Learn about Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia
Friday, Nov. 9: Theater piece at Vassar library in Poughkeepsie to honor first woman to obtain a doctorate.
Almanac Weekly | History
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Remembering Margaret Hamilton’s Dutchess County connections
The green-tinted visage and screeching voice of the Wicked Witch of the West became the stuff of nightmares, but by all accounts, Margaret Hamilton was a gentle person in real life, and got on well with children.
Out from Chagall’s shadow: “The Virginia Project” in High Falls
Opening on Saturday, October 27: Virginia Haggard was an accomplished and interesting woman in her own right who spoke several languages. She was the well-educated daughter of a diplomat and an aspiring artist herself.
Russell Shorto discusses New Netherland influence on NY at Dutchess
Tuesday, Oct. 16: Shorto was one of the first historians to be allowed access to Albany’s rich archive of primary documents from the era of Dutch colonization of what is now New York, as they were being translated into English by the New Netherland Project. The best-known product of those early researches was his 2004 blockbuster The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan, and the Founding Colony that Shaped America. It’s an engaging tale of how the philosophical fruits of the European Enlightenment, borne to New Netherland by Dutch settlers, seeded New York City’s destiny as a cradle of diversity and liberalism and a welcoming harbor for immigrants.
Don’t lose your head: Attractions near the real Sleepy Hollow
By the time Washington Irving moved to Sunnyside, he was renowned on two continents as “the first American man of letters.” He had already written both of his most famous stories, “Legend” and “Rip Van Winkle”; covered Aaron Burr’s treason trial for a newspaper; co-founded the literary magazine Salmagundi; coined the phrase “the almighty dollar,” as well as the nicknames “Gotham” for New York City and “Knickerbocker” for one of its residents; spawned the fiction that Christopher Columbus’ contemporaries believed the Earth to be flat; and, with his accounts of traditional Yorkshire Yuletide celebrations in his Bracebridge Hall stories, planted the seed of inspiration in Charles Dickens that would soon lead to the writing of A Christmas Carol.
Learn about Perrine’s Covered Bridge at history talk and tour
Saturday, October 13: It’s the longest-standing Burr arch covered bridge in New York and the second-oldest covered bridge in the state
Old New Paltz Stone House Day returns
Saturday, September 8: Interpreters in period garb, reenactments, performances, Colonial games and demonstrations will bring history to life throughout the day.
Work begins on Depuy Canal House historic restoration project
“I knew 50 years ago what I am doing today,” John Novi wrote at the time of the property transfer. “I have always believed that the Depuy House belongs to the community as a public museum securing the history of canal travel and telling the story of the locktenders that lived in the house.”
17th-century replica Kalmar Nyckel is coming to Kingston
With ten cannons, 7,500 square feet of sails, six miles of rigging and a ten-story-high mainmast, the Kalmar Nyckel is a sight to be seen.
A multimedia celebration of Woodstock history
Thursday, July 26: It’s an endless tug-of-war that Woodstockers wage – even more so in the digital age – but someone, everyone, needs to do it. On Thursday evening, local producer/director and documentary filmmaker Stephen Blauweiss will host a multimedia event at the Maverick Concert Hall that will give some sense of the value of what is always endangered.