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Posted by Ray Raymond
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on May 17, 2010 |
Ever wonder why America's Founding Fathers were so extraordinary? Why they succeeded in founding a stable republic in a volatile era of global revolution? Find out at a free teacher seminar Saturday, 22 May, 9:30 a.m., Senate House, Kingston. To register go to the Mid-Hudson Teacher Center website and click "online registration."
An important part of the answer to both questions is that they were superbly educated with an insatiable appetite for knowledge about governance, law and international affairs. As a result,they became classic Enlightenment thinkers with rigorously trained, logical minds that could understand and resolve complex constitutional and foreign policy problems.
Two of these remarkable thinkers and statesmen were John Adams and John Jay. At the seminar on Saturday, 22 May, the Institute for Constitutional Studies at SUNY Ulster, which I direct, will examine how the two men were educated and how they developed intellectually and professionally.
Adams and Jay made extraordinary contributions, but neither has received the recognition they deserve. John Adams became a brilliant but neglected constitutional thinker; John Jay became a brilliant but neglected diplomat and strategic thinker.
-- Dr. Ray Raymond, MBE, DSM, FRSA
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An Interview with Tom Lake, Professor and
Naturalist of the Hudson Valley
Learn more about the
Teaching the Hudson Valley 2010 Summer Institute, July 27-29.
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Read more...
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Posted by Bill Greer
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on May 06, 2010 |
If you think HBO's Carrie
Bradshaw invented the role of the New York woman on the prowl, you don’t
know Griet Reyniers. In 1633, Griet arrived in Manhattan with a new
director appointed to rule the place, Wouter van Twiller.
Van Twiller
may have met
Griet in the Amsterdam tavern where she hoisted her petticoats or aboard
ship where she pulled sailors’ shirts out of their breeches. He took
Griet for his mistress, making her New York’s first high-class hooker.
Griet is one example of the bawdy world the Dutch created in the Hudson Valley. When Van Twiller dumped her, Griet declared, “I have long enough been the whore of the nobility, now I want to be the whore of the rabble.”
Eventually Griet married Anthony Jansen van Salee, nicknamed the Turk. Their family lives on. Griet's great-great-great-grandson was Cornelius Vanderbilt, whose descendants include fashion designer Gloria Vanderbilt, museum benefactor Gertrude Whitney, two Dukes of Marlborough, and CNN’s Anderson Cooper.
Bill is the author of The Mevrouw Who Saved Manhattan, a novel of New
Amsterdam. Catch his talk at 12:15, Friday, May
14, Huxley Theater, Cultural
Education Center,
NYS Library, 310 Madison Ave., Albany. Details: www.nysl.nysed.gov/programs/
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Posted by THV
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on May 03, 2010 |
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One of the region's greatest human treasures, Pete Seeger, turns 91 today. He was spotted Saturday at his weekly peace vigil in Wappingers. Carry on!
To learn more about Pete's life and music -- or to share them with students -- listen to Alan Chartok's interview for WAMC NE Public Radio or view the The Power of Songproduced for the PBS's American Masters series.
 For ideas about using his music in your class, check out articles and books published by Rethinking Schools, including The Power In Our Hands: A Curriculum on the History of Work and Workers in the United States, by Bill Bigelow and Norman Diamond.
The 184-page guide features role plays and writing activities that help students explore the history and contemporary reality of employment and unemployment.
Pete wrote the foreword to a new book you may also like,We Shall Overcome: A Song That Changed the World, by Stuart Stotts. This 64-page book includes a CD and illustrations by former teacher Terrance Cummings.
Photo by Bill Urbin, National Park Service/Roosevelt-Vanderbilt National Historic Sites
Pete Seeger with teachers at THV's 2006 summer institute.
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