New York State History

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See also our September 11 section and our NY Colleges & Universities page.

ACTUP Oral History Project
"...is a collection of interviews with surviving members of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, New York. The project is coordinated by Jim Hubbard and Sarah Schulman, with camera work by James Wentzy (in New York) and S. Leo Chiang (on the West Coast.)...The purpose of this project is to present comprehensive, complex, human, collective, and individual pictures of the people who have made up ACT-UP/New York."

American Family Immigration History Center
Explore Your Family History at Ellis Island
Includes: The Ellis Island Archives ; The Passenger Record Archive ; The Community Archive ; Family History Scrapbooks.

Birth of the Nation: The First Federal Congress, 1789-1791
"This online exhibit recreates an exhibit which opened in the United States Court House in Manhattan in 1989...This exhibit provides an overview of the work of and issues faced by this seminal Congress, which was a virtual second sitting of the Federal Convention, fleshing out the governmental structure outlined in the Constitution and addressing the difficult issues left unresolved by the Constitution. Each "topic" begins with a quote from the Constitution relating to it. The illustrations (letters, newspaper articles, cartoons, portraits, etc.) for the topics provide just a sampling of the. wealth of material in the Documentary History of the First Federal Congress, 1789-1791...It is our hope that the exhibit will prove useful, particularly to students and their teachers. Towards that end, we intend to produce an online teacher's guide for the exhibit."

Brooklyn Botanic Garden

  • New York Metropolitan Flora Project
    "...the most comprehensive study ever of the plant biodiversity in metropolitan New York. Studying the vegetation changes in highly populated areas is critical to understanding the future of life in our rapidly urbanizing world."
    Sections include: Metropolitan Plant Encyclopedia ; What's that Plant? ; What Plants Grow Where ; Bibliography.

Center for Jewish History (New York, NY)

City Sites: An Electronic Book
Multimedia Essays on New York and Chicago, 1870s-1930s
"...is an inter- and multi-disciplinary study of the iconography, spatial forms and visual and literary cultures of New York and Chicago in the period 1870s to 1930s."
Based at the University of Birmingham and the University of Nottingham in the UK.
University of Birmingham Press, 2000

Christo & Jeanne-Claude
The Art of Christo and Jeanne-Claude

  • The Gates - Central Park, 1979-2005 - (dead link)
    "The 7500 Gates, 16 feet (4.87 meters) high with a width varying from 5' 6" to 18 feet (1,67 m to 5,48 meters) will follow the edges of the walkways and will be perpendicular to the selected 23 miles of footpaths in Central Park.

Columbia University - Center for Contemporary Black History

Columbia University - Institute for Research in African-American Studies

Cornell University Library - Historical Monographs
"...is a collection of selected monographs with expired copyrights chosen from a variety of disciplines. These were monographs that were brittle and decaying and in need of rescue ...Our collection [that is available for viewing] consists of 456 General monographs ; 576 Math books ; 691 New York State Historical pamphlets and monographs."

Ellis Island Immigration Museum

Freedom's Journal
The first African-American owned and operated newspaper in the U.S., published 1827-1829 from New York City.
"...provided international, national, and regional information on current events and contained editorials declaiming slavery, lynching, and other injustices. The Journal also published biographies of prominent African-Americans and listings of births, deaths, and marriages in the African-American New York community. Freedom's Journal circulated in 11 states, the District of Columbia, Haiti, Europe, and Canada...All 103 issues of the Freedom's Journal have been digitized and placed into Adobe Acrobat format"
The State Historical Society of Wisconsin

Guide to Women's History Collections at the University of Buffalo Archives
"Particular attention has been paid to the preservation of the records of the region's women's organizations."

Jewish History Resources in New York State - (dead link)
"Although intended primarily to aid Jewish genealogists and family historians, this publication can help all historians to identify unique resources in Jewish history."
From the New York State Archives and Records Administration

Jewish Museum of New York

  • Online Exhibitions
    • Entertaining America: Jews, Media, and Broadcasting
      "Over the past century, the various connections between American Jews and the nation's entertainment media have generated a discussion that has been extensive, passionate, and, at times, contentious."
    • Making Connections in Art and Jewish Culture
      "Explore the collection interactively. This online exhibition includes sixty works, from ancient artifacts to contemporary art and television clips, and traces their interconnections."

Jewish Theological Seminary - Library - (dead link)

Love Canal Collection
Includes: Introduction ; Online Documents ; Guide to Collection ; Related Materials ; Links
State University of New York, Buffalo, University Libraries

Lower East Side Tenement Museum
"The first museum in the United States to preserve a tenement building and have it designated a National Historic Site."
Includes: Labor History Tour ; The Wallpaper Excavation ; Tenement Stories.

LowerManhattan.info
Sections include: Get There & Get Around ; Health, Safety & Security ; Rebuilding ; Assistance & Incentives ; Get Involved ; Things to Do ; History.

Manhattan Timeformations
Mapping Manhattan's Skyscraper Districts through Time
"This project uses computer models and interactive animations to depict the dynamic relationship between Manhattan's skyscrapers and other layers of urban information, such as: geologic formation, settlement patterns, landfill, transportation and communications infrastructure, zoning laws and real estate cycles."
By Brian McGrath, Architect

Metropolitan Museum of Art (The MET)

Museum of Modern Art, New York (MoMA)

New York City Fire Department (FDNY)

New York History Net
Sections include: Archives ; Books ; Civil War ; Conferences ; Education ; Erie Canal ; Exhibits ; Genealogy ; Government ; Historians ; Historical Societies ; Jobs ; Local Sites ; Museums ; Organizations.
A Project of The Institute For New York State Studies

New York Public Library

  • The Picture Collection
    "The Picture Collection Online is an image resource site for those who seek knowledge and inspiration from visual materials. It is a collection of 30,000 digitized images from books, magazines and newspapers as well as original photographs, prints and postcards, mostly created before 1923."

New York Public Library Digital Collection
Includes the Digital Schomerg collections of Images of African Americans from the 19th Century, and African American Women Writers of the 19th Century. The site also contains a very diverse collection of Online Exhibits detailing the social history of New York and the United States.

New York State History (electronic journal)
"...devoted to the study of New York and its people. This journal will be issued twice a year, with more frequent updates of letters and reviews. Each new issue will have a multimedia presentation and other articles on some aspect of New York State."

New York Times at 150
1851-2001 - From the Newspaper Age to the Information Age
"...with articles and reminiscences by Michael Chabon, David Halberstam, Ann Quindlen, Frank Rich and others.
Free registration required

On the Lower East Side
Observations of Life in Lower Manhattan at the Turn of the Century
Compiled and edited by William Crozier, et al.

PBS - American Experience - The Center of the World: New York: A Documentary Film (September 2003)
Website to accompany the TV broadcast.
"The eighth episode of filmmaker Ric Burns' award-winning series New York: A Documentary Film examines the rise and fall of the World Trade Center -- from its conception in the post-World War II economic boom, through its controversial construction in the 1960s and 1970s, to its tragic demise in the fall of 2001 and extraordinary response of the city in its aftermath."
Sections include: Transcript ; Primary Sources ; Further Readings ; Timeline ; Maps ; People & Events ; Teacher's Guide.

PBS - Independent Lens - SHAOLIN ULYSSES: Kungfu Monks in America (October 2003)
Web companion to the PBS broadcast of the independent film by Martha Burr and Mei-Juin Chen.
"The famous fighting monks of the Shaolin monastery have seen a resurgence throughout the world, aided in part by the popularity of kungfu movies among the hip-hop set and films like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. The film follows a handful of Shaolin monks who have brought the style to America, chronicling their adventures in New York City, Houston and Las Vegas."
Sections include: The Monks ; About Shaolin ; Kungfu Goes West ; The Filmmakers ; Learn More ; Inside Shaolin.

Religious Worlds of New York Student Projects
"This page contains links to student projects from the Fall 1996 and Spring 1998 offerings of Religious Worlds of New York, a seminar-workshop that focuses on religious diversity in the city. With the support of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, each member of the class engaged in fieldwork in a community and explored, experienced, and engaged the religious and social life of its members. Listed below are excerpts from some of the papers, information about the topics of other research projects, as well as links to various web sites."
Go to Religious Worlds of New York for online links
Dept. of Religion, Bernard College, Columbia University

September 11, 2001 - See our September 11 section.

The Underground Railroad in Rochester, New York
"...an overview of slavery, the Fugitive Slave Act, abolitionists, the Railroad and its history in Rochester, New York."
By Ilana May, Mark Beigel, and Lenny Hochschild

WNYC - Arts & Ideas - The Art of War
New York City's Flagship Public Station
"Both pro and anti-war responses were encouraged, more than 500 submissions were received. Submissions ranged from photographs, paintings, editorial cartoons and digital animation. Works were selected for inclusion by the Interactive Media department on the basis of timeliness, originality and creativity."


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