Letter from the Editors

This issue of New York History is the second that we have had the privilege of working on as editors, and we are extremely happy with the content. The material in this issue includes a diverse array of scholarship engaging different regions and eras in New York’s history, and we thank the authors and reviewers for their diligence and patience throughout the editorial process. Furthermore, we are profoundly grateful to the journal’s Advisory Board for their continued guidance and wise counsel.

Rather than summarize this issue’s exciting articles, we have decided to use this space to make note of some of the momentous historical milestones that were commemorated in 2019. This year marked the centennial of the Local Government Historian’s Law, signed by the newly elected Governor Alfred E. Smith on April 11, 1919. This landmark legislation made New York the first state in the nation to require that every municipality appoint a historian. That same year witnessed the creation of the Quarterly Journal of the New York State Historical Association, the precursor to New York History.

On August 5, Fort Ontario State Historic Site and the Safe Haven Museum in Oswego commemorated the seventy-fifth anniversary of the arrival of 982 European refugees of the Holocaust in 1944. Fort Ontario would be the only refugee center established in the United States in response to the horrors of the Holocaust. The episode took place during a period of rising anti-Semitism not only in Europe but in New York State as well, and illustrates the importance of historical memory and its relevance to contemporary life.

The summer of 2019 saw the fiftieth anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising, the moon landing, and the Woodstock Festival. Organizations such as the New-York Historical Society, New York Public Library, Brooklyn Museum of Art, and the Central Library of Rochester and Monroe County, among others, commemorated Stone-wall with a variety of exhibits. Marist College’s Hudson River Valley Institute hosted a scholarly conference on Woodstock and the 1960s, and the Museum at Bethel Woods held several special events and exhibits celebrating the ongoing legacy of the Woodstock generation. Lastly, November 2019 saw the twentieth anniversary of the Researching New York conference held at the University at Albany, which has grown over its two decades into a must-attend annual forum for academic historians, public historians, and students to convene and learn about the most recent scholarship in our field.

As we move into 2020, there will be more history to commemorate, including, of course, the centennial of the Nineteenth Amendment. There will also be much more scholarship produced on the history of the Empire State, some of which will be featured in upcoming issues of New York History. Thank you for your continued interest in the fascinating history of this dynamic state!