Anne Harriman Sands Rutherfurd Vanderbilt (1861 – 1940) had a knack for choosing husbands and an independent, public-minded spirit – as author Alfred Allan Lewis said, “a dutiful Victorian daughter, who, through successive widowhoods, married better and better.” But a simple gold digger she was not.

The education staff at Philipse Manor Hall State Historic Site have created an original board game, “Crossing the Neutral Zone!” about the challenges of living in Westchester County during the American Revolutionary War.

In the late 19th century, when tuberculosis was the deadliest disease in America, a gravely ill physician arrived in the Adirondacks seeking relief — and helped change medical history.

An example of the gross negligence from factory owners and disregard for anything but profit, the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire’s impact was so immense that it would ultimately serve as one of the primary catalysts for a massive labor strike in New York’s Mohawk Valley over a year later.

Lake George wooden nickels, shaped like currency and stamped onto thin sheets of plywood, sold for a dime. Local merchants accepted the “money” at its face value, a nickel. The other five cents went to support an historical celebration.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton was a singular leader, thinker, and organizer whose fight for women’s emancipation stretched from the 1840s to her death in 1902, a full fifth of America’s history. Yet her legacy is marked by controversy.

Mile-long Trout Brook cuts downhill through heavily bouldered glacial moraine. Like any woodland brook, it features waterfalls, cascades, pools, and coves. By mid-December it is usually frozen over, with audible water running under the ice and snow.

Despite recent anti-immigrant developments, the ingredients that make up each of America’s flavorful households are waiting to be discovered and devoured.

On February 19, 1923, the US Supreme Court issued a ruling legally barring all Indians from becoming U.S. citizens and revoking citizenship from many who had attained it.

Women are almost invisible in most accounts of the American Revolution on Long Island, although they experienced more than seven years of British occupation, skirmishes, and calculated humiliations.

Many of the people who lived and worked at New York State Historic Sites had pets who brought them friendship and joy. The State Parks collections include numerous paintings and photographs of these beloved pets.

In older New York neighborhoods, pineapples may be found alongside other traditional motifs such as acorns (indicating strength) and pinecones (fertility and rebirth), examples of which survive at Central Park’s Bethesda Fountain (completed in 1873).

Forest Rangers responded to several nighttime rescue missions last week in the Adirondack High Peaks in deep snow and freezing conditions. They recovered one hikers body and rescued their dog, among other harrowing incidents.

The Great Fire of Utica in 1837 destroyed the western side of the 100 block of Genesee Street, the heart of Utica’s growing business district.

The Western New York Land Conservancy has announced that it has been awarded a $675,000 state grant toward the acquisition of the Bear Lake Preserve in the town of Stockton in Chautauqua County.

One of the most prominent Loyalists during the American Revolution was William Smith Jr. (1728-1793), a member of the royal Council of the Province of New York from 1767 to 1783, and the Province’s last royal Chief Justice, from 1780 until his departure for England in December, 1783.

The American Revolution wasn’t just a War for Independence. It was part of a wider age of revolutions that reshaped the Atlantic World.

Zoe Anderson Norris (1860–1914) was a woman ahead of her time. A Kentucky-born belle turned fearless Manhattan journalist, she used her pen as a weapon in the fight for justice.

The 1848 Great Albany Fire destroyed a large part of the city along its Hudson River waterfront, including steamboats, schooners, sloops and canal boats.

Adirondack Community Foundation is inviting the public to attend the “Workforce Housing Forum: Three Years of Progress in the Adirondack Region” on Thursday, March 5, 2026

Hotels like the Sagamore needed stable, seaworthy boats that their guests, many of them inexperienced boaters, could use without the assistance of a guide. F.R. Smith’s Lake George rowboats answered those needs.

Governor Kathy Hochul has unveiled the Downtown Albany Strategy, a revitalization plan that is part of the $400 million Championing Albany’s Potential (CAP) Initiative. Here are some of the historical components.

Oneida County, NY, was part of Marquis de Lafayette’s 1824-1825 visit to America. His interest in visiting the site of the Battle of Oriskany was partly responsible for bringing the aged general to the area.

The Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor has opened a new round of applications for Mohawk Valley Historic Revitalization Grants to support capital improvements for historic properties in rural communities within the Mohawk Valley in Herkimer and Montgomery counties.

Suffolk County, NY, declared December 17th William Floyd Day. According to County Executive Edward Romaine, William Floyd's birthday should be commemorated every year. He was the largest slaveholder in Brookhaven.

The residents of Huntington, on Long Island, were quick to react to the first battle of the American Revolution when the local militia in Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts successfully repulsed a British attempt to seize their arms on April 19, 1775.

Golden-crowned kinglets are ping-pong-ball-sized (and -shaped) songbirds that breed almost exclusively in coniferous forests. In the winter, they occupy a wider variety of habitats, including mixed woodlands, deciduous forests, and even shrub-dominated landscapes.

The Adirondack Center for Writing (ACW) is seeking submissions for its fourth annual print publication of its Wild Words Adirondack Teen Writing Anthology.

Newspaper reporters enthusiastically reported on the Cliff Haven Stock Company, a theater group presenting popular plays with nationally and internationally known actors.

Music has the power to bring people together in the name of solidarity. There have always been songs to aide in carrying the cries for social justice. Modern protest music came into mainstream popularity during the Civil Rights Movement; today’s protest music has a different voice.

On Fri, Aug 30, 1805, Matthew Prendergast set off on horseback from Sharon, Connecticut. Matthew was about 50 years old, a resident of Amenia in Dutchess County, NY, just across the state line from Sharon. He was comfortably well off, but definitely not super rich, and he suffered from rheumatism.

As anti-science sentiment grows and environmental problems intensify nationwide, institutions that anchor public science and environmental stewardship, like the State University of New York’s College of Environmental Science and Forestry (SUNY ESF), are being tested as never before.

Saratoga Springs Preservation Foundation will host independent scholar and author Amy Godine for a discussion of her book The Black Woods: Pursuing Racial Justice on the Adirondack Frontier (Cornell Univ. Press, 2023).

The 25th anniversary celebration of Flamenco Festival New York will feature programming from over 80 participants from 16 companies, including singers, guitarists, dancers, and technicians, will present their latest creations.

The rampant industrialism of the Gilded Age and early Progressive Era eventually took root in Little Falls, NY. The city and the surrounding Mohawk Valley had served as a hub for immigrant and migrant labor for a significant time.

Located at the southern tip of Manhattan Island, Castle Clinton stands where New York City began and represents not only the city’s growth, but the growth of a nation.

America’s History, L.L.C., will hold its thirteenth Annual Conference of the American Revolution in Glen Allen, Virginia, on March 27–29th.

Two recreationists died in the Adirondacks recently - including a woman at Mount Marcy Friday and a second skier a month ago at Whiteface, though a lack of daily local journalism limited public information about the deaths.

Britain and America involved in acts of intellectual property theft. The means used today may be more sophisticated, but the purpose of gaining a competitive edge remains the same.

The killing of Jane McCrea on July 26, 1777, on the outskirts of Fort Edward in the northern Hudson Valley, would unexpectedly rupture the British advance from Canada that was meant to crush the American Revolution in one knockout blow.

Just 90-100 years ago, mallards were not known to breed in New York State. Since the ban of live decoys in the 1930s, mallards rebounded to all-time highs in the early 2000s but now we have seen significant declines in eastern mallards.

A social history of Twitchell Lake, a small Adirondack lake community near Big Moose in Herkimer County, NY.

The New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation (State Parks) is working with partners across the state to share new research and resources that explore early Black American history in New York as part of its “Enslavement to Freedom: 1627-1827-2027” initiative.

On February 8, 1690, a band of French marauders and their Native American allies stormed the stockaded frontier village at what is now Schenectady, NY. Sixty people were slaughtered during the raid, including 10 women and 12 children, and 11 Black enslaved people, and dozens of others captured.

In September 1871, Phineas Taylor Barnum (1810–1891), known more commonly as P.T. Barnum, arrived at Lake George with his circus for a performance. Barnum’s caravan of horse-drawn vehicles also included two stagecoaches, those for the circus boss, his immediate entourage, and for trunks of clothing.

A small perennial carnivorous plant that was documented by Charles Horton Peck (1833-1917) of Sand Lake, in eastern Rensselaer County, who was the New York State Botanist from 1867-1915.

DEC has expanded the oak wilt quarantine districts in Yates and Ontario counties in the Finger Lakes after finding new trees infected with oak wilt.

At some point in your life traveling around New York State, you’ve probably come across a Strand Theater. If you’ve been around the block a few times, you’ve probably noticed more than a couple and wondered, why are they all named the Strand?

Millions of gallons of water are withdrawn for use each day from the lakes, rivers, streams, estuaries and ground waters in New York. To help visualize statewide water use, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has developed a new Water Use Dashboard.

William Loren Katz’s Black Legacy: A History of New York’s African Americans (Seven Stories Press edition, 2026) unveils the Black history of New York from 1609 to the present, for readers 12 and up.