Details of mid-19th-century life come alive in the letters of a German immigrant, translated by Sigrid Wilshinsky and recently published as My Life in America Before, During and After the Civil War.
Louis Hensel was born in 1817 and lived a life of travel and adventure, as colorfully described in letters to his granddaughter back in Germany. Wilshinsky translated them from Suderlein German into modern English. Read more
Adirondack Trails with Tales: History Hikes through the Adirondack Park and the Lake George, Lake Champlain &- Mohawk Valley Regions (Blackdome Press, 2009) is by Albany writers Barbara Delaney and Russell Dunn, licensed guides and authors of books on the great outdoors of eastern New York and western New England. This guide is an effort to connect hikers with the history around them. The guide includes detailed directions, maps, photographs, and vintage postcards. Read more
Each Friday morning New York History compiles for our readers the previous week’s top web links about New York’s state and local history. You can find all our weekly round-ups here.
Subscribe! More than 3,200 people get New York History each day via E-mail, RSS, or Twitter or Facebook updates.
Are your kids interested in history? Do they like to learn about people and events of the past? Do they like to pretend to be those people or live in that time period? Then the multi-county 4-H Living History program might be for your kids. This is an excellent program for home school youth or public schooled children, who are ages seven and older, to explore their heritage, community, and expand their knowledge of local history. Read more
The following essay by Albany County Clerk Thomas Clingan is reprinted with permission from the Tivoli Times, the newsletter of the Albany County Hall of Records (ACHOR). ACHOR celebrated its 30th Anniversary in October.
Albany County can trace its records management program to a 1978 National Historical Publications and Records Commission (“NHRPC”) grant of $9235 to inventory Albany County Clerk records, accepted by the Albany County Legislature in Resolution 99 of 1978. This first modern inventory was completed and printed in 1979. The theft and quick recovery of County Clerk’s oldest Dutch record book in May 1980 increased public awareness of the need to safeguard these documents, and in January 1981, Resolution 10 of that year accepted a further $20,000 NHPRC grant to study the possibility of a joint city and county archives and records management system.
The Society for the Preservation of Long Island Antiquities (SPLIA) will present a lecture “Rescuing the American Townscape from its Own Recent History” by author James Howard Kunstler.
James Howard Kunstler is a vocal critic of American architecture and urban planning which he describes as a tragic landscape of highway strips, parking lots, housing tracts, mega-malls, junked cities and ravaged countryside. For two decades, Kunstler has examined the growth of urban and suburban America. Read more
The terms “North Country” and “world premiere” haven’t mingled very often, but May 8, 1953 was one notable exception. It all had to do with Fort Ti, but not the one we’re all familiar with. This was Fort Ti, the movie, and it was special for several reasons. Read more
On December 14, the New-York Historical Society will present The Landmarks of New York, an exhibition exploring the history of New York as revealed by its historical structures.
The exhibition’s 90 photographs of landmarks are critical documents that chronicle the city’s journey from a small colonized village to a city at the center of the world from the 17th through the 20th centuries and includes the newly acquired set of 30 photographs by Christine Osinski, Steven Tucker, Reuben Cox, Julio Bofill, Michael Stewart, Michael Stewart, Andrew Garn, Richard Cappelluti, Adam S. Wahler, Eric C. Chung and others. Read more
How important is “public history?”
The essay on public history in the newly published second edition of the Encyclopedia of Local History, provides some fresh insights. The Encyclopedia, edited by Tompkins County Historian Carol Kammen, a long-time leader in the field, and Amy H. Wilson, an independent museum consultant and former director of the Chemung County Historical Society in Elmira, is a rich source of fresh insights on all aspects of local history. Read more