon reading of the novel. Volunteer readers and listeners from all walks of life hailed from across the North Country and from Paris, France.

North Country Public Radio is media sponsor of “Mark Twain in the Adirondacks”. Funding has been provided by New York Council for the Humanities, Stewart’s Shops, Cape Air, Paul Smith’s College, and International Paper-Ticonderoga Mill. For more information, contact Amy Catania, Director of Historic Saranac Lake at 518-891-4606 or Martha Swan, Director of John Brown Lives! at 518-962-4758.

Past at Play at Rensselaer County Historical Society

admin

Kids are invited to bring their favorite adults to Troy’s historic Hart-Cluett House tomorrow Saturday, August 7th from 10 – 11:30am for a kid-friendly tour of the House, followed by lemonade, cookies, and historic games in the courtyard. Learn about the lives of many children who grew up in this house and get to know some of the games they played. Recommended for ages 5 and up.

The cost for RCHS Members is $10 for kid + adult, $5 each additional person- Not-yet-members $12/kid + adult & $7 for additional guests. Pre-registration required &#8211 call 518-272-7232, x12 to register or register online at http://www.rchsonline.org/registration.html.