This virtual program is part of our Winter Speaker Series, and will be presented on Zoom. A Zoom link will be emailed to all SCHS members before the program.  Professor Wayne Lee of UNC-Chapel Hill will discuss his new publication from University of North Carolina Press, "The Cutting-Off Way: Indigenous Warfare in Eastern North America, 1500–1800," which recasts Indigenous warfare in a framework of the lived realities of Native people rather than with regard to European and settler military strategies and practices. Wayne Lee specializes in early modern military history, with a particular focus on North America and the Atlantic World, but he teaches military history from a full global perspective. He also teaches courses on violence as well as on the early English exploration of the Atlantic. As a kind of additional career, he works with archaeology projects in the Balkans and has numerous publications in that field. Notable publications include: The Cutting-Off Way: Indigenous Warfare in Eastern North America, 1500-1800 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2023) Wayne E. Lee, David L. Preston, David Silbey, and Anthony E. Carlson, The Other Face of Battle: America’s Forgotten Wars and the Experience of Combat (New York: Oxford University Press, 2021). Waging War: Conflict, Culture, and Innovation in World History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015). Editor, with Michael Galaty, Ols Lafe, and Zamir Tafilica, Light and Shadow: Isolation and Interaction in the Shala Valley of Northern Albania (Los Angeles: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press, 2013) Barbarians and Brothers: Anglo-American Warfare, 1500-1865 (Oxford University Press, 2011). Editor, Warfare and Culture in World History (NYU Press, 2011) Crowds and Soldiers in Revolutionary North Carolina: The Culture of Violence in Riot and War (University Press of Florida, 2001) “Fortify, Fight, or Flee: Tuscarora and Cherokee Defensive Warfare and Military Culture Adaptation,” Journal of Military History 68 (2004): 713–770

We're excited to present the first event in our local commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the birth of America. Join us on January 12 at noon to raise the Liberty Flag in Schenectady! SCHS will commemorate the 250th anniversary of the raising of the Liberty Flag in Schenectady. We’ll meet at the Schenectady Historical Museum, and then walk to the corner of Church and Union to relive the raising of the Liberty Flag. We’ll erect a flagpole, raise a replica flag, and enjoy brief remarks on the importance of liberty. Afterwards, attendees are invited inside the First Reformed Church to enjoy refreshments and sign a “liberty board” with discussions of what freedom means to them. Chris Leonard, City of Schenectady Historian, and Michael Diana, SCHS Historian and Director of Education, explain the significance of the event, and what it commemorates. “What is liberty and what must we do to secure it? These questions have both united and divided Americans throughout history. On the anniversary of the raising of the Liberty Flag, we invite the community to relive that historic moment and reflect on the essential questions of freedom. Indeed, one of Schenectady’s earliest and most significant reckonings with the idea of liberty was on January 12, 1774. On that day, an angry crowd of 50 citizens gathered in the center of town to raise a flag emblazoned with the word “LIBERTY.” This was a hugely confrontational form of protest. Their supporters applauded them as patriots. Their detractors derided them as a riotous mob. But thus did Schenectady enter the bitter controversies of a Revolution that would forge the modern United States of America.” SCHS owns the only surviving “Liberty” flag from the Revolutionary War. This event is free and open to the public. As the event is outdoors and will take place in the middle of January, please dress accordingly. This is the first of many events that SCHS will sponsor over the next two years leading up to and beyond the anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Please follow https://schenectadyhistorical.org/rev250/ to keep up with events for the city and county.

This virtual program is part of our Winter Speaker Series, and will be presented on Zoom. A Zoom link will be emailed to all SCHS members before the program.  All aboard for a journey through 19th-century Schenectady history, with Dr. Michael Wheeler as your guide! We'll delve into the complexities of a gripping transportation rivalry, and explore the clash between private railroads and the State-owned canal system. Join Dr. Wheeler as he uncovers the intricacies of transportation competition among New York, Boston, and Montreal. As a cartographer, Dr. Wheeler has developed extensive maps to illustrate this important period in New York State history. He'll discuss his findings, shed light on the transportation rivalries that shaped the region in the 1800s, and discuss the critical transportation and settlement results in the Hudson, Mohawk, and Lake Champlain valleys. Dr. Wheeler has undergraduate degrees in history and computer science. He has worked in Information Technology (IT) for 25 years, primarily in defense, finance, and geovisualization. Among other professional roles, he worked as IT manager of a U.S. hedge fund in Tokyo, Japan, and served as co-architect for a worldwide trading and hedging software system for a Big Oil customer. For the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), he helped to improve the Counter/IED problem (“roadside bombs”) for the Army in Iraq and Afghanistan, modelled possible cyber vulnerabilities in U.S. critical infrastructure for the Air Force, and worked on safe drone flight in the National Air Space (NAS). Most recently, he has been working in Artificial Intelligence (AI) applied to Multi-INT fusion. Dr. Wheeler earned a master’s degree in strategic studies at Johns Hopkins – SAIS, where he wrote a thesis on Union military cartography in the Civil War. He returned to academia in 2000 where he worked on his PhD at Syracuse University developing 3D animated maps of New York State canals and railroads. This talk is largely derived from that dissertation work.

January brings the full Wolf Moon, named for wolf packs circling icy villages, howling out in the night. Join us for the Wolf Moon with a short, illuminated walk in the woods of the Woestyne at Mabee Farm. Afterwards, we'll make a fire in the Inn's historic fireplace, and storytellers will share colorful tales from our area. Warm drinks will be served to fight off the night’s chill. Admission is $10 for non-members, and $5 for members.

Instructor Karen Anthony of Karen’s Paint pARTies will teach us to paint a bright winter scene.  No artistic experience necessary -- you will be lead step by step to produce your very own masterpiece! Price includes 11x14 stretched canvas, all painting materials, and a selection of munchies -- plus mimosas, of course! Feel free to BYOB, as well. Ages 10+ only, please. All ticket sales final.

Postponed due to illness, to be rescheduled soon. This program is part of our Winter Speaker Series, and will be presented in-person at 32 Washington Ave. No advance tickets. The records kept by the County Clerk are essential to genealogy, house history research, and many significant life events. Join County Clerk Cara Ackerley and Deputy County Clerk Jesse McGuire to learn about the functions of the clerk's office, what kinds of records are kept at the clerk's office, and how to access those records and other services provided by the clerk's office.   Free for members, otherwise $10.

This virtual program is part of our Winter Speaker Series, and will be presented on Zoom. A Zoom link will be emailed to all SCHS members before the program.  In her recently published work from Cornell University Press, Professor Nicole Maskiell connects developing Northern networks of merit to the invidious institution of slavery. During the first generations of European settlement in North America, a number of interconnected Northeastern families carved out private empires. Maskiell argues that slavery was a crucial component to the rise and enduring influence of this emergent aristocracy. Professor Maskiell is associate professor of history at the University of South Carolina. She specializes in early American history, with a focus on overlapping networks of slavery in the Dutch and British Atlantic worlds. Her current book project entitled "Bound by Bondage: Slavery and the Creation of a Northern Gentry" compares the ways that slavery shaped the development of elite Northern culture by examining the social and kinship networks that intertwined enslavers with those they enslaved. Professor Maskiell is a recipient the John Carter Brown, Gilder Lehrman, and Huntington Mayers research fellowships, and her dissertation was nominated for the 2014 Allan Nevins Prize