Hidden History of Columbia County, New York

Hidden History of Columbia County, New York

Author: Allison Guertin Marchese

Publisher: Arcadia Publishing

Published: 2014-05-13

Total Pages: 169

ISBN-13: 1625849265

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Bordered by the Hudson River and the Berkshire Mountains, Columbia County is part of the famously picturesque Hudson Valley region. But look beyond the rolling hills to discover the secrets of Columbia County. A mastodon tooth rolled down a farmer's hill in Claverack, changing the world's understanding of prehistoric times. President Martin Van Buren lost his wife, Hannah, in Kinderhook and hardly mentioned her again. Hudson's gallows were the scene of New York's last hanging, as hundreds of ticketholders looked on. Outcasts called "Pondshiners" hid in the hills of Taghkanic, and the only sign of their existence are the fantastic baskets they made. Join local author Allison Guertin Marchese as she explores these little-known stories of people and places, deeply woven into the history of Columbia County, New York.


The Columbia History of the 20th Century

The Columbia History of the 20th Century

Author: Richard W. Bulliet

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 678

ISBN-13: 9780231076289

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In the parade of highlights with which many have tried to sum up the twentieth century, the overarching patterns and fundamental transformations often fail to come into focus. The Columbia History of the 20th Century, however, is much more than a chronicle of the previous century's front-page news. Instead, the book is a series of twenty-three linked interpretive essays on the most significant developments in modern times--ranging from athletics to art, the economy to the environment. Rather than presenting a linear narrative, each author uncovers patterns of worldwide change. James Mayall, for example, writes on nationalism from the rise of European fascism to the rise of Asian and African nations; Sheila Fitzpatrick traces the history of communism and socialism in Moscow and Havana. In her chapter on women and gender, Rosalind Rosenberg covers the progress of women's rights throughout the world, from Middle Eastern activism to the American feminist movement. Jean-Marc Ran Oppenheim's history of sports traces the spread of Western sports to all corners of the globe and the West's appropriation of such activities as martial arts. In each, the important strands of history--events, ideas, leading figures, issues--come together to offer an illuminating look at cultural connection, diffusion, and conflict, showing in stark relief how this period has been unlike any preceding era of human history.


Handbook of the Linguistic Atlas of the Middle and South Atlantic States

Handbook of the Linguistic Atlas of the Middle and South Atlantic States

Author: William A. Kretzschmar

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 1993-09-15

Total Pages: 476

ISBN-13: 9780226452838

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Who uses "skeeter hawk," "snake doctor," and "dragonfly" to refer to the same insect? Who says "gum band" instead of "rubber band"? The answers can be found in the Linguistic Atlas of the Middle and South Atlantic States (LAMSAS), the largest single survey of regional and social differences in spoken American English. It covers the region from New York state to northern Florida and from the coastline to the borders of Ohio and Kentucky. Through interviews with nearly twelve hundred people conducted during the 1930s and 1940s, the LAMSAS mapped regional variations in vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation at a time when population movements were more limited than they are today, thus providing a unique look at the correspondence of language and settlement patterns. This handbook is an essential guide to the LAMSAS project, laying out its history and describing its scope and methodology. In addition, the handbook reveals biographical information about the informants and social histories of the communities in which they lived, including primary settlement areas of the original colonies. Dialectologists will rely on it for understanding the LAMSAS, and historians will find it valuable for its original historical research. Since much of the LAMSAS questionnaire concerns rural terms, the data collected from the interviews can pinpoint such language differences as those between areas of plantation and small-farm agriculture. For example, LAMSAS reveals that two waves of settlement through the Appalachians created two distinct speech types. Settlers coming into Georgia and other parts of the Upper South through the Shenandoah Valley and on to the western side of the mountain range had a Pennsylvania-influenced dialect, and were typically small farmers. Those who settled the Deep South in the rich lowlands and plateaus tended to be plantation farmers from Virginia and the Carolinas who retained the vocabulary and speech patterns of coastal areas. With these revealing findings, the LAMSAS represents a benchmark study of the English language, and this handbook is an indispensable guide to its riches.


Rogue

Rogue

Author: John K. Driscoll

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2005-12-05

Total Pages: 228

ISBN-13: 0786423854

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From his first court martial as a cadet at West Point through his dismissal from the United States Army at the age of 49, Justus McKinstry made his career through outright cunning and manipulation of the legal system. Graduating from West Point in 1838, he eventually landed a long-sought-after position in the quartermaster corps. During his service here he took advantage of the extraordinary wartime circumstances to betray the public trust and make a profit for himself in the guise of acquiring much needed supplies. He was brought before a court of inquiry or a court martial six times during his nefarious career, yet only one time were charges initiated from within the Army itself. The final charges--once again initiated from a source outside the Army--brought his crimes to light and resulted in his dismissal from the service. This biography takes a look at the forces within the life of Brigadier General Justus McKinstry that shaped him into the man he eventually became. It briefly discusses his upbringing as well as his unprecedented six years at West Point and his service during the Second Seminole and Mexican wars. The bulk of the text, however, concentrates on his Civil War commission and his duties as an officer of the quartermaster corps, especially his position as Chief Quartermaster of the Department of the West during the summer and fall of 1861. Special emphasis is placed on the ways in which the system itself failed McKinstry, bringing into question the ability of the Army to police itself. Sources incorporate an abundance of official records from the time period, including a transcript of McKinstry's final court martial.


Hidden History of the Mid-Hudson Valley

Hidden History of the Mid-Hudson Valley

Author: Carney Rhinevault

Publisher: Arcadia Publishing

Published: 2011-09-09

Total Pages: 199

ISBN-13: 1625841000

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The Albany Post Road was the vital artery between New York City and the state capital in Albany in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It saw a host of interesting events and colorful characters, though these unusual and extraordinary stories, as well as their connection to the thoroughfare, are oft forgotten. Revolutionary War spies marched this path, and anti-rent wars rocked Columbia County. Underground Railroad safe houses in nearby towns like Rhinebeck and Fishkill sheltered slaves seeking freedom in Canada, and Frank Teal's Dutchess County murder remains unsolved. With illustrations by Tatiana Rhinevault, local historian Carney Rhinevault presents these and other hidden stories from the Albany Post Road in New York's mid-Hudson Valley.


Farm, Shop, Landing

Farm, Shop, Landing

Author: Martin Bruegel

Publisher: Duke University Press

Published: 2002-04-24

Total Pages: 326

ISBN-13: 9780822328490

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DIVBruegel shows how the development of a market economy created historical change in a parochial community./div


Landlords and Farmers in the Hudson-Mohawk Region, 1790–1850

Landlords and Farmers in the Hudson-Mohawk Region, 1790–1850

Author: David Maldwyn Ellis

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2018-10-18

Total Pages: 362

ISBN-13: 1501721275

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The transition from a predominantly self-sufficient economy to one primarily dependent on the market in the first half of the nineteenth century was to effect changes in the United States fully as far-reaching if not as spectacular as those accompanying the industrial revolution. Farming as a way of life was yielding place to the concept of farming as a means of profit. Few farmers in the country felt the impact of these revolutionary forces more directly than those of eastern New York State. Indeed, discontent over these changes contributed to the violent Anti-Rent War (1839–1846) centered in the Catskills. How New York farmers met these challenges is the central theme of Landlords and Farmers in the Hudson-Mohawk Region, 1790–1850. Focusing on twenty-one counties in eastern New York, David Maldwyn Ellis describes the process of settlement, the growth of population, and the characteristics of pioneer agriculture; traces the rapid shifts from grain culture to sheep raising and dairying; and points out the variety of individual and local adjustments caused by differences in soil, topography, accessibility to market, cultural legacies, and individual enterprise. Ellis also contrasts the forces leading to rural decline with the beginnings of scientific husbandry and agricultural education; evaluates the role of roads, canals, and railroads, and outlines the land pattern and the effect of leasehold upon the region's agrarian development. In short, this classic work of American agricultural history and the history of New York State—originally published by Cornell in 1946—chronicles the transformation of the pioneer farmer into the dairyman.