Jay (Essex County) author and editor Lee Manchester has published a number of volumes on the history of Essex County and its communities. The free, downloadable PDFs include five volumes compiled from the files of the late Lake Placid public historian Mary MacKenzie, a two-volume definitive anthology of 19th and 20th century materials on the McIntyre iron works and the Tahawus Club colony in Newcomb, better known as “the Deserted Village,” and two collections of Lee’s stories about history and historic hikes in and around Essex County.
For complete information, including download instructions, visit the Wagner College website. Print versions of all the volumes can also be ordered, at a cost that includes no markup, with the exception of Mary MacKenzie’s “The Plains of Abraham: A History of Lake Placid and North Elba”- royalties for print copies of “Plains” go to the Lake Placid Public Library, which maintains the Mary MacKenzie Historic Archives.
Online Resources
Winners of Play in the Parks App Contest
The New York State Chief Information Officer and Office for Technology (CIO/OFT), the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, and the Polytechnic Institute of New York University (NYU-Poly) have announced the winners of the NYS Play in the Parks App Contest.
The NYS Play in the Parks App Contest was an application development contest for graduate students at the NYU-Poly announced in April. Graduate students of NYU-Poly were challenged to create a web-based or mobile application proposal to help citizens discover the beauty and history of the New York State park system.
A panel of judges from the New York State Empire 2.0 Committee, the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation and NYU-Poly selected Yigit Kiran’s project proposal “Park Wise” as the grand prize winner. Mr. Kiran will receive a $2,000 scholarship provided by NYU-Poly and will develop his proposal as part of an unpaid internship at CIO/OFT. Mr. Kiran is a computer science student from Istanbul, Turkey.
“Park Wise” is aimed at helping users obtain information on what they see as they travel through parks by using the newest technological trends in human computer interaction. “Park Wise” will be developed as a mobile application to assist visitors of New York State parks. Individuals using the application can learn about the unique and historic sites in New York parks by pointing the camera of their mobile device at a key point of interest. For example, if users point a camera at the Helderberg Escarpment located in Thatcher State Park in Albany, they would learn it is one of the richest fossil-bearing formations in the world.
In addition, “Park Wise” will feature a navigation application. While wandering the parks, “Park Wise” will allow users to see their current location and where they are headed. “Park Wise” users will also have the ability to take photos of their experiences and share them on Facebook, comment on key points of interest, and read other users comments.
Two proposals were also selected as second place winners and each team will receive a $1,000 scholarship to NYU-Poly. The second place team winners were Kunjan Sanghvi, Nisarg Shah and Yogesh Trivedi- and a team comprised of Marvin Charles and Ram Kumar. Honorable Mentions in the contest were awarded to Avinash Vutukuri and Barn Durukan, who will each receive a $500 scholarship to further their educational goals.
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Vermont Historic Sites Now On Facebook
As opening day for most of Vermont’s State Historic Sites approaches, the state is looking to boost attendance by using the most modern method: Putting them on Facebook.
The Vermont State Historic Sites fan page was launched last month, and officials hope that the interactive social networking site will help promote the state’s 11 historic sites to a broader audience.
The Facebook fan page includes links to all of the sites- a calendar of events- and picture and video galleries for each site, as well as places for visitors and fans to post their own pictures and videos.
“Getting the historic sites on Facebook gives us a way to connect with new customers, and communicate with all of our fans,” said John Dumville, historic sites operations chief at the Vermont Division for Historic Preservation. “It’s an economical way to spread the word about these beautiful sites that were so important to Vermont’s history.”
The Bennington Battle Monument site opened for the season on April 17. Most of the state-owned historic sites – President Calvin Coolidge, Mount Independence, Justin Morrill Homestead, Hubbardton Battlefield, Eureka Schoolhouse, Old Constitution House, and Chimney Point State Historic Sites – open for the 2010 season on Saturday, May 29.
The Chester Arthur Birthplace and the Hyde Log Cabin sites will open on July 3. The state’s underwater preserve – consisting of five shipwrecks in Lake Champlain – is open May 29 through mid-October depending on weather conditions.
The push to increase visitors – and revenues – at the historic sites in a tight budget year means the state is doing everything it can to generate free publicity for the sites, Dumville said.
Officials at the Division for Historic Preservation are also partnering with the Vermont Department of Tourism and Marketing, which will promote the sites as part of their in-state advertising campaign.
Last year, there were 65,888 visitors to the sites – not including divers who visited the underwater preserve – down slightly over the previous year’s totals.
“We are working hard to increase traffic at the sites by offering a broad range of special events,” Dumville said. “And the renewed interest in the sites generated by the discovery of what may be the remains of an early French fort at the Chimney Point site as the result of the demolition of the Champlain Bridge is very encouraging.”
For more information about hours of operation or for a calendar of events, visit www.HistoricVermont.org/sites– on Facebook visit: http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Montpelier-VT/Vermont-State-Historic-Sites/312675181273
New York City Landmarks Law Celebrates 45 Years
In celebration of the forty-fifth anniversary of the New York City Landmarks Law, the New York Preservation Archive Project is launching a new website, landmarks45.org, to encourage recognition of this event and chronicle the past five decades of preservation history. This project is being done in partnership with Historic Districts Council, the Neighborhood Preservation Center and the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation.
Landmarks45.org features a group blog, a calendar of preservation-related events, a publicly editable preservation history wiki, and a dedicated space for preservationists to share their memories, photographs and documents. Users can edit the Preservation History Wiki – a growing chronology of NYC preservation history – or upload their own photographs and documents to the website via the blog comments.
Both individuals and organizations are encouraged to add their work to the record. Examples of material might include the story behind a particular landmarking campaign, notice of a group’s founding, or photographs of a forgotten protest. Contributions will both celebrate the many achievements of New York’s preservationists and help the Archive Project construct a detailed timeline of preservation history.
For further information, visit landmarks45.org or contact [email protected].
Adirondack Museum New -Social Media Event May 7th
History related new media / social media writers and producers are invited to gather at the Adirondack Museum on Friday, May 7, 2010 from 5 until 7 pm for a networking event and backstage tour of the Adirondack Museum’s exhibit “Let’s Eat: Adirondack Food Traditions”.
Bloggers, Twitter users, social media writers and producers and new media journalists, will be getting together in the Adirondack Museum’s “Living With Wilderness Gallery” for food, drink, and networking, before taking an early behind the scenes look at the Museum’s featured 2010 exhibit.
This event is sponsored by the Adirondack Pub and Brewery and the Adirondack Winery and Tasting Room (both in Lake George), the Adirondack Museum, and Adirondack Almanack.
Please RSVP by May 1st to John Warren at [email protected]
NYCs Trinity Wall Church Offers New Blog, Online Resources
Trinity Wall Street, the Episcopal Church in Lower Manhattan founded in 1697, has started a new blog. The Archivist’s Mailbag is an effort to publicize the archives and attract scholarly researchers interested in the church’s long and complex history. Multimedia Producer Leah Reddy says that “We like to say that the archives are ‘-the history of New York that nobody knows’, as they only recently became fully accessible and they stretch back to the earliest days of New York City history.”
Trinity Wall Street’s archives go back to 1695, making them an excellent resource for students of history–as well as those who want to shape the future. Trinity’s Archive was made fully accessible for the first time in 2003. In addition to its own history and the history of the city, Trinity’s records shed light on the development of the Episcopal Church and the Dioceses of New York. As landowner since 1705, its archives detail the stories of the New York neighborhoods now known as Tribeca and the West Village. Trinity’s congregants have included Alexander Hamilton and John Jay- among its tenants were Aaron Burr and John Jacob Astor.
Information about the scope of the archives can be found online as well as a guide to the holdings.
There is also an interactive timeline and an interactive search-the-churchyard feature.
Website Offers Free Access to Census Records
Footnote.com, one of the web’s most popular genealogy websites, is opening all of their U.S. census documents for free to the public for a limited time. Footnote.com’s “Interactive Census Collection” has the ability to connect people related to ancestors found on the historical documents.
Clicking the “I’m Related” button for a name on the document will identify you as a descendant and also list others that have done the same. To learn how to get started with the Interactive Census, visit: http://go.footnote.com/discover.
State Library Puts Revolutionary War Materials Online
The New York State Library has a new web page that highlights and links to materials relating to the American Revolutionary War that have been scanned from print copies in the State Library’s collection.
One of the items recently digitized is “The Balloting Book and Other Documents Relating to Military Bounty Lands in the State of New York,” which contains copies of several acts relative to Revolutionary War bounty lands and the payment given of officers and soldiers for service in the War. An alphabetical listing of the names of soldiers and officers in each regiment is provided and includes the rank and company of the soldier, the township number, the lot number, the acreage, and date of patent.
Another item recently digitized is “New York in the Revolution as Colony and State,” a compilation of papers that relate to the services performed by New York in the Revolutionary War, including muster and pay rolls of men serving in the Line, Levies, Militia, and Navy (Privateers).
In addition, several manuscript documents have been digitized. For example (shown above), “A Representation of Major John Andre, Adjutant General to the Kings Forces in North America, Going From the Vulture Sloop of War to the Shore of Havershaw [sic] Bay in Hudsons [sic] River the Night of the 23d. of September 1780, in a Boat Which Was Sent For Him […]” is a digital copy of an engraving from a drawing sketched by Major Andre on the morning on which he was executed.
Free Access to Women and Social Movements Database
To celebrate Women’s History Month, the database Women and Social Movements in the United States 1600-2000, Scholar’s Edition, will be freely accessible for the month of March so that anyone with an interest can explore the site’s collection of primary materials and teaching tools. No passwords or fees are required.
WASM Scholar’s edition includes 91 document projects and archives, almost 40,000 pages of full-text sources, a separate database of 90,000 pages of publications of federal, state, and local commissions on the status of women, and the exclusive online edition of the research classic, Notable American Women.