More than 150 full-color photographs highlight a photographic study of the various types of barns located in a sixty-mile strip of land that runs from Riverhead to Orient Point on New York's Long Island, revealing a rich variety of structures that range from the timber-frame barns of seventeenth-century British farmers to twentieth-century pole barns.
In A Farm Family on Long Island's North Fork, Richard A. Wines traces the history of a vital agricultural community on the North Fork of Long Island through the story of the last family to live in the old Homestead at the Hallockville Museum Farm. For well over two centuries, community members were almost all descendants of the same group of seventeenth-century Puritan founders. Yet, despite their shared heritage and complex interrelationships, cultural wars raged. Family members and the community divided bitterly on issue after issue, ranging from whether to allow a melodeon into the church to supporting abolitionism. The community weathered many changes—the Civil War, the emergence of new agricultural technologies, the arrival of Eastern European immigrants, even an attempt to build a string of nuclear power plants in the twentieth century. Wines's deep dives into one community's history uncover stories about slavery, racism, and prejudice that many have chosen to forget, as well as stories of compassion or human tragedy we want to remember. A Farm Family on Long Island's North Fork will appeal to those interested in Long Island regional history and the larger history of rural communities throughout New York and the United States.
Barns of New York explores and celebrates the agricultural and architectural diversity of the Empire State—from Long Island to Lake Erie, the Southern Tier to the North Country—providing a unique compendium of the vernacular architecture of rural New York. Through descriptions of the appearance and working of representative historic farm buildings, Barns of New York also serves as an authoritative reference for historic preservation efforts across the state.Cynthia G. Falk connects agricultural buildings—both extant examples and those long gone—with the products and processes they made and make possible. Great attention is paid not only to main barns but also to agricultural outbuildings such as chicken coops, smokehouses, and windmills. Falk further emphasizes the types of buildings used to support the cultivation of products specifically associated with the Empire State, including hops, apples, cheese, and maple syrup.Enhanced by more than two hundred contemporary and historic photographs and other images, this book provides historical, cultural, and economic context for understanding the rural landscape. In an appendix are lists of historic farm buildings open to the public at living history museums and historic sites. Through a greater awareness of the buildings found on farms throughout New York, readers will come away with an increased appreciation for the state's rich agricultural and architectural legacy.
