History Community to Albany As part of the REDC funding, I LoveNY has the opportunity to award $13.5 million to applicants. The description in the REDC awards booklet is: Market New York is a grant program established to strengthen tourism and attract visitors to New York State by promoting destinations, attractions and special events. Funding […]
State of New York State History
Should Andrew Jackson Have Banned Catholics?
Field of Dreams in the City on a Hill For centuries the City on a Hill has been buffeted by the tides of religious strife threatening to undo the realm that the eyes of the world are upon. We all remember the dread experienced by the Puritans when confronted by the quaking Quakers. These fearsome […]
January History News
Image from Who Was Walter Cronkite During the month of January, a number of history-related actions occurred that may be of interest to the larger history community. Below are brief notices about these items including the topics of: Funding Training I Love NY Signs State Museum County Meetings: Saratoga and Putnam Counties Indian Paths in […]
Demographic Deluge or Democratic Disaster? The 2016 Elections
Clinton-Trump Probably Won’t Be The Next ‘Dewey Defeats Truman’ by Harry Enten, October 16, 2016 (Getty Images) When the 2016 election year began, the Democrats were singing “Happy days are here again.” The old FDR song seemed very appropriate for the coming year. The Democrats expected to win the presidential election. The Democrats expected a […]
New York State Indian Paths through History
The diminished status of local and state history in New York extends to the first human settlers here as well. First contact between the European colonists and the Indian Nation inhabitants famously begins with Henry Hudson sailing the river the river that flows both ways that now bears his name. Over the course of the […]
2020 Presidential Election: The Battle Is Engaged
The 2016 presidential election was distinctively different from all previous ones. It continues to reverberate throughout the land. It was the subject of two posts here. First on the historical role of New York State governors in presidential elections from Martin Van Buren who became president to the Cuomos who have not so far. The […]
Who Will Tell Our State Story?
Who Will Tell Our State Story?: Demographic Decline and the Demise of New York State History The decline in the population of New York State bodes poorly for the preservation of New York State history as a viable component of the social fabric. The implications are disastrous although not immediate. There is still time to […]
Women’s Suffrage Centennial Conference
Another conference I attended during the slowdown period of posts was the second Women’s Suffrage Centennial conference hosted by Spike Herzig and the New York Cultural Heritage Tourism Network (NYCHTN). It was held October 7 in Waterloo, next door to Seneca Falls. The inaugural conference in 2015 was quite memorable for all the wrong reasons […]
County Clerks/County Historians: A Match Made in Albany?
As the year winds down, I am trying to catch up on the conference reports from the time when I switched to an electronic newsletter and new website. During that period I fell behind and haven’t caught up. So here goes. On October 14, I attended a conference in Albany between the New York State […]
Signs of the Times: Follow the Money and Not the Cuomo versus Federal Government Showdown
On November 2, Jon Campbell , the Albany correspondent for Gannet, reported in the Poughkeepsie Journal under the byline Politics on the Hudson on an exciting new tourist development in our dysfunctional state. According to his report, Cuomo had the Department of Transportation (DOT) install “514 highway signs touting its tourism programs despite a federal […]