Albany County

On The New York State Museums Sunday Hours

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Beginning January 1, 2011 the New York State Museum will have new hours of operation, including being closed on Sundays. The Museum will be open Monday &#8211 Saturday 9:30am &#8211 5:00pm.

During the one weekend in February when the museum hosts NY in Bloom and the Annual Gem and Mineral Show. That weekend the Museum is open on Sunday. It’s also the only weekend when Admission is charged, as a fundraiser for the Museum’s after school program.

New York in Bloom &#8211 20th Anniversary
Friday, February 25 -Sunday, February 27 ? 9:30 a.m.-5 p.m.
1st Floor Exhibition Halls ? Adults ? Children ? Admission Fee:
Friday-$5/Adult- Saturday and Sunday-$6/Adult. Children age 12 and under FREE

Experience the sights and scents of the approaching spring during this 20th annual fund-raising weekend benefiting Museum Club and Discovery Squad, the Museum’s award-winning after-school programs for children and teens. Free parking available next to the Museum on Saturday and Sunday. $6 entrance fee to the Museum on Saturday and Sunday includes admission to the 18th Annual James Campbell Memorial Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show and Sale on the 4th Floor. For information, call 518-474-5877.

18th Annual James Campbell Memorial Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show and Sale
Saturday, February 26 and Sunday, February 27 ? 10 a.m.-5 p.m. 4th Floor ? Adults ? Children ? Admission Fee: $6/Adult- Children age 12 and under FREE

Vendors from throughout the Northeast display and sell gems, jewelry, minerals, lapidary equipment, fossils, and much more. Meanwhile on the 1st Floor, staff members conduct guided tours of the mineral and fossil exhibitions and are on hand to identify visitors’ own minerals and fossils. Call 518-474-5877 for information about times and locations. $6 entrance fee to the Museum on Saturday and Sunday includes admission to all New York in Bloom activities on the 1st Floor. For information, call 518-474-5877.

Schenectady Digital History Archive Expands

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Bob Sullivan of the Schenectady Digital History Archive is reporting that the online archive’s obituary index now includes over 65,000 citations.

In addition to the [Schenectady] Daily Gazette and assorted historical Schenectady
newspapers, for the last several years the index has covered current issues of papers from the greater Capital District area, such as the Glens Falls Post-Star, the Gloversville Leader-Herald and the Saratogian.

Lecture: Albany County on Staffordshire Plates

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The Historical Society of the Town of Colonie will be hosting a program about commemorative Staffordshire plates featuring various scenes from 19th Century Albany, this Friday, December 3, 2010 at the Colonie Pruyn House (207 Old Niskayuna Road, Colonie).

Potters in the Staffordshire region of England used the transfer technique of printing on earthenware to distribute historical American views and commemorative pieces to the middle-class American market.

Deep blue transferware dominated in the 1820s but methodological improvements in printing occurred in the 1830s and 1840s which led to cleaner, sharper images, and a broader variety of colors. Because they were moderately priced, Staffordshire transfer earthenware was an affordable but attractive alternative to more expensive porcelains.

Following the lifting of embargoes in British goods after the War of 1812, Liverpool and Staffordshire potters resumed their high volume commerce with the United States. In the 1840s, earthenware from Staffordshire ranked fifth (behind textiles and metalwork) in importance among English export products. Among the products Staffordshire potters provided the American market was pottery that offered views of the America’s natural wonders and historic events that would appeal to a growing American civic pride.

For additional information about Friday’s program contact either the Pruyn House at 783-1435 or the Colonie Historian’s Office at 782-2593.

Photo: Albany, N.Y. souvenir nine inch plate manufactured in Staffordshire, England. An error in the transfer likely caused the word &#8216-Albany’ to be spelled &#8216-Alany’. Scenes on the plate include the state capitol, Washington Park’s King’s Fountain, the steamer Robert Fulton, the Post Office, and the NYS Senate Chamber.

2010 Researching NY 12th Annual Conference

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Researching New York: Perspectives on Empire State History, an annual conference that provides a forum for the exploration of all aspects of New York State history, in all time periods and from diverse perspectives, will be held this Thursday and Friday, November 18th and 19th.

The conference brings together historians, researchers, archivists, public historians, librarians, teachers, museum curators, filmmakers, and documentary producers — all to share their interest and their work in New York State History.

From its inception, Researching New York has highlighted the integral relationships between researchers and archival sources, encouraging presentations that highlight
the vast resources available to researchers as well as the scholarship drawn from those sources.

The Conference will be held on the University at Albany Uptown Campus. Registration will take place in the Science Library, Barnes & Noble Reading Room. This year we also have off-site sessions at the New York State Museum. As noted on the Conference schedule, transportation will be provided to conference attendees. While there is no
additional cost, you must reserve a space when you register. For conference updates, directions, maps, and information about local hotel accommodations, visit the Researching New York website.

Conference registration is $50.00 including all featured events, lunch and receptions. Advance registration is requested. Please be sure to include your name, institutional affiliation, and e-mail address with your check and also note if you would like to reserve a seat on the bus to the Museum. Send any questions or comments to [email protected].

Albany Institute Celebrates Mummy Collection

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They may be thousands of years old, but they don’t look a day over 101. In 1908, Samuel W. Brown, a prominent citizen of Albany and member of the Albany Institute of History & Art’s board of directors, was traveling through Cairo, Egypt, where he bought two mummies that he donated to the Institute. Since the day they arrived in Albany in 1909, the mummies and their coffins have become part of Albany history, seen by generations. More than 100 years later they remain objects of ongoing international study, slowly unveiling clues about the ancient world in which they once lived.

On Sunday, November 21, the Albany Institute will celebrate the 101th anniversary of the arrival of the famous Albany Mummies with art activities, stories, tours, and refreshments, all devoted to Albany’s oldest residents.

Children can bring a toy to mummify it in our studios from 1:00 to 4:00 pm. Tours of the Ancient Egypt exhibit will be held at 1:00 and 3:00 pm. Storytelling by Jeannine Laverty will take place at 2:00 pm. Yummy mummy treats will be provided by Gigi’s Treats. All activities are free with museum admission.

For more information contact Barbara Collins, Education Coordinator at [email protected], or call (518) 463-4478, ext. 405.

Photo: Partially unwrapped mummy, male, Late Dynastic to Early Ptolemaic Period, (525-200 BC). Courtesy Albany Institute of History and Art.

A Celebration of William and Henry James

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The contributions of William and Henry James will be highlighted at a presentation entitled At the Gateway to Modernism: A Celebration of William and Henry James on Wednesday, Nov. 10, from 6 to 8 p.m. at the University at Albany. The event, which is free and open to the public, will take place in the Standish Room of the Science Library on the uptown campus.

Renowned author Henry James and his brother William, a psychology professor and philosopher, had many ties to the Albany area, according to Associate Professor of English Mary Valentis, who organized the event as director of the Center for Humanities, Arts, and TechnoScience (CHATS). &#8220Many of the James family relatives are buried in Albany Rural Cemetery,&#8221 she said. &#8220The father graduated from the Albany Academy, and the grandfather made his fortune in Albany real estate.&#8221 Henry James even opened his story, Portrait of a Lady , in a brownstone on Albany’s State Street.

The significant works and pivotal thought of the two brothers helped shape the 20th Century and more particularly the intellectual, artistic, and philosophical moment now called modernism.
Henry and William James

Author Henry James and his brother William, a psychology professor and philosopher.

The panel of experts celebrating the James family will include:

• Professor Ronald A. Bosco, Distinguished Professor of English and American Literature at UAlbany,

• Professor Linda Simon of Skidmore College, and

• Dean of UAlbany’s College of Arts and Sciences Edelgard Wulfert, professor of psychology.

The celebration will extend to the spring semester, when on March 4, 2011, Henry James on the Stage will be featured at the UAlbany Performing Arts Center. From 3 to 5 p.m. on that day, Dr. Barbara Blatner, Yeshiva University Workshop, will do an adaptation of Henry James’s short stories for poetry and stage. From 7 to 10 p.m. that same evening, there will be a staged reading of Larry Lane’s new play inspired by Henry James’s Aspern Papers. Playwright and director Lane adapted Melville’s Bartleby the Scrivener for stage. After the reading, theater goers will have an opportunity to talk with Lane.

Photo: Author Henry James and his brother William, a psychology professor and philosopher.

New Netherland Research Center Opened

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A ribbon-cutting ceremony today officially opened the New Netherland Research Center (NNRC) on the 7th floor of the New York State Library in Albany. The NNRC will focus attention on New York State’s rich collection of historic Dutch Colonial documents and facilitate access to them for future scholars, teachers and students both here and abroad.

The New Netherland Research Center, which will provide access to the colonial Dutch documents held by the New York State Archives and New York State Library Manuscripts and Special Collections, is the first step in an international effort to launch a collaborative digitization project to share collections and archives from former Dutch colonies.

During the 2009 Quadricentennial celebration of Henry Hudson’s voyage opening up the New World to Dutch settlement, Dutch dignitaries, including the Prince of Orange and Princess Maxima of the Netherlands, visited the Cultural Education Center’s 1609 Exhibition.

At that visit the government of the Netherlands committed to a grant of €200,000 (approximately $275,000) to the New Netherland Institute to continue and expand the New Netherland Project by establishing a New Netherland Research Center. This gift, with matching support from the Institute, are expected to transform what started out as a translation project into a collaborative research initiative with international scope and context.

Modern technologies are hoped to make New York’s collections, along with those in other similar or complementary repositories, available digitally and to promote a more complete story of the Dutch global reach during the colonial period and its lasting impact on today’s world.

The NNRC is the culmination of a decades-long translation effort, the New Netherland Project, at the New York State Library. Dr. Charles Gehring is the project’s Director and principal translator. Dr. Janny Venema is Assistant Director. Both have worked to unlock the wealth of information in these collections by making them available in English. They have also written extensively and spoken widely on the scope and legacy of our early Dutch heritage.

Seventeenth century collections of government records in the New York State Archives and non-government documents in the Library’s Manuscripts and Special Collections constitute the world’s largest collection of early Dutch language documentation of the New World colonies. Encompassing what is now a large part of the northeastern United States, the early Dutch colony, its language, culture and laws, lie at the roots of much of our nation’s modern history. Scholars regularly explore the collections for insights into 17th century life in New Netherland. Russell Shorto relied heavily on Gehring and Vanema and the New York State collections in writing his book The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony that Shaped America.

The New York State Library is a program of the New York State Education Department’s Office of Cultural Education.

Lectures: Albanys Political, Landscape History

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The Albany Institute of History & Art will host two free lectures and book signings in November which look at the city’s past from different perspectives. On Sunday, November 7, 2010, at 2:00 pm Warren Roberts will present &#8220A Place in History: Albany in the Age of Revolution&#8221 Then, on Sunday November 14, 2010, at 2:00 pm Robert M. Toole will present &#8220Landscape Gardens on the Hudson, A History&#8221

These lectures are free and open to the public. Admission to the lectures does not include admission to the museum.

In 1998, Warren Roberts took a bicycle ride into the heart of the city in which he had lived for 35 years, beginning a 10-year journey into the history of Albany. Reading about the city’s past, poring over old maps, and returning again and again to the city’s historic sites with a camera, Roberts found that the more he delved into Albany’s history, the more he uncovered about the city’s important role in three larger historical narratives: the American Revolution, the French Revolution, and the construction of the Erie Canal. A Place in History examines how the events that unfolded along the Hudson River between 1775 and 1825 saved one revolution, caused another, and transformed Albany and the state of New York.

Landscape gardening is a hidden but unequaled historic resource along the Hudson River, exhibiting some of the most significant designed 19th-century landscapes in America—a legacy that continues today with the design of America’s urban parks and nearly every rural or suburban home. The first comprehensive study of the development of these landscapes, and the important role they played in the cultural underpinnings of the young United States, Landscape Gardens on the Hudson explores the Hudson Valley’s role as the birthplace of American landscape architecture.

On The Web: Helderberg Hill Towns Wiki

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Regular New York History reader and GeneaBloggers.com founder Thomas MacEntee wrote me recently to let me know about a wiki called Helderberg Hill Towns, and devoted to the the Hill Towns of Albany County.

Local native Hal Miller created the concept and arranged for volunteers to provide content to the site- the software installation and other technical components of the project were handled by MacEntee.

The site has 2,548 articles so far and growing, including architecture, biographies, businesses, cemeteries, documents, events, images, maps. military history, natural history, and a lot more.

Photo courtesy Helderberg Hilltowns Wiki.

New Expanded Saturday Hours for NYS Archives, Library

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The New York State Library and New York State Archives will institute new Saturday hours beginning on October 16th. Saturday hours of operation at the two facilities, located on the 7th and 11th floor of the Cultural Education Center (CEC) at the Empire State Plaza in Albany, will be from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Free public parking will be available in the Madison Avenue parking lots adjacent to the CEC. Directions and parking information is available on the New York State Museum website.

This new policy for expanded access does not affect the hours of the New York State Museum, which is open from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. seven days a week, except Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day, and New Year’s Day. However if a major holiday (e.g. July 4th, Memorial Day, Veteran’s Day) falls directly on a Saturday, the Library and Archives will not be open (checking their websites is advised for such holidays).

The New York State Library has served New Yorkers, New York State government and researchers from throughout the United States for more than 190 years. It is the largest state library in the nation and the only state library to qualify for membership in the Association of Research Libraries. The Library’s research collection of more than 20 million items includes major holdings in law, medicine, the social sciences, education, American and New York State history and culture, the pure sciences and technology.

The New York State Archives identifies, preserves, and makes available more than 200 million records of colonial and state government dating back to 1630 that have enduring
value to the public and private institutions and to all the people of the Empire State and the nation.