January History News

February 5, 2017
by Peter Feinman

What's the News across the Nation? We have got the information.

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 Manhattan

1. Funding

The Fortress Niagara newsletter for December (which I received in January) contained an important funding notice. Thanks to State Senator Rob Ortt, Old Fort Niagara received a check for $10,000 to assist the fort in its educational programs. Six other museums in the county received state funding through the auspices of the State Senator as well.

What made this notice fascinating was that the funding occurred outside the REDC process. Since there are no more Member Items, I was curious as to how the State Senator was able to procure such funding for the 7 museums. The answer is that Republican senators, since they are the majority, have access to a funding pool which may be apportioned at their discretion. In effect, it works a little like Member Items. So if you are a museum or historical society in need of some funding and have a Republican State Senator, now is the time to contact that person as the budget process begins.

2. Training

In a previous post, I wrote about the need for training of municipal historians starting at the county level. I suggested a week long program in Albany involving various state agencies and a culminating reception with the Governor in the Executive Mansion. I received the following comment from one eager county historian:

When will the week-long session be given?

I am definitely interested.

Take a survey and use the numbers to advance your splendid idea.

Joseph P. Bottini
Oneida County Historian

Here is an area where it is possible to begin to develop a history community advocacy agenda. Are municipal historians interested in a state-funded training program to be held in Albany and to include the state Archives, Education, Historian, Library, Museum, Parks, I Love NY, and REDC departments so everyone knows what a municipal historian is supposed to do and the person has been trained to do it?

3. Follow-up on I Love NY Signs

Since my original post in December, there have been new developments in the SAGA OF THE SIGNS. In December the Albany Bureau of USA Today Network which had been spearheading the investigation in to the controversy, filed a FOIL with the State Comptroller’s Office for the relevant contracts entered into by the State. The documents were received last week.

The update article was published in various newspapers throughout the state. Reporter Jon Campbell’s lead sentence reads:

The state Department of Transportation used emergency highway contracts and paid out thousands of dollars in overtime to install hundreds of I Love NY highway signs ahead of July 4 weekend last year.

Normally “emergency” means “urgent highway repairs.” According to Mike Elmendorf, president and CEO of the state Associated General Contractors, this usage was “’not typical.’”

The documents reveal that the costs of the project substantially added to the almost $2 million cost for the signs themselves. For example, in the Rochester area, the cost to install the 14 signs was $300,000. In Broome, Tioga, and Otsego, $200,000 was paid but the number of signs was not provided in the documents received. In Long Island the cost was $448,153. The multi-colored signs of complex graphics cost $5,800 apiece with the smaller signs only costing $2,825.

Part of the expense was due to the rush to installation requiring weekend work.

That drew questions from Susan Malatesta, a contract management specialist with the Comptroller’s Office, who directed her staff to ask why the extra costs were necessary.

“Why pay more to get these signs up fast?,” she wrote in September 21 email.

Ultimately, DOT told the Comptroller’s Office the extra spending was to ensure the Long Island signs were up by the summer travel season. The Comptroller’s Office signed off on the spending request. Cuomo, who has been an outspoken supporter of the signs, likely got a first-hand look that weekend: He spent July 4 in the Hamptons, according to his public schedule.

Elmendorf’s words bear notice. He is a critic of the signs and said the money could have been better spent.

I think the bigger concern is using capital dollars for something that certainly has no benefit to infrastructure and, I think you could argue, has negligible benefit for tourism, because they don’t really tell you anything.

Exactly right. Cuomo has paid millions to market the Path through History concept but no money to create actual paths through history. For a person who wants to be president of the United States in a time of great national division, it is astonishing that he would engage in alternative facts and be so dismissive of the local and state history that helped make America great in the first place.

4. “NEW YORK STATE’S GREAT PLACES AND SPACES” PROGRAM AT THE STATE MUSEUM ON JANUARY 14

Representatives from state historic sites and cultural institutions provided educational hands-on activities, unique artifacts to explore, and information about upcoming events during the annual “New York State’s Great Places and Spaces” program at the New York State Museum. Participating institutions included the Adirondack Museum, Albany Institute of History & Art, Albany Pine Bush, Burden Iron Works, Civil War Round Table, Crailo State Historic Site, Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library & Museum, Historic Cherry Hill, Guilderland Historical Society, Johnson Hall State Historic Site, Knox’s Headquarters State Historic Sites, New Windsor Cantonment, NYS Office of Parks, Recreation & Historic Preservation, Olana State Historic Site, Saratoga National Historical Park, Saratoga Racing & Hall of Fame, Schenectady Historical Society, Schoharie Crossing State Historic Site, U.S. Grant Cottage Historic Site, and U.S. Naval Landing Party.

This event is an annual one in State Museum. In previous years, I have worked with Bob Weible, the former New York State Historian, to create a Teacherhostel/Historyhostel through this event. Bob and some invited speakers would talk about New York State history in the morning. In the afternoon, there would be a guided tour depending on the exhibits on display and a chance to meet with the people from the various historic organizations which had display tables. My recommendation is that such a program be done on an annual basis in combination with the general public program.

5. County Meetings – Roundtables

a. Saratoga (Champlain Canal Region)

Lakes to Locks Passage, a nonprofit organization with the mission to inspire people to discover, honor, celebrate and share the stories that connect our lives and foster vibrant communities for future generations, called the meeting held at the Saratoga Town Hall. Historians, museums, libraries, cultural groups, political leaders and community members were invited for a roundtable discussion on “Social Reform Movements of the 19th Century in the Champlain Canal Region of New York.” Stories gathered at the roundtable are to be used to design public humanities programs on themes related to social reform movements during the Industrial Revolution.

The roundtable discussion highlights how the Industrial Revolution reshaped the fabric of society as rural communities transitioned to industrial societies with technological, economic and political repercussions. The cultural disruption triggered social reform with statewide and national impacts as voices were heard in the Champlain Canal region calling for workers’ rights, women’s suffrage, abolition, the Underground Railroad, and new religious communities emerged. The discussion was facilitated by two humanities scholars, John Patterson, former Associate Professor of American Studies and History at Penn State Harrisburg, and Robert Weible, former State Historian and Chief Curator of the New York State Museum.

Unfortunately I was not able to attend this meeting. Several thoughts came to when I read this notice of it.

1. Similar meetings on that topic certainly seem appropriate for the Hudson Valley and the Erie Canal Corridor.

2. It would be useful when county and regional meetings are held, if the organizers would prepare a write up about the meeting perhaps for New York History Blog or a list serve for the New York State History community.

3. What are the programs which are to be developed as a result of the meeting? The odds are similar programs would be beneficial elsewhere and/or may already have been instituted or are in progress. Unless we share what we are doing everyone will always have to reinvent the wheel. There definitely are some conference venues where such sharing is possible.

b. Putnam County

The Putnam County Historian’s Office invited the local historical community to attend a collaborative Roundtable to discuss plans for commemorating the Centennial anniversaries of Women’s Suffrage and the US entry into WWI. Sarah Johnson, the now-fulltime County Historian, reached out to all town historians, historical societies, museums, local libraries, and civic organizations to share resources collaboratively and jointly organize cultural offerings in cooperation with one another to make our collective resources go further and avoid duplicating efforts.

I was able to attend this meeting. We discussed in particular the use of local materials including in the collections of the historical societies and the family collections in the community of material related to these topics. Questions were raised regarding offering public programming about these topics, individually or as part of a county-wide or regionally-wide effort, host local outreach efforts to gather oral histories, and public history days to collect scans of archival material from your local community. One possibility to draw high school students was to tell the story of what happened in their own community or residents of their communities serving overseas. These performances would strengthen the civic bonds necessary for a healthy social fabric across the generations.

6. Indian Paths in Manhattan

In response to my post on New York State Indian Paths through History, a Greenwich Village reporter wrote:

Hi, do you have information on Indian paths in the Downtown / Village area of Manhattan? Basically, anything below, say, 34th St.?

I forwarded the query to Mike Misconie, the Manhattan Borough Historian who sent the following:

I would refer Lincoln to the Welikia Project (formerly known as the Mannahatta Project), the brainchild of Eric Sanderson of the Wildlife Conservation Society. The project digitally recreates the flora, fauna, and landscape of the NYC region of 1609. Eric has done extensive research, gathering information from far-flung historical and scientific sources, to reach his conclusions. I suggest you visit welikia.org to learn more about Eric’s work.

The project’s companion book “Mannahatta” has a chapter (number four) on the native inhabitants of today’s Manhattan, their settlements, and trails. In fact, page 105 shows a map of the Lenape trails.

The data from the project has been loaded into a website of OasisNYC, so you can see the trails (and a LOT of other stuff) without buying the book. Here is how to see the trails:

Go to this webpage: http://www.oasisnyc.net/ .
Click the link labeled “1609 Mannahatta imagery” in the text of the second bullet-point paragraph.
A map will appear. To the right of the page is a list of menu headings with check boxes. Uncheck all the boxes that are already checked (under the menu headings “Transit, Roads, Reference Features” and “Parks, Playgrounds and Open Space”). The map should now be essentially blank except for a satellite-style image of pre-colonial Manhattan.
Open the menu heading “Historical Land Use.” Then check the box marked “1609 Lenape Trails.” The trails will appear on the map.

If you wish to contact Eric, here is his e-address: esanderson@wcs.org .

As you may know, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian is located in downtown Manhattan. They may have more or better information on this topic, but I’m not sure. You may want to contact them if Eric’s data prove inadequate.

I recognize that these six items do not encompass all that has occurred in January that would be of interest to the larger New York State Community. But they do highlight the need to better disseminate what people are doing or want to do since the odds are there are others throughout the state with similar interests and concerns.

Now what we need is a New York History podcast!

Demographic Deluge or Democratic Disaster? The 2016 Elections

February 4, 2017
by Peter Feinman

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 “third term” for both the incumbent and the previous Democratic president. The Democrats expected to win back the Senate. The Democrats expected to make significant gains in the House. As we all know, those dreams were not fulfilled and the vision of a robust return to power were dashed by the great disrupter. Actually there is more to the story than one individual, something the Democrats need to keep in mind if they are serious about reversing the results the next time around.

Starting at the top, the Democrats didn’t do as well as they had in the 2012 presidential elections. Last time, the Democratic candidate won just over 51% of the popular vote. This time around the result was just over 48%, a drop of approximately 3%. That decrease is a significant number, roughly triple the 1% drop in the Republican percentage from just over 47% to just over 46%. In part both declines may be attributed to the disgust by voters over the two main choices. Still the large decline in the Democratic vote should give pause to those who focus on the plurality vote total and ignore the percentage trend.

One obvious area of concern is the women’s vote. As we enter the period of suffrage centennials, the white women vote did not go as hoped for by the Democrats. Despite all the egregious comments and actions by the Republican candidate who loves women only when he grabs them and they meet his age, race, and physical standards, white women voted 53% for him. That was not the expected result in the presidential election with the first female candidate of a major party.

In this regard, it is time for the Democrats to put Madeline Albright out to pasture. Her admonition about there being a special place in hell for women who don’t help women is part of what was fundamentally wrong with the Democratic candidate. It is a racist comment that discounts black women who supported Barack Obama in the 2008 Democratic primary; her implication is that “women” means “white women” the way “actor” means “white person.” It is a sexist comment that denies women the right to choose be it a Mitt Romney, Bernie Sanders, or Donald Trump without being a traitor to their gender. That attitude of moral superiority and zealousness for the cause did not go over well with white women in the Day 1 march who did not share agreement on every item on the approved list of “women’s issues.” At some point, the Democrats might want to consider why they are alienating white women even with a world class pig in White House.

Besides touting the popular vote win, Democrats also like to point out the narrowness of the electoral win. While it certainly is true that the winner did not win in a landslide except in Trumpietown, his narrow victory still raises warning signs for the Democrats. Consider state of Wisconsin. Trump’s margin of victory was under 1% numbering in the thousands of votes, a seemingly small amount. By contrast, Obama won the state by close to 7% and over 200,000 votes. Those numbers are too big a shift to attribute to Russian intervention or the FBI. Wake up and smell the coffee.

One wonders why the state never appeared on the Democratic radar. One wonders why the Democratic candidate never appeared in a state that shifted over 7% in the vote in one election cycle. I recall reading just before the election a smug condescending out-of-touch-with-the-real-world blogger who confidently predicted a Democratic victory in 2016 comparable to the one in 2012 (332 votes). Maybe it would be even better with over 350 electoral college votes if some of the Republican states flipped Democratic. I suspect this attitude may have been too prevalent among the Democratic elitists for them to see what was happening in the real world.

Wisconsin should not have been that big a surprise. The state has a Republican governor, Scott Walker. After he was first elected he won a hard-fought recall election. In 2014, Walker won for a third time with a 6.7% margin. There are Republican majorities in both chambers of the state legislature. Ron Johnson, the Republican incumbent candidate for Senate in 2016 won by about 3% and 100,000 votes. His seat was one the Democrats were counting on to win. The losing Democratic presidential and senate candidates won approximately the same number of votes. The Republican victory margin differs from 3% to under 1% in the two races because a third party candidate in the presidential race siphoned off votes that went for the Republican senate candidate.

These numbers mean that if the Republicans had nominated an adult for president instead of the loser of the Wisconsin Republican presidential primary, the margin of victory would have been closer to the 3% margin of victory in the Senate race. In other words, while the Democrats salivated over the prospect of Arizona flipping as New Mexico, Colorado, and Virginia have, they lost track of what was happening in the blue wall, their “own backyard.”

In approximately 80% of the states, Democrats did worse in 2016 than in 2012. This reduction occurred even when they won a state both times. This is Huge! Ohio was not even a battleground. The state the Democrats won by 2% in 2012, they lost by over 8.5% this time around. That’s no due to the Russians either. The Ohio senate race which was supposed to be hard-fought with a big-name Democratic candidate turned into a 21% drubbing. Hundreds of counties nationwide which had voted Democratic in 2012 voted Republican in 2016. Maps showing the trends from the last election to this one show Republican gains almost everywhere.

What is the explanation for these results? One answer by the losing Democratic candidate was that the voters for her opponent were deplorables. Well, maybe not all of them, just 47%. No data to support that conclusion were provided. As it turns out, the deplorables were just as capable of adopting the slur from the enemy as nasty women have been on the reverse side. As with Albright’s admonition and the smug take-it-for granted attitude of elitist bloggers, deplorables is a concept best relegated to dustbin if Democrats are serious about reversing the trends which have occurred following the 2008 elections.

Then, of course, there is the demographic wave of the future. Even if the Democrats do nothing, in time the demographic changes sweeping the country guarantee Democratic victories despite the temporary setbacks. For years now the Democrats have been waiting for Godot, for the magic moment when the new America of immigrants of color would sweep the country and turn the electoral map Democrat.

This demographic deluge has produced results in California and perhaps Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico. So far the eagerly anticipated browning of America has not occurred. The vote totals in the last election by Latin American immigrants and their offspring were comparable to those in 2008 and 2012, in the 27-28% range. George Bush’s 40% vote represents a high point for Republicans but one that would do damaging results to Democratic aspirations if repeated.

What have the Democrats accomplished with their over-the-top rhetoric incessantly repeated that a demographic deluge is coming, that the old America is dying and that a new progressive one is being born? A great politician once said for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. So far the biggest impact of the rhetoric by the self-righteous zealots prophesizing the end is near has been to scare white people that the fate of their country is at risk due to alien invaders. How has that worked out for the Democrats?

It gets worse for the Democrats. What happens to the Democratic vision of identity politics if immigrants from Latin America (and Asia) intermarry with immigrants from Europe? What happens to the Democratic vision of identity politics if the Republicans catch on that Latin Americans Pope Francis, Fidel Castro, Marco Rubio, and Giselle Bündchen are not people of color? What happens to the Democratic vision of identity politics if Republicans catch on that immigrants from Latin America like immigrants from Europe know not only their continent of origin but their country, village, town, city, and ethnicity too? What happens to the Democratic vision of identity politics if Republicans catch on that immigrants from Latin American like immigrants from Europe want to live the American Dream? What happens to the Democratic vision of identity politics if Republicans catch on that immigrants from Latin America like immigrants from Europe are proud to be Americans and to be part of We the People? Contrary to the Democratic wishes, Latin American immigrants are not middle-passage blacks where Democratic unanimity can be taken for granted. Should the Democrats take for granted that the party of malice will remain stupid forever? Alternative facts aren’t limited to just one party.

If the Democrats don’t like the election results they have no one to blame but themselves. Joe Biden for President and Elizabeth Warren for Vice President and none of this would be happening.

2020 Presidential Election: The Battle Is Engaged

January 27, 2017
by Peter Feinman

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 previous New Yorker presidential election in 1944 featured two people, Roosevelt and Dewey, with state governor backgrounds. The most recent election offered two people with no political executive experience. The second post focused on the 22nd amendment. Without it the husband incumbent would have kept running for additional terms beyond the two-term limit and the wife never would have been considered as a candidate…except in the way dictators for life might seek to circumvent the rules by relinquishing their position in favor of their wife.

Since the election, the new and unique haven’t ceased. This transition period is the first time when a president-elect began conducting himself as if he already was the president. While he had no legal power, the electoral-college winner acted as if he was the president. His tweets and pronouncements may have been devoid of statutory power at the time, but they previewed what was going to happen once he took the oath of office. It was as if we had two presidents simultaneously, not a president and a co-president of vote for one you get two, but more like Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis having overlapping jurisdictions.

A second change during the transition period was the identification of an opposition candidate for the next election in 2020. Andy Cuomo, the New York State Governor, has all but officially announced his intention to run in 2020 even before his own re-re-election campaign for 2018. He will not be a Hamlet-of-the-Hudson” as his father was: “To be a candidate or not to be a candidate that is question.” There is no doubt in his mind. He is positioning himself upfront as the leader around whom Democrats should rally. As a governor he has ability to actually do things that talk-talk Senators can only talk about. On the other hand, Senators more easily have a national platform than governors…but not necessarily as much as media celebrities! Will George Clooney run in real life as he did in reel life? In any event, the race has started. The battle is engaged.

A third change manifested itself the day after the inauguration. It was the day when the Nasty Women said they were as mad as hell and were not going to take it anymore. The Nasty Women with their pussy hats sought to negate the insult of Donald Trump by embracing it as their own label. This action reminds me of when a group of Protestants in England back in the 1720s developed a new way of worship and reading the Bible. They were mocked by fellow classmates at Oxford for their unusual “methods.” The targets of this derogatory slur then adopted the term for their own name and became Methodists. The Nasty Woman may join the Tea Party as new names in the political arena that render the staid party names obsolete or less meaningful. The battle is engaged.

A fourth development may be a repeat of something we have not experienced since 1956. That presidential election was a replay of the 1952 election with the same Republican and Democratic candidates. In both instances, Dwight D. Eisenhower handily defeated Adlai E. Stevenson in both the popular vote and the Electoral College. While it seems likely the Republican candidate will run again in 2020, will the Democratic candidate run again again? The answer is conditional. It depends on whether or not she is alive. It’s not rocket science. As to what she will do in the interim, that is another question. Will the Democratic Party hand her the nomination as it worked to do this time? Probably not. Since she is not a fighter except to claim that to which she is entitled, how will she handle her first political contest when she is not the heir apparent and/or presumptive favorite? Is she still entitled? Is it still her turn? This battle is not yet engaged while she remains on hiatus.

The election itself produced a number of surprising results with implications for 2020. According to our new president, Mitt Romney ran the worst presidential campaign ever. As a longtime student of American history who is well-versed in the previous elections, our new president is the most qualified person in the country to render such a judgement. After all Romney only received 47.2% of the popular vote while Donald Trump received 46.1%. Clearly 47.2% is worse in alternative math and a horrendous total befitting a loser which our current president is not.

But elections are not won based on the popular vote but through the Electoral College. Here our new president with 306 votes minus 2 electors who declined to vote for him claims a landslide even with 46.1% of the popular vote. So let’s look at the presidential elections of the last century without compensating for Hawaii and Alaska becoming states.

Republicans with over 400 Electoral Votes

1984 Ronald Reagan 525
1972 Richard Nixon 520
1980 Ronald Reagan 489
1956 Dwight Eisenhower 457
1928 Herbert Hoover 444
1952 Dwight Eisenhower 432
1988 George Bush 426
1920 Warren Harding 404

Democrats with over 400 Electoral Votes

1936 Franklin Roosevelt 523
1964 Lyndon Johnson 486
1932 Franklin Roosevelt 472
1940 Franklin Roosevelt 449
1944 Franklin Roosevelt 432

Under the old math, the above elections were landslide; thanks to alternative math, 304 = 404. Pity the teachers who have students who embrace alternative math. Pity the people who buy products designed by people who embrace alternative math. Pity the passengers on a plane where the pilots embrace alternative math.

But there are other presidents who also won in landslides based on the Trump landslide.

1996 William Clinton 379
1992 William Clinton 370
2008 Barack Obama 365
2012 Barack Obama 332

Who knew that Donald Trump considered these Democrats to be landslide winners as well, even bigger winners than he was?

There are some results more comparable to the Electoral Votes totals for 2016.

1948 Harry Truman 303
1960 John Kennedy 303
1968 Richard Nixon 301
1976 Jimmy Carter 297
2004 George Bush 286
2000 George Bush 271

Perhaps when our new president referred to his election as a landslide he was only referring to these other winners who all were losers compared to his 304 votes. We will never know because he will never explain what he meant. Pity the English teachers who have students who embrace alternative vocabulary. On the other hand, George Orwell’s 1984 now will make perfect sense:

War is Peace.
Freedom is Slavery.
Ignorance is Strength.
304 is 404.

Finally there is the issue of the 3-5 million illegal voters. The number goes far beyond the graveyard votes in Chicago or the walking-around-money to generate votes in Philadelphia. Does he mean that roughly half the adults here illegally who tend to operate under the radar all were instructed to venture forth into the public into government facilities to pose as American citizens who could vote? Were they all in California which has about 13.7 million voters meaning 1 in 4 was illegal? Perhaps he is not aware that zombies are permitted to vote in California where voting rights have been extended to the living dead since they are human beings. Vampires can vote there too. Have you seen some of the actors in Hollywood? Don’t they look like death warmed over? Vulcans and Klingons, however, are not human and do not qualify. And since California routinely votes Democratic anyway, why perpetrate a massive fraud where none is necessary to claim the electoral votes in the first place?

A fraud of this magnitude dwarfs by fivefold the effort to launch the D=Day invasion. That effort took at least a year of planning and was commanded by someone who later became president in two landslide elections. Clearly the mastermind of this electoral fraud deserves accolades for the scope of the achievement. Just think of the number of election precincts involved. And these people didn’t just vote for the president at the top of the ticket. What about all the Congressional and state contests effected? When all is said and done, the conspiracy to deny Donald Trump his rightful popular election vote will go down as the single greatest fraud in the history of humanity save for the faked lunar landings. All Americans owe Donald Trump a debt of thanks for exposing the millions of aliens who are hidden in Area 51 who only come out on Election Day.

Undoubtedly we will learn more about the fraudulent votes when the federal investigation is completed. My understanding is the White House plans to hire the same detectives OJ used to track down the real killer and that Trump himself used to uncover the truth in Hawaii about Obama’s birth. According to our president the results of that investigation were so startlingly, you “can not believe what they are finding.” So far he has not released the findings of those detectives pending the completion of the audit on his taxes but perhaps he can be encouraged to do so.

In the meantime, let the tweet go forward to friend and foe alike. If you were registered in two states, we will hunt you down. We fill find you wherever you hide. You will be caught. You will be waterboarded. You will tell the truth about the conspiracy no matter how high it reaches. You will be hanged. You will be drawn and quartered. You will be boiled in oil. Sad.

Does his existence in Trumpietown, his counterpart to Hillaryland, mean that Democrats should be complacent about regaining the White House in 2020? Should the Democrats exult because the foe in 2020 is an immature child? No way, no how. But explaining the Democratic tunnel-vision silliness requires another post. None-the-less, the battle is engaged.

Who Will Tell Our State Story?

January 20, 2017
by Peter Feinman

Linda Sloan, New York State Barn Coaltion

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 act. But each day the State downplays the importance of state and local history is a moment lost never to be regained. By the time people realize the loss, it may be too late.

What do I mean with these dark and gloomy words as the new year begins? During the past year, the state population dropped an estimated 1,894 people. The number may seem like a small drop in the overall population but the repercussions are significant. New York is now securely the fourth largest state. After the 2010 census, the state lost 2 congressional seats continuing its decades-old slide. Two seats are easy to handle – each party sacrifices one. What will happen if the New York loses just one after the 2020 census?

The answer is pretty simple. Upstate will pay the price. While the state population only declined by just under 2,000 people, over 190,000 emigrated to other states. That doesn’t mean they all went to Florida but it does highlight that perhaps the number one export in the state is people. The exporting of people is especially pronounced upstate where 41 of 50 counties lost population (the other 12 are metropolitan New York City and the Lower Hudson Valley based on this definition of upstate). Overall, nearly 850,000 people left the state since 2010 for other states, the largest emigration in the United States.

Downstate, the situation is exactly reversed. If upstate is exporting people to other states and the population isn’t declining too much, then what’s keeping the numbers up? The answer is the Big Apple. New York City draws people from around the country and the world. While the state population declined by about 2,000 people, almost 120,000 people arrived as immigrants. While all of them didn’t settle in the New York City, it is reasonable to conclude that the overwhelming majority did.

These movements continue long term trends. Governor Cuomo has just announced a Graduate to Homeownership pilot program of $5 million. The goal of the program is to encourage recent college graduates to remain upstate, “to put down roots in upstate communities.” Whether or not this program is successful is a separate issue. It calls attention to the demographic realities.

There once was a time when people knew where they were Kennedy was shot. Increasingly fewer and fewer New Yorkers even remember where they were on 9/11 or were in New York when it happened. Think of the recent history anniversaries in New York State history:

French and Indian War (250^th)
Erie Canal (200^th)
War of 1812 (150^th)
Civil War (150^th)
World War I (100^th)
Women’s Suffrage (100^th).

What does these events in New York State history mean to people today, especially to downstate people when so many of the events occurred or involve people upstate?

Nearly 200 years ago, Marquis de Lafayette triumphantly returned for a national tour of the country he helped create. He was well aware that the Oneida Nation had been allies of the United States during the American Revolution just as he had been. Yet when he visited the Oneida, he discovered that the New Yorkers living in the nearby communities had little to no memory of the Oneida participation in an event only 45 years earlier. It wasn’t part of their memory because neither they nor their ancestors were here then. Some were Yorkers who had migrated west on the Route 5/Route 20/I-90 corridor along the Mohawk River. Their American Revolution heritage was based on events in Massachusetts, not New York. Some were newcomers to America working on the Erie Canal so the events in upstate New York during the American Revolution were not part of their memory either. How quickly the past is forgotten.

One lesson I learned from my Teacherhostels/Historyhostels was that upstate people were more likely to have direct biological connections to New York’s past than downstate people. Upstate people were more likely to be descendants of the English, Dutch, Palatines, and various Indian tribes than were downstate people. New York’s past wasn’t simply something they read about in books or saw on the web, it was something they heard about from their family and saw in person in the homes, historical societies, and markers in their community. They were part of that history.

But you don’t even have to go back to the settlers in the 16 and 17 hundreds to witness the change. Today, even the Castle Garden and Ellis Island migrations to New York that did so much to define the city are on their way out. While still a formidable presence in the city, the era of the three I’s in New York City politics, Ireland, Italy, and Israel, is diminishing. Ellis Island immigrants are not the wave of New York’s future or even present, JFK Airport is.

The musical on immigrant Hamilton asks who will tell the story. We may well ask who will tell New York’s story. Who will care about these anniversaries? Will they be the legacy of a dwindling number of upstate descendants and Manhattan elitists and antiquarians? Will immigrants today connect with immigrants of the past? Will newcomers to the state become rooted in the history of their new home? Will America’s past become part of their past?

The challenge facing New York to transform immigrants into New York Americans is one the state has faced before. So far we have been successful but past success doesn’t guarantee future results. The question, of course, is one not only facing New York but the country as whole. The pace, as always is faster in New York with the depopulation of upstate and the immigrant growth downstate. New York also brings to bear a 400-year story of colonial and national history as well as millennia of Indian history. Truly our story is one from ice age to global warming. If ever there was a need for a New York State governor with a vision on an issue of national importance, now is the time. Remembering our history helps build a path to a better tomorrow for all who live here. Who will tell our story? What happens if no one does?

Women’s Suffrage Centennial Conference

December 23, 2016
by Peter Feinman

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 and was referred to by several participants in a declaration that it was not going to be repeated.

The keynote address was delivered by Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul who is chair of the Women’s Centennial, one significant change since the conference last year. She referred to herself as the “Tourist in Chief” who has visited many sites in the state and is a proponent of cultural tourism. My first contact with her was in 2015 on Tourism Advocacy Day in Albany. She had recently joined the state government and took the occasion of the meeting to tout tourism as well. She then mistakenly referred to the Path through History as a positive example of the State support for tourism. I gave her a pass on the claim since she was new and could be excused for not knowing better. Now as we approach 2017, perhaps she is someone the history community should reach out to for support of the Path program. I noticed in the just released REDC grants for 2016 that only one grant mentioned the Path through History and I was the one who initiated it (more on that in future posts).

In her talk, Hochul stressed the need to take the message of the suffrage centennial outside the conference meeting room. She mentioned the over 50,000,000 visitors to New York City and the need to show off other areas in the state to them. In support of cultural heritage tourism, she referred to triggers that spark children and of adult tourists who want to experience something different. She then issued a call to arms to encourage tourists to go to sites such as those dedicated to women’s suffrage. Her call echoed a plea made before her talk about the need for funding for a Living History Trail.

Hochul announced there would be a three-year celebration from 2017 to 2020 which means that Spike may need to have additional NYCHTN conferences. Hochul said her assistant and Spike would be meeting shortly after this conference and I am sure we all look forward to hearing the results of that meeting. The NYCHTN workplan for the coming year released a few months later does show another women’s suffrage centennial conference is planned for 2017 even though the New York State centennial will be drawing to a close. It is reasonable to conclude that the conference will roll into the national celebration through 2020. And now that we have a president from New York with a distinctive approach towards women so there is no telling what might happen.

Hochul also pointed out the civics component of the centennial. She envisioned it as a way of promoting voter turnout. These non-tourist activities are, of course, essential. They really are the core of what the history sites are about: helping Americans to be better Americans by sharing stories.

One interesting item was Hochul’s call to chart the next one hundred years, to imagine what people in 2117 would say when they look back at the centennial celebration and to 1917. One thought that occurred to me is that people in the future may wonder about our fixation on gender. Today we are learning that gender identity is fluid and that people are transcending the rigid binary polarities that divide us. The American Dialect Society at its annual conference declared “They” in the singular to be the word of the year. “They” as a singular word replaces the awkward “he or she” people now use when they don’t want to assign gender but be inclusive. Linguist Ben Zimmer, language columnist for the Wall Street Journal, who presided over the vote claimed the win for singular “they” symbolized how mainstream culture has come to recognize and accept transgender and gender fluid people, some of whom reject traditional pronouns. If one extrapolates this trend, a century from now people may be looking back at our gender segregation and definitions as truly backwards and primitive.

With thoughts of gender fluidity in mind, the next speaker was Sally Roesch Wagner, Executive Director Matilda Joslyn Gage Center. Her talk has been posted to New York History Blog and is available there. I want to touch on some points she made about cultural heritage tourism that link the comments of the Lt. Gov who had left to the next presentation by a Tourism Promotion Agent (TPA).

Sally informed us of Senator Betty Little’s call to bring visitors to these tourist sites. Her followup comment asked the Senator what if the lights aren’t on. She was referring to the fact that many sites especially upstate are not open 24/7 365 days/year like the big city museums. This condition is especially true in former homes that have become museums in contrast to more modern facilities built as museums. This topic is one Sally hopes the Women’s Centennial commission which includes the Lt. Gov. and the Senator will address.

In general terms, Sally was advocating for infrastructure development, for women’s and Underground Railroad trails, and for a statewide grassroots history effort. She was critical of the funding for the War of 1812 Bicentennial effort by the State. This time she hopes to see the centennial celebration in every village and to involve teachers and local newspapers. She wants scholars to work with historic sites to develop new exhibits to tell the full story of what happened. And she thanked Judy Wellman for her heroic work in identifying women’s rights related sites in the state. Sally’s wishes are a tall order and will require a substantial and concerted effort to accomplish. The gauntlet has been thrown down. Will the State pick it up?

Sally concluded with a call to develop heritage tourism and asked “Where is I Love NY?” In her inimitable tactful way she gently chided I Love NY for its presentation the previous year as clueless, insulting, and arrogant as least as far as the words that are fit to print here. It is unfortunate that the Lt. Gov. wasn’t still around to hear the truth.

With hindsight, it is fun to see what has happened since the conference. Now I can incorporate developments which I wouldn’t have known about if I reported on it in a timely manner like a newspaper reporter. Sally said to an enthusiastic audience “Let’s stop being well-behaved women!” This declaration was pronounced well before “nasty-women” became part of the political vocabulary. Celebrating the women’s centennial at a time when a president advocates the right to grope by celebrity males adds a whole new dimension to the centennial that no one anticipated back in October, not even Putin.

Rick Newman, Seneca County TPA, had the unenviable task of providing the tourism presentation this year around. Actually it was no problem. He attended the conference last and saw the implosion first-hand. He also reads my posts on the subject and is well-versed on the subject. In his talk, he patiently walked the history community through the tourist process. He distributed contact lists so everyone would know who to contact in his or her (or their) home county about promoting women’s suffrage centennial events (or any other history program). He explained the mantra of heads-to-beds that is the gospel of the tourism people: having tourists stay over and pay occupancy and sales taxes, exactly what the path project doesn’t promote.

Rick also stressed the importance of the digital world. Marketing plans and public relations have changed from the days of the paper press release sent to the local newspaper. Technology has created a brand new ball game and many sites are not up to speed. At the County Clerk/County Historian conference covered in my previous post, the same topic was raised. Many places have a website of some sort and may use email but beyond the rudimentary techniques, many places flounder. Since I just switched to an enewsletter myself, I am familiar with being backward. Imagine if every NYSOPRH site was tasked with creating its own website on its own and you get some idea of the challenges facing small local history sites and of the need for state leadership. There should be statewide templates local organizations could use for websites, enewsletters, and social media.

In the remaining conference time, a great deal of information and events were presented. To touch on them:

New York State Museum will have a women’s exhibit (Jenifer Lemark, Devin Lander, and Ashley Hopkins-Benton presenting)

New York Council for the Humanities since renamed Humanities New York has various grant programs available. Lauren Kushnick walked the attendees through the process of how to get money.

SUNY New Paltz, the Rockefeller Institute of the State University of New York, the FDR Library and Museum, and the League of Women Voters will hold a two day conference April 21-22 at SUNY New Paltz and the FDR Library on “Commemorating the Centennial of Women Winning the Vote in the New York State (Susan Lewis, SUNY New Paltz).

As you can see, a great deal was accomplished at the conference. While we still have to wait and see about the State Women’s Centennial Commission, it is possible to report on the REDC grants for 2016 which were just awarded relating to the centennial. Below is a list of all the REDC projects with the word “suffrage” in them. All these grants were awarded by the New York State Council on the Arts as part of Culture, Heritage New Initiatives – Implementation (CHPG I).

Capital Repertory Theatre (Albany): On the Go – Touring Educational Theatre

Capital Repertory Theatre’s On-the-Go touring educational theatre series will produce two shows to commemorate landmarks of New York History including They Built America: the Workers of the Erie Canal, and Petticoats of Steel: New York’s Suffragettes. More than 10,000 students will participate. Arts CHPG I $44,000

Center for Traditional Music and Dance (5 Boroughs of NYC): NY Voices/NY Votes

NY Voices/NY Votes celebrates the legacy of the women’s suffrage movement through a series of pop-up festivals that bring the conversation about voting rights to diverse communities in Opportunity Zones by combining voter registration with arts/humanities programming, and employment/social services. Arts CHPG I $75,000

Everson Museum of Art (Onondaga): Seen and Heard

In “Seen and Heard,” New York’s central role in the fight for women’s suffrage serves as a catalyst for contemporary activism. The multi-media exhibition, educational programs, and artist residencies explore the language and tactics of protest through the arts in order to initiate civic engagement. Arts CHPG I $66,000

LeAp (Bronx): LeAp’s Womens Suffrage Commemoration

LeAp will celebrate the NYS Women’s Suffrage Centennial by exploring woman’s suffrage through the lens of the “Struggle within the Struggle,” a dramatization of the historical experience of women of color having to break through systems of oppression to achieve basic human rights. Arts CHPG I $45,000

Museum of the City of New York (Manhattan): Beyond Suffrage: 100 Years of Women’s Activism in New York

In September 2017, the Museum of the City of New York will present Beyond Suffrage: 100 Years of Women’s Activism in New York. The exhibit will trace women’s activism in New York City from the suffrage movement through today and will include a focus on women activists who lived and worked in Harlem. Arts CHPG I $60,000

National Susan B. Anthony Museum House (8 counties): VoteTilla

VoteTilla is a weeklong navigational celebration of New York’s Suffrage Centennial along the Seneca-Cayuga and Erie Canals from July 16-22, 2017. VoteTilla will depart from Seneca Falls and travel to Rochester, concluding at the National Susan B. Anthony Museum House with a parade and celebration. Arts CHPG I $75,000

New-York Historical Society (Manhattan): New York Women’s Suffrage Exhibition

The New York Historical Society will celebrate the centennial of New York State signing women’s suffrage into law through a special satellite exhibition and audience engagement effort on Governors Island, curated by NYHS’s Teen Leaders in collaboration with the new Center for Women’s History. Arts CHPG I $75,000

Shaker Museum (Columbia): Exploring Shaker Ideas and Actions on Women’s Rights: A Celebration of the Centennial of Woman’s Suffrage

The Shaker Museum at Mount Lebanon engages and inspires local, national, and global audiences by telling the story of the Shakers. In 2017 the museum’s programming will celebrate and explore the Shakers’ ideas and actions around women’s rights, and the lives of the women who lived at Mount Lebanon. Arts CHPG I $41,500

Society for New Music (Onondaga, Madison, Oswego): Suffragette Matilda Joslyn Gage

The Society for New Music will create an opera about Syracuse native Matilda Joslyn Gage, a key player in the Suffrage Movement in New York State from 1852- 1890. This dramatic retelling of her story will celebrate her life-long battle for equality. Arts CHPG I $29,500

Westchester Arts Council Inc (Westchester): Suffrage Now, A Contemporary Art Exhibition

Suffrage Now is a contemporary art exhibition celebrating New York’s historic role in the path to the 19th Amendment while reinforcing the relevance of Women’s Suffrage today. Artworks consider contemporary events alongside historical to explore what the right to vote means to Americans. Arts CHPG I $75,000

As you can see, all the awards are for local events or activities except for the week-long canal program which has the potential to draw tourists who will need lodging. This list does not include Humanities New York so there may be some statewide initiatives being done elsewhere. No sign of developing the Women’s Trail or weekend/weeklong trips on them. Interestingly the three familiarization tours offered by I Love NY in January in conjunction with the NYT Travel Show don’t indicate any awareness of the Centennial nor do the Tourism Advisory Council reports or agendas that I was able to access. Perhaps there is movement going on behind the scenes.

County Clerks/County Historians: A Match Made in Albany?

December 18, 2016
by Peter Feinman

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 Association of Counties (NYSAC) and the New York State Historian. Devin Lander initiated the contact as part of his reaching out after he became the state historian in May. In the current APHNYS newsletter, Devin wrote:

A Message from the New York State Historian

As an action item, and in partnership with APHNYS, the Association of Counties (NYSAC), and the Association of County Clerks, I was able to coordinate and host a day-long training meeting for county historians and county clerks in Albany on October 14. It is my hope that this meeting was a pilot program for further annual training opportunities for Local Government Historians that can be expanded for 2017 and beyond.

During his earlier career as a legislative aide, he had the opportunity to interact with numerous state organizations. In his new job, he contacted NYSAC about working together. The result was this conference which by all accounts people the participants want to be an annual event moving forward.

NYSAC represents the 62 counties of the state. According to its website

As the voice of county officials throughout New York State, NYSAC is steadfast in communicating the needs and recommendations of our members to State and Federal lawmakers. Local government is at the heart of New York State, and we are proud to represent New York’s counties and their elected and appointed officials.

NYSAC represents New York counties and their taxpayers before Federal, State and local officials on matters germane to county governments.

NYSAC informs our membership and the public at large on issues of importance to county governments.

We educate, train, and provide research on public policy to Federal, State and Local officials and to members on issues important to counties.

We advocate for our 62 counties, including the City of New York, to the legislative and executive branches of government at the State and Federal levels.

I am particularly interested in two items NYSAC mentioned: the education and training it provides for its 62 members and its advocacy role in Albany on their behalf. It will conduct a three-day legislative conference in Albany from January 30 to February 1 and I presume this event is annual. In other words, at the beginning of the legislative session, NYSAC makes its presence known to the powers that be.

The organization has a staff of 13 people. By contrast APHNYS has none as a volunteer organization although we might consider Devin to be one. However, he is a government employee so it is not quite the same. MANY has a staff of two by way of comparison. The Executive Director and host for the conference in Albany is Stephen J. Acquario. I occasionally send him and his staff some of the New York History posts I write when I think it appropriate to his organization. He was kind enough to inform me of a name to add to my distribution list when there was a staff change at NYSAC. Would that the history organizations were so considerate.

Theoretically the conference audience could have consisted of 62 county clerks, 62 county historians plus administrative staff and public guests such as myself. In fact, attendance was fairly evenly split between the two groups based on a show of hands. I identified 14 county historians in the audience and there probably were a few more. They tended to be from the Hudson and Mohawk Valleys as one might expect with distant visitors all the way from Wyoming and Staten Island.

Although in principle there should be 62 county historians, everyone knows the state law is routinely violated with no penalty. Travel budgets for education or professional development similarly are minimal or non-existent. Even when there is paid-government county historian, that position is not necessarily secure. Consider the example of attendee Putnam County Historian Sarah Johnson, in a part-time government position she would like to make full-time. I received an email from a Putnam County legislator sent to a county history list serve. The message is reproduced below:

To all Fellow Historians;

Please call the Putnam County Legislature Office 845-808-1020 or e-mail putcoleg@putnamcountyny.gov name your legislator & show support to make the Putnam County Historian a full time position. Sarah Johnson is a very competent educated person & is doing a great job. The financial impact of this is minimal & there are about 5 misinformed residents who have the ear of the Legislature in stopping this. Some want to completely eliminate the position. Sarah will be able to help us with grants, tourism and of course archival preservation. Putnam County goes back to the beginning of our Republic. If we forget our past we will not know our future.

It is unlikely that any of NYSAC’s members have a similarly precarious position. Of course, it is unlikely that any county doesn’t have a county clerk at all. The position is mandated by state law and all counties apparently adhere to its stipulations.

Bill Cherry, the NYSAC President and Schoharie County Clerk gave the welcome. The Schoharie County Historian was in the audience. By contrast he has a day job to pay the bills; it happens to be in the history area unlike say the day jobs of county historians in Rockland and Sullivan but at least there is a position unlike Otsego and Westchester among others.

Gerry Smith, APHNYS President delivered the first presentation in one of his last acts before stepping down. He distributed a handout entitled “But What Am I Supposed to Do?” One of my favorite sessions at the annual APHNYS conference is the new historian session which I have written about before. As Gerry noted in his presentation, there is no training. The situation is very different than with county and municipal clerks. In the Q&A, the suggestion was made that the county clerk training provided by NYSAC should include a session on the importance and role of the county historian.

I would like to take this opportunity at the end of the year to reiterate my New Year’s resolution of year ago for this year: a one-week training program in Albany to be required for all county historians to include a day with:

New York State Archives
New York State Library
New York State Museum
New York State Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation
New York State Education (on local and state history in the k-12 curriculum).

The training would conclude with a reception at the Executive Mansion with the Governor. Such a training program would include familiarizing historians with the REDC process and cultural heritage tourism. It would alert the county executives that the county historian position is one which should be taken seriously.

To emphasize the former importance of the historian position, a copy was distributed of an annual report submitted in 1927 to the state historian from a small town historian who went on to be elected president of the United States four times. But he never became a county historian!The Q&A and breakout sessions proved most informative since they provided people the opportunity to interact, learn from others, and commiserate. Some key items worth following up on from these discussions include:

Unfunded mandates by the state
Training
Public programs
Developing a media presence
Getting local historians who have day jobs or who don’t drive at night to be more involved in county, regional, and state meetings.

As it turns out the NYSAC legislative advocacy agenda for its upcoming meeting includes:

Local Government Finance and Tax Relief

■ Urge voters to approve a constitutional convention so that delegates can consider ending the imposition of unfunded state mandates on counties and other local governments.

By law, New York State votes every 20 years whether or not to hold a state constitutional convention. In 1997, the voters voted “no.” The pace is likely to pick up on the 2017 vote once the new year begins and much preliminary work has done already for “ConCon” spearheaded by The Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government in Albany.

I would be remiss if I did not mention that the lunch speaker was Bruce Dearstyne. He writes repeatedly on behalf of New York State history and on how much we have to celebrate. Perhaps NYSAC can help the history community deliver this message to the Governor and the Legislature in a meaningful way.

All in the all, this hopefully inaugural conference was a good start to what should be an ongoing relationship between the county clerks and the county historians.

History Signs: Pathway to the Past

November 8, 2016
by Peter Feinman

Beverley Robinson House History Marker, photo by Ron Soodalter

I had an epiphany at the annual conference of the Association of Public Historians of New York State (APHNYS). That probably is not a venue normally associated with religious breakthroughs. Nonetheless, I had a vision of history signs and it was good. Standing at the vendor booth for the Pomeroy Foundation, which funds history signs throughout the state, I realized that our state history signs are like lost sheep wandering around the state but no one knows where.

What do I mean, they are lost? Everyone knows where they are. Everyone sees them. Well, yes, it is true, it is difficult to drive too far along the highways and byways of the Empire State without encountering a history marker, but that doesn’t mean anyone knows where all such signs are.

Let’s review the history of history markers in state courtesy of “Signs of Controversy” by Laurence M. Hauptman from the summer 2014 issue of the NYS Archives Trust bulletin. Here are the critical dates in the history of the history markers:

Stage 1 (1926) The Commemoration of New York’s role in the American Revolution

The State Legislature directs the State Commissioner of Education plan for the commemoration of the 150^th anniversary of the American Revolution including a provision for “markers to designate sites that are of historic interest in the colonial, revolutionary, or state formative period.” So was born the famous gold-rimmed blue markers that continue to line our roads to this very day. Over 200 were erected in the following decade. Hauptman notes that the American Indian did not fare well in the reporting on these signs. An inventory of those signs can be found at the APHNYS website in a downloadable PDF which I just downloaded.

Stage 2 (1939-present) Signs Go Wild

Obviously Hauptman’s term is not a legal or official one. It refers to cessation of state funding for and control over the history markers. All state controls were eliminated. Anything was possible.

Stage 3 (1960-1966) Historical Area Marker Program

At this point, the State sought to resume control. History markers were to serve dual purposes: education and tourism. Signs were to be located along the New York State Thruway at rest stops and on other major highways. The signs were to be oversized with different font from the original state makers to differentiate them. Imagine that: big state history signs on the highways to promote tourism starting in 1960…and to be controlled by the State Education Department. Does that sound familiar? These signs happened 52 years before I Love NY wrested control of the oversized Path through History signs on the highways from the State Education Department/New York State Museum which originally controlled the project. In trying to understand the shift in responsibility, please keep in mind that the State Education Department reports to the Regents while I Love NY reports to the Governor, not that politics was a factor in any of the decision-making. I did a search on the New York State Museum website and found a documented listing of 139 Historical Area Markers erected in the 1960s.

Stage 4 (1966)

In 1966, the legislature repealed the Historical Area Marker Program. Henceforth, the New York Historic Trust, an advisory group part of the Department of Conservation (now Department of Environmental Conservation). Then in 1972, the legislature shifted the “long-dormant roadside marker program” to the New York State Board for Historic Preservation within the newly-formed Department of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. In the interim, the still extant Office of State History published the Historical Area Markers in New York State guidebook [paperback version of the 1970, publication available on Amazon for $49.99].

There still was no state funding. Responsibility for the approval, removal, correction, and funding of history markers remained local.

Stage 5 2014-2015 The Weible Years

Hauptman’s article from 2014 refers to an initiative begun in 2014 by the then State Historian Bob Weible. The goal was to encourage locally-appointed historians to work cooperatively to coordinate history marker activities and to assume greater responsibility for them. The effort was to be done through APHNYS with the assistance of the Pomeroy Foundation. I did not know this when I had my epiphany. I was aware of a New York State website listing history markers by county. When I looked at it months ago for my own county, Westchester, I found, not surprisingly that Weible was still listed as the contact person even though he was no longer there. When I just looked again, I couldn’t even find the page on the NYS Museum website. I did, however, find a reference to it in Wikipedia under List of New York State Historic Markers.

According to Wikipedia there are over 2800 such signs through 1966 with a breakdown provided by county. One can drill down on each county to obtain a more detailed list with date, location, and inscription. The source for the information was the very webpage I was searching for. When I clicked on the link the response was

Our apologies, but much like the Cohoes Mastodon,
this page is history.

New York Net History Net also has a link to the New York State Museum listing with the same result. That website apparently is not up-to-date as it refers to an upcoming conference in 2004:

State History Interest Project (SHIP) – clubs for middle school and high school students interested in New York State, formerly known as Yorkers. New clubs are welcome at the next annual convention May 6-8, 2004 in Niagara Falls, NY.

Although not the subject of this post, the Yorkers link leads to:

404 – File or directory not found.

The resource you are looking for might have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable.

What ever happened to this statewide effort to engage students in New York State history? And please don’t say National History Day.

Returning to the history markers, Hauptman advocates for a change in the obviously defunct system that became even worse since his 2014 article. He observes that there is no state agency authorized by the legislature to correct, replace, or remove existing signs.

It’s not as if the State Museum isn’t aware of the situation. On its own website there is a summary of history markers by Philip Lord. Much of the information parallels the Hauptman article with additional details identifying specific legislation.

Lord provides the following description for the wild years:

In the 1960s & 70s, staff of the Office of State History consulted with the field, primarily via the network of local government historians at the county and town level, and encouraged the installation of historic markers, with SED staff reviewing the proposals. There was no funding, and the relationship with the field was more consultative than regulatory. However, the staff was moderately aggressive in making sure that all persons wishing to erect a marker went through this process, and people were given a letter of approval.

He then notes that:

Unlike many other states, New York State does not currently manage a historical marker program. Instead, local authorities are responsible for the approval, installation, and maintenance of historical markers. Anyone interested in placing or repairing a marker should thus check with appropriate county, city, town, or village historians or officials.

In effect, it is incorrect to refer to the new signs as state signs since the state has no control over them.

There are still new history signs being established all the time. For example:

May 21, 2016 The Margaret Fuller Marker Dedication in Beacon – funding was by the Pomeroy Foundation which seemingly has replaced the state in any overseer role at least for the signs it funds and they do resemble the famous state sign format

August 18, 2016 914 The Sound Recording Studios Historical Marker Dedication where some of the most iconic rock anthems of the 1970s were made, including Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run” and Janis Ian’s “At Seventeen.”

October 7, 2016 The Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation (GVSHP) placed its ninth plaque (not history marker) at the former home and studio of renowned 20th century sculptor and artist Chiam Gross at 526 LaGuardia Place (at Bleeker Street), now the home of the Renee and Chaim Gross Foundation.

Strange as it may seem. there are people interested in history signs the way other people are fascinated by the Kardashians. New York Historic was founded by Matthew Conheady. Its website states the following:

We are not the New York State Office of Parks and Historic Preservation (go there instead). We are not in charge of or responsible for any of the historic sites listed on this website.

We are a band of photographers with an interest in New York State history. The nature photography community, NYFalls.com – Upstate Nature, Wildlife and Photography, owns and operates this website.

What we do

We geographically catalog Historic Sites around the state of New York, and present them online for people to explore. Our database is complemented by beautiful photos taken by talented members of our community.

Why we do it

Just as NYFalls.com has inspired aspiring photographers to get out and tour Upstate New York to capture beautiful waterfall and lake scenes, NYHistoric aims to help people locate these interesting sites, so they can have new photography subjects to explore and learn a bit of local history as well.

We also expect the education and tourism industries to take advantage of our efforts.

We do it all for free, and because we like to.

Another example is:

New York State Historical Markers: It Happened Here

created by Tom Arthur. The last entry is dated September 16, 2016, so it appears to still be functioning.

So what should be done now?

Goal: Create a documented and searchable statewide database of the history markers in New York State starting with the state- sanctioned signs.

The Governor through the Office of the State Historian should ask each county executive/borough president acting through the county historian/borough historian to prepare a list for the county/borough.

The County historian/borough historian should work through the municipal historians and historical societies to create Yorker clubs with the first task to be inventorying the history markers in the municipality.

The inventory should include photographs, then and now if appropriate, GPS information, and a review of the information on the current signs to check for accuracy. It may be necessary to replace some signs with better information.

The New York State Archives/Museum should locate the original applications for state history markers.

The New York State Historian should create a state map and database of the history markers.

It might be reasonable to test this at the county level first. For example, in 2015, Otsego County, which does not have a county historian, produced a booklet “Historical Markers of Otsego County and Their Locations” under the auspices of the Otsego County Historical Association. I thank Town of Hartwick municipal historian Carol Goodrich whom I saw at the APHNYS conference where this all began, for mailing me a copy. Now what we need is some state leadership to bring together APHNYS, Pomeroy, NY Historic, NYS Historical Markers, the NYS Archives, and the NYS Museum together to make it happen.

Teaching Local History: What’s the Story Today?

October 2, 2016
by Peter Feinman

A new school year has begun so let’s see what’s going on in the world of teaching local history. These examples come from a local school district, a regional NPS history organization, a public college, and Cornell. Together they provide an unscientific overview of the situation today.

Niagara Falls City School District

I received the following notice from a social studies teacher in the Niagara Falls City School District

We are looking for Districts or Agencies across the State that might have information to share about programs that offer field trips/experiential learning to connect their students with Local History.

It is our goal to create a sustainable (funded) series of experiences that would increase awareness and ultimately, develop students’ desire to promote and preserve the rich heritage of Niagara Falls and Western New York.

We are aware that the NYS Parks offer transportation grants, but are open to any other ideas or suggestions for structure, programming, or sustainability. It will be interesting to see what others are doing, so we can tailor our own program to meet our situation and needs.

I can be reached directly via email at afortin-nossavage@nfschools.net or via the contact information below, rather than overload the listserv.

Thanks in advance for your time and consideration.

Andrea

Andrea Fortin-Nossavage
Niagara Falls City School District
Teacher, Social Studies
2016 Empire State Excellence in Teaching Awardee
Member, NYS Professional Standards and Practices Board
Advisor, NFHS Local History Club
716-278-5800 Ext. 41426

Several thoughts immediately come to mind. Is Niagara the only area with a rich heritage an which supports experiential learning? What is going on around the state? Is there any central repository for information about what the school districts are doing with field trips? Should there be?

The request raises serious questions about the role of civics in our education system, our connecting students to the communities in which they live, on developing a sense of place, a sense of belonging, and on strengthening the social fabric that holds us together. It would be beneficial to know what the situation is statewide and if we are failing America’s future by denying the country’s the young the opportunity to engage their local communities through critical thinking and experiences.

Teaching Hudson Valley: Writing About Place 2016

Photo by Julie Cash, Kingston City Schools

One of the ways students can engage their local communities and develop critical thinking skills is through writing their village, town, or city. Teaching Hudson Valley, the National Park Service program based at the FDR home and library, is designed to promote connections by students to places in the Hudson Valley. I just received the following announcement from the program.

Each year THV asks students to tell us about places in the Hudson Valley that have special meaning for them. (Writing from previous years.) Adults: please review the guidelines below, the prompts, and the submission form before discussing the contest with students. At the bottom of this page and the prompt page are additional resources to help you and your students make the most of this opportunity.

Who is eligible?

Any student, grades K-12, living and/or attending school in the 11-county Hudson River Valley National Heritage Area may participate.

This map delineates the area; students may write about places in the region that are not shown on the map as long as they are open to the public and not commercial establishments.

Guidelines

All students should:

Write about places they actually know.
Use a THV prompt. (MS and HS students: indicate the prompt selected.)
Choose public, non-commercial places they want to share with classmates.
Give all writing a title.
Proofread carefully.
Take risks in describing places and their connections to them.
Submit only work completed during the summer or fall of 2016.

Word limits: Grades K-4, up to 250 words; 5-8 up to 1,000 words; grades 9-12, up to 1,500 words.

Optional: students may submit one photo, drawing, collage, or other graphic clearly related to his/her writing. No student will lose points for submitting only written work.

Review process

Teachers, site staff, THV’s coordinator, and representatives of the NYS DEC’s Hudson River Estuary Program, and the Hudson River Valley Institute at Marist College, will read and comment on student work. Readers will look for evocation of place, a vivacious voice, and use of conventions appropriate to each student’s age and development. A new rubric will be available here soon.

Prizes

All entries are eligible for publication on THV’s blog. We may share student work with staff or volunteers at the place written about and will look for additional publishing opportunities. Submissions about places with cultural, historic, or natural significance, owned or managed by a not-for-profit or government body, and regularly open to the public are eligible for prizes.

The classes of students who place first (one each from grades K-4, 5-8, and 9-12) will receive up to $900 to help cover the cost of visiting places written about. Please encourage students to choose a place they would enjoy sharing with their classmates as we are unlikely to approve an alternate site. Family members, please confirm with the student’s teacher that this prize will be welcome. Additional prizes TBA.

Questions? E-mail Info@TeachingtheHudsonValley.org or phone Debi Duke, 845-229-9116, ext. 2035.

Doesn’t this program seem like something which should exist in other valleys as well? How about statewide? Isn’t this something every school district could do as part of its own curriculum without needing the NPS to show them the way?

SUNY Adirondack Course: History of Warren and Washington Counties

SUNY Adirondack Timberwolves

Of course for an effective k-12 class in local history, the teachers need to be knowledgeable in the subject. That means there needs to be programs tailored to the history of local areas and which include visits to the historic sites of the region. New York History Blog had a post precisely on this topic on September 13, 2016 focused on two particular counties.

SUNY Adirondack in Queensbury is offering a credit course in the history of Warren and Washington counties for the 2016 Fall semester.

The course spans from Native American occupation and the Colonial Wars, to the establishment of communities by Europeans and African-Americans, finally covering the homefront of the World Wars, the suburbanization, and the rise of tourism.

The course will be led by Edward Knoblauch, MA, who was one of the managing editors of The Encyclopedia of New York State and the editor of the Papers of Sir William Johnson digital edition.

HIS 270 History of Warren and Washington County will be held Tuesday evenings from 6:30-9:30, from September 13 to December 20. Students will receive three credit hours. For more information on SUNY Adirondack, or to register, click here or call Admissions at (518) 743-2264.

Shouldn’t every SUNY and CUNY offer such a class for its own region? Should such classes be required for teacher certification as an elementary school teacher or social studies teacher? Shouldn’t teachers who relocate to a new area be required to immerse themselves in the history of their new location by taking such a class for college credit or as professional development?

Teaching Cornell History

In fact, Corey Ryan Earle, a visiting lecturer in the American-studies program at Cornell University and associate director of student programs in the Office of Alumni Affairs, has been teaching a class at Cornell on local history, the history of the college itself. He has been doing so for six years and reports:

Topics include Cornell’s founders and founding, student life, diversity and inclusion, unrest and activism, and finances and administration. Having observed more than 2,000 students in my classroom, I am a firm believer that one of the best investments a college can make is in teaching its own history.

His thinking resembles that provided from the benefits of teaching local history at the k-12 level adjusted for the college environment.

For starters, a large course with broad appeal across disciplines offers students a unifying experience, creating a sense of community that colleges strive to build. It brings together engineers and athletes, pre-meds and humanists, first-generation students and fourth-generation legacies — students across fields of study and backgrounds, many of whom have never taken a course together. Especially at a large, decentralized university like Cornell, shared experiences are rare and difficult to create. An institution’s own history is a topic that can, and should, resonate with everyone. Students draw parallels with those of the past and are surprised by ways the undergraduate experience and the campus have changed.

As you read the following paragraph about the benefits of such a class for school pride, mentally substitute the name of your municipality for the college and see if the advantages aren’t the same.

Teaching a college’s history is also an opportunity to instill school pride. Every institution has its own identity and traditions. Students should graduate knowing what makes their alma mater special. Whether it’s a victory on the football field or — of far greater consequence — courageous student activists fighting for civil rights, every college has history worth celebrating. Proud students become proud alumni, who will happily contribute their time, talent, and treasure when called upon to do so.

As with the college, so with the local municipality.

Now replace the word “alum” in the following paragraph with the word “taxpayer” and ask yourself why colleges work harder at knitting the social fabric than do your municipalities.

Institutional pride and a sense of community are key ingredients for alumni’s long-term engagement with their alma mater. In the face of financial challenges, many colleges have focused on encouraging undergraduates to be “future alumni.” From orientation to graduation, they are bombarded with messages from alumni associations and class-gift campaigns in hopes that they will understand how much their alma mater will depend upon their support (financially and otherwise) after commencement. Many such programs emphasize history and traditions based on the assumption that those who take pride in their institution are more inclined to stay engaged and support it.

Earle optimistically concludes:

These courses can create a cohort of knowledgeable ambassadors who take pride in their alma mater, share that enthusiasm with those around them, and remain engaged after graduation. With all of the resources that colleges direct toward doing exactly that, offering a course on your institution’s history should be an easy decision.

It should be an easy decision. It should be an easy decision at the college level. It should be an easy decision at the k-12 level. It should be an easy decision in life. Imagine a family get-together on Thanksgiving with no stories to tell. Imagine a school reunion with no stories to tell. Imagine Paleolithic people gathered around the campfire with no stories to tell. Imagine children growing up isolated in time limited to the present and bound by the tweet. We are a storytelling species and without the experience of shared stories the social fabric is ripped asunder and what is left is too horrible to imagine. Be it ever so humble there is no place like home so let’s start with the stories of our community home.

Teaching Slavery: A SHEAR Perspective

September 12, 2016
by Peter Feinman

Teaching Slavery: A Roundtable Discussion was the third session I attended as part of the SHEAR conference on July 23. It was scheduled after the lunchbreak and I made a point of arriving early just in case…and, yes, the room ended up being filled to capacity and then some. I along with others “purloined” chairs from neighboring and less full rooms but soon there was no more space even for chairs. People sat on the floor or leaned against the walls.

The session consisted of a series of “brief” presentations where people sort of stuck to their allotted time. The presentations were followed by questions from the moderator posed to each presenter and then the discussion was opened to the floor. As one might expect the session was more fluid than some of the other ones and my notes reflect that dynamic. One of the lessons I learned in college especially from undergraduate history classes was that the organization of my notes tended to mirror the organization of the lecture. But this session was not a lecture but a roundtable.

Vanessa Holden, Michigan State University
Survey Strife: Transparent Pedagogy as a Multiracial Woman in the Classroom

Holden often was the first black teacher many of the white students in her survey class on United States history had ever had. The TA met with smaller groups of students while her contact tended to be in the lecture format. She chose not to start the class with 1492. Michigan itself was not a slave state and had minimal Underground Railroad involvement. Holden did not mention the Great Migration so I don’t know what she teaches in the 20^th century. Since the SHEAR conference doesn’t extend to that time period and the session was limited to slavery (and not its impact or legacy as part of American history), she was not obligated to mention it but it would have interesting to know. Of course, her time was very limited.

On the pedagogical side, Holden shared that many college students were unaware that as part of slavery families could be separated. Her comment exposed an important dilemma. In the Public Roundtable session earlier that day covered in a previous post, curriculum was regarded as if not a panacea, at least, a positive, in promoting awareness of the historic sites/museums and encouraging visitors. A common refrain in this session beginning with the first speaker highlighted the shortcomings of the curriculum.

One should note that social studies has a varied presence in the k-12 curriculum at the state level. The current focus on the Common Core and STEM has been detrimental to the teaching of social studies including history especially in the early grades where reading and math skills have become the god standards against which students and teachers are evaluated. Regardless of the content, not all states or school districts teach social studies at each grade level. New York State does which is a contributory factor to New York State social studies teachers often having positions of prominence in national social studies organizations. Just as learning a foreign language is easier the younger one starts, so is learning language of history. Introducing teenagers to history through boring factoids is not conducive to developing a life-long love for history as part of the civic health of the society.

Edward Baptist, Cornell University
Teaching with Survivors Testimony

Baptist spoke on the use of primary sources. He observed that students were not tabula rasas on slavery. They arrived in the classroom with the slave story already “spun.” This comment again goes the issue of what is taught at the k-12 level although Baptist did not specifically refer to it. His experience as a teacher led him to conclude that the values the students ascribe to the testimonies read in class correlates with the race of the race of the student. [My notes may be a little confusing on this point.]

Jason Young, State University of New York, Buffalo
The Persistent Propaganda of History

Young commented on the textbook controversies, on how textbooks present the topic of slavery. Here again curriculum is an issue. He specifically mentioned McGraw Hill’s designation of the Middle Passage as one of “migrants.” He expressed concern about the rejection of critical thinking. It should be noted that the new social studies guidelines just released by New York State stress the importance of critical thinking. I don’t know how familiar Young is with those guidelines or the role of history professors in developing them. While it will be years before the products of those guidelines enter college, it would be worthwhile to foster dialog between the college professors who teach the graduates of the k-12 guidelines with the social studies teachers (and State Education departments) about what is actually taught in the classroom. True students in an undergraduate class may come from multiple states with divergent requirements and curriculums, but there is benefit to having teachers of undergraduates knowing what the college students were exposed to and are supposed to have learned already.

Brenda Stevenson, UCLA
Navigating Emotional Triggers for Black Students in the Multicultural Classroom

Her topic was the challenge of teaching slavery in the world of trauma today. She depicted the college classroom as contested turf.

Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor, Smith College
Humanity as a Thing Unraced: Classroom Conversations on the History of Slavery

Pryor revealed traumatic experiences of her own. She reiterated the refrain on the lack of racial education prior to college. The point was dramatically broached when a student in the classroom raised the question of teaching the “N” word. The student did so in the context of a joke the student had heard. After the class the teacher cried and was frightened. Later the students recounted the various experiences in their own lives where they had encountered the “N’ word. This class became the first opportunity they had ever had to discuss the topic in a formal setting. The very question of whether to even pronounce the “word” was an issue of discussion. Pryor ended up devoting three classes in the semester to addressing this trauma.

I am curious to know if the word “Negro” factored into these conversations. For centuries the word was the name of a people devoid of approbation in and of itself. Lately it has acquired a negative stigma. The source documents from the 1600s-1800s that might be used in a SHEAR time period routinely use this term and it continued to be positively used at least through the time of Martin Luther King. Is it becoming a trauma term requiring trigger warnings and if so what does that mean for use of source documents?

Moderator Questions
Ousmane Power-Greene, Clark University

1. The question asked whose expertise would be useful in joining this conversation.

Young introduced the unspoken issues that generate guilt and shame. The sale of Africans into slavery by Africans always is brought up. He referred to this technique as the sharing of culpability. Teachers need to recognize what really concerns the students who ask that question or make that claim.

Baptist reiterated that by college we are too late in our interventions.

Pryor noted that not too many black students take history classes. She further observed that black students are mad at white students who use the classroom to unburden themselves. I might add that there are white people who don’t look favorably upon white people engaged in a pissing context of how guilty they are and how passionately they seek to cleanse themselves of their guilt. Has slavery become the original sin for Americans of Christian heritage who don’t believe in the Fall? Do white people with American ancestors from before slavery became illegal [which was in 1827 in New York] react differently than those who arrived afterwards?

2. What do you say about slaveholders to the students?

Young informed us based on his classes that students say most whites didn’t own slaves or only owned 1 or 2. They see slavery as a systemic problem and therefore not one where the students should feel individual guilt [a contrast to the perceptions expressed in Pryor’s class. I wonder if the demographics of the student body contribute to the discrepancy – a public school in Buffalo versus an independent women’s liberal college in Northampton.]

Stevenson recommended following the money. She claimed that if students trace the money they can more easily see how slavery could exist. In other words, you didn’t have to own slaves to profit from slavery.

Holden observed that poor whites and others did own slaves. She suggested reading the letters of the slaveholder families. Since slaveholders were people too [my choice of words] it was beneficial to encounter them as people through their own writings.

A series of short-answer questions/comments followed given the time constraints.\

Reparations – put off the question in a classroom. But in class debates the pro-side wins on merits and the negative-side wins the debate [it sounds a little like the difference between Fantasy Football and the Superbowl.]
Slavery in other places and times – Roman slavery is not the equivalent of American slavery.

Impact of the slaves on the nation as unpaid labor.

Anger at not being taught about slavery.

Is it necessary to use all the examples of the horror of slavery? Trauma.

Obviously there is a lot to discuss on this subject and the likelihood the conversation will be ongoing. It is important that the conversation not be limited to teaching slavery at the undergraduate level but include k-12 as well.

What Was the Turning Point of the American Revolution?

August 27, 2016
by Peter Feinman

John Neilson Farmhouse, the only standing structure on Saratoga Battlefield from the time of the Battles of Saratoga

What was the turning point of the American Revolution? The standard answer is the Battle of Saratoga in October, 1777. The British under General Johnny Burgoyne sought to divide and conquer the fledgling United States. Through a three-pronged attack, the British, who already occupied New York City, would separate New England from Pennsylvania and Virginia thereby bringing the would-be country to its knees. As many Americans know, the plan was unsuccessful and it was at Saratoga where the floundering effort finally failed. The British surrender there caught the attention of the French who then allied with the United States. The rest, as they say, is history.

During the Teacherhostels/Historyhostels I led, we visited many sites in New York associated with the American Revolution including Saratoga. During one program, I detected a pattern among the various sites: they all claimed to be the turning point of the American Revolution! Once I caught on to this pattern, I shared my observation with the teachers. You can guess what happened next. At our next stop, after about five minutes into the talk, the docent of the site exclaimed that the site was the turning point of the American Revolution. The teachers then began to laugh. I felt sorry for the docent who was not privy to the information I had just mentioned to the teachers before we walked into the museum.

Obviously, all these locations cannot be the turning point of the American Revolution. No doubt American Revolution scholars/professors could easily demolish the arguments made to support these claims. Equally obviously, such a decimation would entirely miss the point. The observable phenomena is that the American Revolution is the foundational event for the creation of this country and everyone wanted to connect their community to that event. By claiming to be the turning point, these people assert that the American Revolution is their story regardless of whether or not they were a biological son or daughter of the American Revolution. Through the claim of being the turning point, these people were proudly declaring and affirming their identity as Americans.

Lately this desire to connect to the American Revolution has expanded beyond a geographical link. Now the link is being claimed based on race, gender, class, and ethnicity. It as if everyone wants to get into the act. The story of the American Revolution isn’t just purview of heroic dead white men. On the contrary, the true story includes a demographically diverse range of a portion of colonists united in their commitment and willingness to sacrifice their lives on behalf of the new born country. They didn’t want the United States to be still-born or die in infancy but to grow and thrive. Just as all these geographical communities link themselves to the story of the American Revolution born on the fourth of July, so increasing number of demographic communities have sought in recent years to make the American Revolution part of their heritage as well.

The most striking current example of connecting a demographically-diverse constituency to the American Revolution is, of course, Hamilton, the musical. When I attended the American Revolution Reborn conference in Philadelphia in 2013 (the subject of five posts), it is reasonable to conclude that no one present anticipated that the American Revolution would be reborn as a musical and one dedicated to Hamilton, of all people. The recent exhibition about him at the New-York Historical Society did not engender such warm and lavish praise on him as a representative of the demographically-changing American population. Quite the contrary. Back then it was more of: here’s another boring exhibition by a staid elitist organization about a dead white man. Who knew? Now it hosted the summer of Hamilton!

Meryl Streep and the American Revolution (Hollywood Reporter)

As it turns out, our connecting all Americans to the American Revolution is essential if We the People are to continue to exist. Our connecting to the American Revolution is essential to the health and strength of the social fabric of this country. If it unravels or is torn asunder, then the United States ceases to exist. Luminaries like Frederick Douglas, Abraham Lincoln, and Martin Luther King all connected with the Declaration of Independence in some way as did the Seneca Falls Convention and George M. Cohan. Lin-Manuel Miranda is part of a long and hallowed tradition of breathing life into America’s heritage to renew it. Meryl Streep’s shout out to Deborah Sampson at the Democratic National Convention is the most recent highly visible example of linking oneself to that foundational event.

I was reminded of the importance of being the turning point of the American of the great defeat in the American Revolution 240 years ago today. It is called the Battle of Brooklyn or of Long Island or of New York. It has multiple names with Brooklyn now asserting itself and its connection to the American Revolution. (There is no shame anymore in having a 718 area code rather than 212!) Regardless of the name, the battle marked a major defeat for the country that had just declared its independence the previous month. Suddenly out of nowhere a British fleet with over 30,000 people, a veritable city of its own, appeared on the horizon. As the New Yorkers gazed out to the ocean on August 22, all they could see was this massive flotilla. There were no satellites then to track the movement westward of the level 5 Howe Hurricane from England. It is difficult today to convey the impact the British fleet had then. Perhaps the closest example of this shock-and-awe armada is the fictional appearance of the spaceships in the movie Independence Day before it obliterates the White House [the movie combines American Revolution and War of 1812 resonances].

The British fleet in the lower bay (Harpers Magazine, 1876) and Independence Day

The battle on August 27 is not as well-known as some others, after all we lost. Barnet Schecter tirelessly tells the story of the battle for New York in person and in a book of the same title. John Glover fans strive to sustain the memory of the heroic Massachusetts fisherman/merchant who led the evacuation of the Continental army from Long Island to Manhattan under a providential fog during the night of August 29-30. This escape was made possible in part due to the valiant efforts of the First Maryland Regiment to delay the British to provide Washington the time needed to cross over. Hundreds of Marylanders sacrificed themselves in what was in effect a suicidal but critical mission. Brooklynite Bob Furman has led the effort to identify and commemorate the sites in Gowanus where the Maryland 400 fought and where the British dumped the bodies afterwards (as Lance Ashworth struggles to do at the Fishkill Depot at the cemetery there). The book about the Regiment is titled Washington’s Immortals: The Untold Story of an Elite Regiment Who Changed the Course of the Revolution by Patrick O’Donnell by perhaps no coincidence whatsoever attests the “turning point” ethos.

There even will be “The Battle of Brooklyn” exhibit opening at the New-York Historical Society shortly. Imagine that! According to Valerie Paley, vice president and chief historian, the Battle of Brooklyn was not the turning point of the American Revolution. I repeat: she did not say it was the turning point. She did however say it may have been the most important battle of the American Revolution. She really is saying the battle was the turning point because of what the British didn’t do. They failed to capture George Washington, the indispensable person. If you think the United States is the Great Satan and can go back in time, then you go back and kill him because without him, there would be no America. And if you can’t kill him physically then kill him through your scholarship. The British failed to apprehend him and eventually paid the price when Washington returned to New York to be inaugurated there as President of the United States.

Valerie Paley, New-York Historical Society, Bob Furman (NYT August 26, 2012)

So even though the Battle of New York/Long Island/Brooklyn was lost and New York was occupied territory until Evacuation Day, November 25, 1783, the battle set the stage for what was to come. The failure to capture Washington and his army led to Plan B: shock-and-awe was replaced with divide-and-conquer. Plan B ended in failure at Saratoga.

There is a new exhibit called “Witness to War” at the Old Stone House in Brooklyn where these events transpired. According to the website: “Ten themed areas allow visitors to explore this history and consider how war impacted the community, what choices citizens had to make at the time, battle strategies, and what makes these issues relevant in today’s world” thereby connecting people of America’s present to the people of America’s birth.

Witness to War: Appropriating Revolution brings together contemporary artists inspired by the unique history of the House and of other past revolutions in their efforts to address the most important issues of today. In a contemporary political climate where the term “revolution” (defined as “the overthrow of a government or social order in favor of a new system”) risks association with either polarizing rhetoric or cynical complacency, is there an especially appropriate role for artists to play by bringing the tactics and triumphs of the past to the forefront of our conversations.

Kim Maier, Executive Director, Old Stone House NYT Auguest 26, 2012

Kim Maier, executive director of the Old Stone House said: “It’s a story about loss, but it’s also a story about how we get to where we are today.” Now more than ever, it is important for We the People in words, music, paintings, art, processions, and re-enactments to tell the story of the American Revolution. The experiment continues, the journey goes on, for in every generation, in every place, in every person, we must be the turning point if the vision is to be realized and the dream fulfilled.

Public History