Chancellor’s Sheep & Wool Showcase at Clermont
Saturday, April 21: Robert Livingston was among the first to bring prized Merino sheep to the United States.
Almanac Weekly | History
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“Hudson River and Its Canals” exhibit at Maritime Museum in Kingston
Opens on Saturday, April 21: Visitors will have the opportunity to hear the voice of a woman who grew up driving a mule along the D & H Canal from the interior of a canalboat cabin. Children can operate small canalboats through a scale-model canal with mechanical locks and an aqueduct. A large 3-D topographical map showcases how the geography of the state influenced canal routes.
Tim Youd retypes Mary McCarthy’s The Group in Vassar performance piece
Thursday, 4/19 and several dates afterward: In his ongoing 100 Novels project, Youd specializes in retyping novels (with the same make and model typewriter used by the author) from beginning to end in locations that are charged with literary significance in the author’s biography. The retyping of Mary McCarthy’s The Group will constitute the 56th novel that Youd has typed, and is one of several titles that he will undertake in the Hudson Valley in 2018.
Sound & Story Project of the Hudson Valley hopes to strengthen community through the power of listening
“I think we’re in a particular moment right now, with all of the young entrepreneurs coming to live here and revitalizing a lot of the Hudson Valley. They’re doing so many interesting things, all connecting to our past, in a way: They’re bringing back chicken farms, working with bees and there’s even somebody in Accord beginning to make barrels again – a trade that went on there for years. There is so much happening here now, and I would love to record some of their stories, and capture this moment in history as it’s happening.”
Dutchess Community College’s Bowne Hall was once a sanatorium
In its heyday, the Bowne Hospital was a state-of-the-art wonder. There were several spacious solaria, and every enclosed space was festooned with windows, awash with light. Adjustable beds lined the long porticos, open to the breezes.
Vassar’s Grace Murray Hopper invented the COBOL programming language
Referred to affectionately as “Amazing Grace,” the computer pioneer, mathematician & military commander was awarded 40 honorary university degrees during her lifetime.
Feat of clay: Looking back at the once-mighty Hudson Valley brick industry
At the turn of the 20th century, the Hudson Valley was the brickmaking capital of the world, producing more than a billion bricks a year and employing nearly 10,000 people in more than 120 brickyards. By the late 1970s, the once-mighty molded-brick industry was no more. One by one, the great yards had closed their gates, leaving behind a small-but-colorful legacy of people who remember the industry in its prime.
Who was George Clinton, anyway?
A primer on Kingston’s own soldier/statesman.
Campaign to commemorate WWII’s “Indestructible Man” in Beacon
Thursday, January 11: “Captain Dixie” Kiefer was a US naval commander during World War II who saw so much action that his men joked that the ship’s compass needle always pointed to him, on account of all the shrapnel in his body. While awarding him a medal, the Secretary of the Navy dubbed Kiefer “the Indestructible Man.” But shortly after the war ended, Kiefer perished, along with five other Navy men, in an airplane crash on Mount Beacon. A group called the Mount Beacon Eight is working to attain recognition for those who died alongside Kiefer in the 1945 plane crash.
Before electricity, Hudson Valley ice helped NYC keep its cool
In the late 19th century, the Hudson Valley was home to at least 135 commercial icehouses, collectively capable of storing as much as three million tons of ice during the winter months.