Tourism Action Day occurred on March 12 this year, one week after Parks Advocacy Day. The sequence worked out well for me as I got to see some legislators twice in a very brief time. Tourism Action Day was organized by the Tourist Industry Coalition. According to its website, the New York State Tourism Industry […]
State of New York State History
Historians Podcast: Peter Feinman on the State of the New York History Community
This week on The Historians podcast, Peter Feinman outlines a strategy to encourage New York State to do more to preserve and promote history. Bob Cudmore www.bobcudmore.com Historians Podcast, Lost Mohawk Valley Focus on History in Daily Gazette Talk of the Town, Magic 590+100.5 FM 518 346-6657 https://soundcloud.com/obudmore/peter-feinmanthe-historiansfriday-march-16-2018
Imperiled Promise: History and the NYSOPRHP
Imperiled Promise is the name of an NPS-commissioned study on the state of history within the NPS. The subject was the focus of a series of posts in 2017. The consultants (professors) hired to conduct the study interviewed NPS staff, gathered data, and produced a report documenting the history situation and recommending changes. Given the […]
NYSOPRHP Advocacy
On March 5, I participated in Park Advocacy Day in Albany. The event was organized by Parks & Trails New York. As you might suspect, even though the term “Historic Preservation” is contained within the name NYSOPRHP, the state organization also is responsible for 35 historic sites as was mentioned several times during the course […]
Negroes and the American Dream: Hidden Figures, Open Dreams
The story of middle passage blacks in New York now moves to the 20th century. So far various posts have covered * the diminishment of the story of middle passage blacks during the two centuries time of slavery until 1827 and some of the efforts to recover and tell the story (see Forgetting July 4, […]
Historic Preservation: The New York City Experience
On Saturday, March 3, I attended the 24th annual Preservation Conference run by the Historic Districts Council (HDC). According to its website: Our mission is to ensure the preservation of significant historic neighborhoods, buildings and public spaces in New York City, uphold the integrity of New York City’s Landmarks Law, and further the preservation ethic. […]
Twelve Years a Slave – What about the Other Years?
Solomon Northup, born 1808, died around 1863, was a slave for 12 years from 1841 to 1853. What about the rest of his life? What about his life as a free person for the first 32/3 years of his life? What about his life for the last ten or so years of life? In the […]
Undoing the Whitewashing of Black History in New York
In this post, I continue an issue I first wrote about on June 16, 2016, Forgetting July 4, 1827. The post addressed some of the ways the first two centuries of black history in New York from slavery to emancipation had been forgotten or downplayed over the years. The post included some examples of people, […]
Signs of the Times: The $14 Million I Love NY Signs
The I Love NY Interstate Highway signs are back in the news and for all the wrong reasons. I first reported on the construction of these illegal signs back on December 5, 2016 in the post Signs of the Times: Follow the Money and Not the Cuomo versus Federal Government Showdown The subject were the […]
Create the New York Association for State and Local History (NYASLH)
The time has come to create the New York Association for State and Local History (NYASLH). There is a void, an absence of leadership in the state history community. There is no one to speak on behalf of the community at the statewide level. Many people work quite hard and often for no money on […]