By Alison Parker Expressing an early version of the theory of intersectionality at the turn-of-the-twentieth century, Mary Church Terrell identified herself as “a colored woman in a white world” who experienced both racism and sexism. Throughout her life, Terrell also publicly advocated on behalf of black girls and women who were unfairly convicted for defending themselves against assaults by whites. Today, black women activists have similar priorities. Kimberle Crenshaw’s African American Policy Forum, for instance, coined the hashtag movement #SayHerName, urging the Black Lives Matter movement to bring specific attention to police violence against black women such as Sandra Bland, […]
Lampooning Political Women
By Alison K. Lange. For as long as women have battled for equitable political representation in America, those battles have been defined by images—whether illustrations, engravings, photographs, or colorful chromolithograph posters. Some of these pictures have been flattering, many have been condescending, and others downright incendiary. They have drawn upon prevailing cultural ideas of women’s perceived roles and abilities and often have been circulated with pointedly political objectives. An excerpt from Picturing Political Power: Images in the Women’s Suffrage Movement In the mid-19th century, female reformers faced an impossible task as they advocated for rights and aimed to maintain a […]
People Not Property: Exploring the Legacy of Slavery in New York’s Hudson Valley
Historic Hudson Valley (HHV) is redefining what a documentary is with Webby-Award-Winning website People Not Property: Stories of Slavery in the Colonial North. Focusing on the history of enslavement in the Hudson Valley, the exhibition uncovers erased narratives of families and the records that reveal the depth of northern states’ involvement in the slave trade — even after abolition. HNY spoke with Elizabeth L. Bradley, Vice President of Programs and Engagement and Michael A. Lord, Director of Content Development. Above: C&G Partners, Hand-Drawn Silhouette of Father and Child. Courtesy Historic Hudson Valley. How does the documentary add to the narrative about […]
Reckoning with the History of Enslavement on Long Island: the Jupiter Hammon Project
Preservation Long Island (PLI) is embracing its role as keeper of a historic house museum of Black enslavement by engaging in public discourse around present-day issues. Centering the life history of Jupiter Hammon, the first published African American author, PLI will recruit experts to plan public-facing programs that explore the consequences of enslavement on Long Island. PLI received a Vision Grant in preparation for the “Round Table” series, which will provide opportunities to discuss and frame a multi-year reinterpretation initiative and to learn about the historical figure who inspires it all. HNY spoke to Lauren Brincat, Curator, and Darren St. […]
Definitions of Black Agency: The Legacy of Mildred Johnson Edwards
Ansley Erickson, a historian at Teachers College, Columbia University, and Karen Taylor, the founder and director of “While We Are Still Here,” a Harlem-based heritage-preservation site, received an Action Grant to host two public events as part of their process in documenting Harlem’s rich tradition of education. Ansley is Co-Director and Karen is Director of Public History at the Harlem Education History Project, which uses archival materials and oral histories to preserve and share stories of education in Harlem. Humanities New York sat with them to learn about what inspired this initiative―and Mildred Johnson Edwards, whose vision materialized a legacy […]
The Sing Sing Revolt
By Lee Bernstein The New York History Journal has been re-imagined and re-launched by our partners at the New York State Museum and Cornell University Press. The journal welcomes submissions from public historians, municipal historians, museum professionals, and archivists, in addition to academic historians–very much in the spirit of Humanities New York as we help build the burgeoning field of the public humanities. The article we’d like to share with you on the blog concerns “The Sing Sing Revolt” which, coming ten years after the uprising at Attica, is less talked about, but sheds important light on the way that event shaped the criminal justice system in New […]
Buffalo Humanities Festival
The Buffalo Humanities Festival, now in its sixth year, is a public humanities project organized by the UB Humanities Institute in collaboration with other local and regional cultural institutions, including Buffalo State College, Canisius College, Niagara University, the Buffalo and Erie County Public Library, and Humanities New York, with the initial support of HNY, the Oishei Foundation, and the ongoing funding of the UB College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) and the UB Vice President for Research and Economic Development (OVPRED). In recent years, the Festival has been devoted to engaging the Buffalo community in critical conversations on the big […]
West of Stonewall: The Struggle for LGBT Rights in Western New York
Fifty years since the historical uprising at the Stonewall Inn in New York City. Fifty years since the founding of Buffalo’s earliest gay rights organization, the Mattachine Society of the Niagara Frontier. Which is the more significant for Buffalo? Humanities New York funded “Gay Liberation NOW: Buffalo Mattachine and the Myth of Stonewall” to shed light on the story of how the struggle for gay liberation in Western New York evolved, in parallel to Stonewall but not because of it. Humanities New York spoke with grantee Adrienne Hill, who co-founded the Buffalo-Niagara LGBTQ History Project. Hill lays out how teaching […]
Preserving LGBT Historic Sites
How do we preserve a sense of place when its context is constantly changing? We continue our Stonewall 50 blog series by discussing the importance of preserving place-based LBGTQ history. HNY interviewed Ken Lustbader, one of the Project Directors of the NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project, who discusses how digital preservation can be an effective tool for passing stories intergenerationally, particularly when some of the most important historical spaces were illegal, transient, or have since been renovated. Don’t miss the rest of the series, join our newsletter. HNY: Let’s start with Stonewall. Stonewall has arguably become as much a symbol […]
Devoted: Alice Austen and Stonewall 50
As New Yorkers geared up for commemorations and World Pride celebrations, Humanities New York spoke with several partners who received Action Grants for Stonewall-related humanities programming. We begin a Stonewall 50 blog series by discussing the legacy of photographer Alice Austen and how her work is situated within LGBTQ history. HNY interviewed Victoria Munro, Executive Director of the Alice Austen House located on the North Shore of Staten Island. Don’t miss the rest of the series, join our newsletter. HNY: For those not familiar with the photography pioneer Alice Austen, why is she important to where we are now in […]
