Long island Archives
Transcending Barriers: Opening Archives, Opening Minds
January/February 2024 Volume 31 Issue 1
Cover image: "Coast Guard Ice Breakers, Northport, N.Y." Courtesy of Northport-East Northport Postcard Collection accessed on New York Heritage Digital Collections website.
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Announcing the 2023 NYSCA/GHHN Conservation Treatment Grant Program Awardees NYSCA/GHHN Conservation Treatment Grants Announced: $177,384 Awarded Across New York State The Greater Hudson Heritage Network (GHHN) and the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) are awarding $177,384 in conservation treatment grants to 28 organizations, located in 18 New York counties. Conservation Treatment Grants fund professional conservation to stabilize and preserve historical objects and works of art in New York museums, history centers, and cultural organizations. Read the full announcement of state-wide recipients here. The Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation is generously providing 50% of the funding for conservation treatment projects on Nassau & Suffolk counties and New York City. Congratulations to the 2023 Conservation Treatment Grant Recipients on Long Island: Quogue Historical Society $6,975 for the conservation of an early 19th-century Medicine Chest & Glass Bottles. Conservator: The Found Object Art Conservation. Southold Historical Society $7,500 for the conservation of a coverlet owned by Matilda Landon Mulford (1833-1899). Conservator: The Textile Conservation Workshop. The Heckscher Museum of Art $7,500 for the conservation of a portrait of artist Emma Stebbins (1815-1882) by her instructor, Henry Inman (1801-1846). Conservator: ArtCare Conservation. The Long Island Museum of American Art, History & Carriages $6,546 for the conservation of oil on canvas of Captain Jonas Smith by William Sidney Mount (1807-1868), painted 1836. Conservator: Jen Munch Art Conservation. The NYSCA/GHHN ConservationTreatment Grant Program is made possible with funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature. TheRobert David Lion Gardiner Foundationhas provided additional dedicated support for conservation treatmentprojects in Nassau & Suffolk counties and New York City.
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Programs of Interest
Digitization Best Practices and Metadata Basics January 17, 2024, 1:00 PM - 4:00 PM @ Zoom Register: https://lilrc.org/event-5493982 This workshop offers the attendees the resources to begin a digital project and learn about commonly used metadata fields. This class will be for anyone wishing to learn more about these topics and is required for joining the New York Heritage Digital Collections website for the Long Island region. Here's what you'll learn: Deciding on a digital project Hands-on digitization examples Metadata - what is 'data about data' Understanding common metadata fields Setting up a spreadsheet for your collection items NOTE: This is a repeat presentation - no new material will be covered if you have previously attended this workshop. This program will be recorded. Etched in Stone: Lessons from Recipes Found on Gravestones January 29, 2024, 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM @ Zoom Register: https://lilrc.org/event-5452172 Rosie Grant, a #gravetok Tiktoker, will delve into the research of finding and cooking gravestone recipes. Her work highlights the fascinating practice of inscribing gravestones with recipes from the past, shedding light on the historical significance of food and legacy. At the intersection of food and loss, attendees will be shown how these culinary engravings offer a unique glimpse into the lives and memories of those who've come before us. Ultimately, a recipe on a gravestone underscores the importance of preserving our culinary legacies as a means of honoring our past and preserving our cultural heritage for future generations. Mold in Textile Collections: A Conservator's Perspective February 05, 2024, 1:30 PM – 2:30 PM @ Zoom Register: https://lilrc.org/event-5508180 Mold is a complicated problem that affects collections of all types. This presentation will focus on mold outbreaks on textiles. Topics to be covered include: 1) the basics of mold, 2) how mold affects textiles, 3) common treatment options, and 4) when to consult a conservator for assistance. Meredith Wilcox-Levine is a textile conservator at the Textile Conservation Workshop in South Salem, NY. She holds a Master of Science degree in Historic Costume and Textiles from the University of Rhode Island's Department of Textiles, Fashion Merchandising and Design, with a focus in Textile Conservation. During her training she completed internships at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the National Museum of American History. She is an associate member of the American Institute for Conservation and the Costume Society of America.
Happy New Year, everyone! It was a productive and fruitful year for the Accessing Archives Program (AAP). We wrapped up the latest partnership with the Sea Cliff Village Museum as the clock struck midnight. Since we last met here on the pages of the newsletter, we have completed two projects since we worked with the Walt Whitman Birthplace Association. I will recap both of those projects as well as the collections that are now available on New York Heritage thanks to the program. There may also be some fun digital surprises coming to LILRC in 2024 so please stay tuned! From late September to early November, the AAP brought me to the Long Island Museum (LIM) in Stony Brook. This was our seventh partnership for the year. The goal was to organize and re-house the archival materials on two large shelving units. Week after week, I went through every shelf, opening up each box and checking contents with the goal of rehousing everything. Through this process, the staff and I made some fascinating discoveries: We rediscovered glass lantern slides from a Long Island photographer, Hal B. Fullerton. One of those slides can be seen below (at left). Another rediscovery that was made during the course of this project was a box of photographic negatives circa 1910 that belonged to the Hawkins family, an old Stony Brook family with deep roots in the town. The images capture their daily life as well as sites of the surrounding area and guests that stayed at their boarding house, Pine View House. I also had some time to create a page on Empire ADC for the museum. Some of their finding aids are now available here: Long Island Museum of American Art, History, & Carriages - Arclight (empireadc.org). Now, my work at the Sea Cliff Village Museum (SCVM) was the eighth and final partnership of the year. The goal was to organize and re-house the archival materials that are housed in the museum’s collection room. Images of the room before we began working can be seen on the next page. Over six weeks from November 13 to December 18, Nicole Menchise and I emptied out the entire room, unframed oversized photographs and artwork, and rehoused countless items and objects so the room could be better utilized for the museum’s collections. We sifted through everything in the room and rediscovered photographs, albums, scrapbooks, and documents that are now living in their new forever homes at the museum. Nicole and I began to rethink and reimagine how to use this room more effectively. We removed everything from the walls and floor with the intention of finding a better place for everything and help figure out if it belongs in the museum at all. Large or small, museums and historical societies develop a habit over the decades to take things in because they are old and thay don't want to dissapoint anyone. It’s alright to say “No” if the material is not relevant to your mission statement or collections policy. The space became cleaner and healthier as did the objects themselves since many items were now out of their frames that were broken or water damaged. Framed photographs, as an example, are fine and adequate for displaying items in the short term but frames are not meant for long term storage of any item. As the project went on, we also discovered a shelving unit that had been purchased years ago but never installed. In a moment of sheer coincidence, as if had been measured for the space, the new shelving unit slid right into place. As the room took a new form, Nicole and I began to re-populate the shelves with the newly housed collections. There was more granular collection work done as I took some time to inventory and sleeve the collection of 454 glass plate negatives. As a result of this project, we added two, new collections to New York Heritage of films and oral histories: Sea Cliff Film Collection | New York Heritage (nyheritage.org) and Sea Cliff Oral History Collection (1958-2005) | New York Heritage (nyheritage.org) I hope you found this column inspiring. I’m looking forward to the collection work scheduled for 2024.
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LATEST FROM THE ACCESSING ARCHIVES PROGRAM By Robert Anen
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Make a resolution.... to advance your professional development. Save the date for one or more of the following conferences or meetings.
New England Archivists - Spring Meeting Providence, Rhode Island, March 14-16, 2024 https://newenglandarchivists.org/Spring-2024 Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference - Spring Symposium Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, April 8, 2024 https://www.marac.info/spring-2024-symposium Museum Association of New York - Annual Conference Albany, New York, April 6-9, 2024 https://nysmuseums.org/annualconference American Alliance of Museums - Annual Meeting & Museumexpo Baltimore, Maryland, May 16-19, 2024 https://annualmeeting.aam-us.org/register/ New York Archives Conference Virtual, June 7, 2024 https://www.nyarchivists.org/nyac/ New York History Conference Albany, New York, June 20-21, 2024 https://nystate-history.com/ American Library Association - Annual Conference & Exhibition San Diego, California, June 27-July 2, 2024 https://2024.alaannual.org/ Society of American Archivists - Archives*Records Chicago, Illinois, August 14-17, 2024 https://www2.archivists.org/am2024 American Association for State and Local History - Annual Conference Mobile, Alabama, September 11-14, 2024 https://www.aaslh.org/annualconference/ Association of Public Historians of New York State - Conference Long Island, New York, Fall 2024 (September) https://aphnys.wildapricot.org/page-18086 Mid-Atlantic Association of Museums - Annual Meeting Philadelphia Pennsylvania, October 2024 https://midatlanticmuseums.org/annual-meeting/ New England Museum Association Information pending, Fall 2024 https://nemanet.org/ The New England Regional Genealogical Consortium Manchester, New Hampshire, October 29–November 1, 2025 https://nergc.org/
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Q & A with Lost Long Island author Richard Panchyk What was your initial inspiration? I have long been fascinated by all the incredible people and places of Long Island's past and one of my goals as a writer of local history books is to tell stories of those forgotten days. My previous books have covered hidden history and abandoned places. I knew about this series of “Lost” books that the History Press puts out and thought one about Long Island would be perfect. So many locations here hold interesting secrets. How do you begin to plan your research? I started by making a list of the most important, interesting, and exciting moments from our past that have since been lost to time and change. Since I have written extensively on such topics before, I had to review what I’d already covered and look for new ways or angles to talk about some topics; as well as finding entirely new subject matter to write about. Plus with several years having passed since I last wrote about some of the topics my perspective has changed as well as the ability to find new source material. The book would be a fresh take on the lost history of Long Island. How did you find the research experience to be and where did you look? My research experience is usually great on Long Island because I can visit many of the places for myself, stand on the spots where key events from the past happened, and take photos. As for scholarly research, I love using old newspaper articles for research purposes because they are most likely to be accurate, they are in the moment, and often describe details that cannot be found elsewhere. Old books are also good sources, books that were written during or within a few years of the events I'm researching. I also used old maps, which are great resources to see where property lines and estates were, and where roads like the Long Island Motor Parkway used to be. I generally prefer period sources to contemporary ones, because I like getting my information as close to firsthand as possible. How do you keep track of your sources? If they are old articles or books I will often download them and save them to my hard drive for future reference. What were your unexpected finds? I had several unexpected finds as regards details about the topics I was researching. My unexpected finds included some details of Gold Coast mansions that I didn’t know before, showing the size and scope of the Clarence Mackay’s Harbor Hill estate in Roslyn, for example. Also, some of the amazing flight records and statistics from the early days of aviation on Long Island. My book is filled with various interesting tidbits that I discovered while researching. What were your frustrations? My frustrations were actually not related to research but to the topics themselves – I was frustrated that so much of what I was writing about was actually “lost” to time, and that very few traces still remain. And when there are traces, it’s frustrating that few people understand their significance. But that’s where my book comes in, it’s a way for readers to learn and imagine what it used to be like in many places they are very familiar with and appreciate the remnants that may exist. I hope for example, that now more people will appreciate that the equestrian sculpture in Gerry Park in Roslyn once stood on the Harbor Hill estate. Things like that. Anything you think the readers want to know? I want readers to know just how rich Long Island’s history is. We have a lot to be proud of, there were a lot of firsts that took place here, from auto racing to airplane flights. This book will tell stories of some of those magnificent moments and bring the golden era of 1900-1940s back to life in words and images. It’s easily digestible; the chapters are short but packed with info. You can purchase Lost Long Island at your favorite online bookstore or at major distributors. Arcadia Publishing describes Lost Long Island: "From sprawling potato farms and incredibly lavish estates, to whaling ships and early race cars, Long Island has an incredibly rich history often lost through the generations. In the world of racing, Long Island was once the horse racing capital of the state and hosted the nation's first professional auto races. Though farming still thrives in Suffolk County, there are only a few working farms left in Nassau County, where hundreds of farms dotted the landscape generations ago. Cold Spring Harbor, Greenport, Sag Harbor and Southampton were centers of the whaling industry in America and maintain a whaling heritage today. Author Richard Panchyk reveals fascinating narratives of Long Island's lost history.
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The Long Ago Literary Corner Recently released and upcoming books about Long Island history
GOVERNMENT RESOURCES AND RECORDS MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE The Committee provides a forum for information professionals of Nassau and Suffolk Counties to: Monitor public policy trends and legislative developments in the area of government resources. Promote responsible records and information management practices, and encourage discussions and training in records management technologies. Provide educational opportunities to the Long Island community regarding U.S. government information generated by the state, counties, towns, villages, cities, and special districts.
Want to join? Go to LILRC.org/government-information-committee
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Long Island Archives - January/February 2024 Editor: Nicole Menchise, Digitization and Archives Coordinator LILRC - 627 N. Sunrise Service Rd., Bellport, NY 11713, www.lilrc.org.