IHARE – Teacherhostels, History and Archaeology Programs
George Bailey is alive and well and living in New York. No, not in Seneca Falls which claims to be the inspiration for It’s A Wonderful Life’s Bedford Falls, but in Cattaraugus, south of Buffalo. There Patrick J. Cullen serves as the president of the Bailey Savings and Loan AKA the Bank of Cattaraugus (see The Bank Around the Corner by Alan Feuer, New York Times). Continue reading “The George Bailey of New York History”
The fact that New York State has no official celebration of the Civil War Sesquicentennial or the War of 1812 Bicentennial is no secret. The question that isn’t being asked is: Why not?
To say that New York doesn’t have the money misses the point. Every state has financial problems but somehow other states are able to do something officially on the state level on behalf of these historic anniversaries. Why not New York? Hasn’t New York always generously supported historical anniversaries in the past? 🙂 Continue reading “‘Lost Cause’: NY and Confederate History”
Another one bites the dust. That was the message of a recent article in the New York Times (Mourning a Cultural Hub Disguised as a Used Bookstore, November 28, 2011) about the closing of a book store in Metuchen, NJ. As one patron of the bookstore noted of the owner, “(H)e turned it into a kind of a clubhouse for the community [where everyone knew your name] and somehow it worked.” Continue reading “What’s On Your New York History Reading List?”
That was the headline of a major article in the New York Times on November 25. In case you missed it while shopping on Black Friday, it was a scathing indictment of the State’s commitment to history. The byline for the article was Sackets Harbor, home to a New York State Historic Preservation Site. Continue reading “For War of 1812 Bicentennial, Indifference from Albany”
This is the third in a series of posts on the New York State History infrastructure. The previous ones were on County Historians and Municipal Historians. These posts draw on my experiences in initiating a series of county history conferences in the Hudson Valley this year and on Teacherhostels/Historyhostels I have conducted such as the one to the Mohawk Valley this past summer prior to Irene. Continue reading “County Historical Societies”
This is the second in a series of posts on the New York State History infrastructure. The previous one was on County Historians. These posts draw on my experiences in initiating a series of county history conferences in the Hudson Valley this year and on Teacherhostels / Historyhostels I have conducted such as the one to the Mohawk Valley this summer prior to Tropical Storm Irene. Continue reading “Municipal Historians”
Based on the county history conferences which I initiated in the Hudson Valley this year, I would like to take this opportunity to share my experiences and to offer some suggestions on changes which should occur. I am starting with the County Historian position since that position was my point of contact for proposing each conference. I dealt with 8 counties in the Hudson Valley and while they may not be a fair sample of the 62 counties in the state, they are a reasonable number upon which to base my comments. Also it should be noted that I was the constant, meaning I was the same person who interacted with all 8 counties.
An overview of the situation reveals the following:
a. One county did not have a County Historian but a conference was held anyway. This situation should be resolved with the election of a new county executive November 8. Ironically legislation passed this year to recognize the upcoming 300th anniversary calls for the participation of the County Historian. There is no real county archives facility either.
b. One county had a County Historian who participated in the conference but then transferred to another [better paying?] position in the County Government. It is expected that after the November 8 elections, the new County Executive will appoint a County Historian especially since 2012 is the bicentennial for the county. That individual would be the fourth County Historian in about six years. The office is located in the County Archives.
c. One county has a private organization designated as the County Historian. The county did not have a conference. The organization is located in the same building as the County Archives.
d. One county had a County Historian who approved the County Conference, retired about two weeks before it, and did not participate in it. The new and much younger County Historian attended the meeting and afterwards instituted brown-bag lunches in the historic building at the county capital where the office is located. The job description is impressive.
e. One county had a County Historian who recently passed away and was replaced by much younger person with a day job in an unrelated area. The County Historical Society was very active in making the County History conference happen in partnership with the County Historian.
f. One county has an ill County Historian and did not have a County History conference. The County Historical Society has picked up the leadership role.
g. One county has a fairly new County Historian who succeeded a longtime historian who died. The County directory includes the Historian but the website listing of county departments does not. The historian is closely affiliated with the County Historical Society and was instrumental in making the County History Conference and was the first speaker.
h. One county has a County Historian who has access to county facilities such as photocopying, printing, and postage but does not appear to have an office. The County Historian is closely affiliated with the County Historical Society and was instrumental in making the County History happen.
As Bruce Dearstyne has recently pointed out, the County Historian position is mandated by New York State. In this regard it may be considered an unfunded mandate where counties have great discretion in the funding and responsibilities. As a result, the actual activities of the County Historian may vary widely. I recommend that following about the County Historian position:
1. The position should be filled in all counties and by an individual human being, not an organization.
2. The County Historian should be responsible for the county records or work closely with the person who is.
3. The County Historian should work closely with the County Tourist Department. The proposed legislation, the Travel Regional Investment Partnership (TRIP) Act to promote domestic tourism by partnering public and private dollars through a competitive matching grant program within the U.S. Department of Commerce with New York Senators Gillibrand and Schumer as cosponsors is an example. Heritage tourism represents an underutilized asset in the New York.
4. The County Historian should work closely with schools in the county. Since there are no county education departments, this will be done mostly at the local level. The County Historian should work closely with the SUNY community college if one exists in the county or is shared between two counties.
5. The County Historian should work closely with the municipal historians in the county including (a) having a up-to-date list of who they are, (b) an email contact list either with a municipality email address or a personal one if none is provided by the municipality, and (c) through informal gatherings.
6. Job descriptions should be standardized as much as possible and posted on the County website. The position should be listed in the County’s list of departments.
7. The State Historian should prepare an annual report on the state of the County Historians based on the annual reports received from each of them.
Since many private county historical societies may predate the creation of the public county historian position, there often may be a close relation between the two as seen in the above examples. Exactly what that relationship should is a subject worthy of discussion as well.
A survey of where things stand at the moment would be in order, but who would conduct it? The following message has been on the website of The Association of Public Historians of New York State website since prior to the county conferences which began in March and I searched for lists of municipal historians in the counties to invite them to the conferences.
“We are currently in the next phase of our database/search overhaul. All listings in the ‘Find a NYS Public Historian’ web search have been temporarily removed. Over the next month, we will be reloading this online search function Region-by-Region as all municipalities and their Historian appointments are verified. As each Region is uploaded, we will send out a notice, so members can also verify their information.
We thank all of our members for their patience during this process. It is taking some time, but we believe that the effort and end-result will be well-received and prove very useful to APHNYS members, researchers and the public at large.
If you have any additional questions about the database/search function overhaul,
please contact the APHNYS Office at aphnys@caphill.com.”
http://www.aphnys.org/associations/7653/historiansearch.cfm
Clearly at this point in time, it may be said that the situation with the county historian infrastructure requires drastic improvement. The investigation of other elements of the New York State history infrastructure witnessed in the course of conducting the county history conferences will be reported in subsequent columns.
When I was growing up in New Rochelle, more years ago than I care to remember, one required trip in the new suburban world which was being created was to Rye Playland. It was a standard family and summer camp trip from a more innocent time. I wasn’t even able to enjoy all the rides since I wasn’t tall enough to reach the red line that marked the difference between childhood and adulthood. Of course, soon after crossing that threshold, the summer camp trip ended and there were other places to go. Continue reading “Squandering the Opportunity of Crisis: Long Island Sound History”
In 2010, I attended the New York State History Association conference in Ithaca which included such sessions as Doing History in New York State and Historical Societies in the 21st Century among others. In addition there was time to talk about a subject near and dear to my heart: teaching local and state history. I spoke with Bruce Dearstyne and Carol Kammen there who now are also contributors to New York State History. We shared an interest in the topic and recognized that the discussion of this topic itself had become an historic item in its own right given how long it has been going on. Continue reading “Considering County History Conferences”
In response to my recent posts (Parts 1, and 2) on Irene and New York State History which included excerpts from an email from Old Fort Johnson asking for help, I received the following update from Museum Director Alessa Wylie: Continue reading “Old Fort Johnson and Irene: An Update”
by Peter Feinman
by Peter Feinman
by Peter Feinman
