Professor Nancy Newman will discuss her new book from SUNY Press, “Songs and Sounds of the Anti-Rent Movement in Upstate New York.” Tenant farmers in the Hudson-Mohawk region engaged in organized protest throughout the 1840s to contest monopoly ownership of the land they worked. Arguing their cause in newspapers, on broadsides, and at rallies, their aspirations also took shape in poetry and song. This is the first book to gather the poetry and corresponding tunes into one publication.

Nancy Newman is Professor of Music at the University at Albany, State University of New York. She is the author of Good Music for a Free People: The Germania Musical Society in Nineteenth-Century America.

This is a virtual talk which will be held on Zoom. SCHS Members will be emailed a link the day of the program.

Winter Speaker Series:

07 JAN Marie Danielle Annette Williams “Loyalists in the Adirondacks”
14 JAN Laurie Lawlor “Many Voices: Erie, the Canal that Changed America”
21 JAN Chuck Henry “First Draft of History: NY State Historic Newspapers”
28 JAN Ellen Ledoux “Laboring Mothers: Reproducing Women and Work in the 18th Century”

04 FEB Sarah Wassberg Johnson “Apples in America: A History”
06 FEB James Taub, Associate Curator, Museum of the American Revolution “Threads of Liberty”
11 FEB Mary Liz Stewart “Underground Railroad”
18 FEB Dr. Elisabeth Paling Funk “The Dutch World of Washington Irving”
21 FEB Chris Conto “The Daring Life of Arent Van Curler”
25 FEB Nancy Newman “Songs and Sounds of the Anti-Rent Movement in Upstate New York”

04 MAR Kevin Bronner “Albany During The American Revolution: Victory In Upstate New York”
11 MAR Prof. LaGarrett King “The African Americans’ Revolution”
18 MAR Craig Siulinski “The Early 20th Century Experience of Polish Immigrants in Schenectady”
21 MAR Multiple Speakers: “Ten Things You Didn’t Know About the American Revolution”
25 MAR Wally Wheeler, “Early Vernacular Architecture in Schenectady County”