DIRECTOR Although the Kelly Adirondack Center (KAC) and the Adirondack Research Library (ARL) remain closed during the pandemic, we have not been idle. Our online materials are always accessible and we are improving the finding aids to materials in the research library. I am particularly excited about a collection of 700 Adirondack maps, which is now digitized and indexed. We also supported three excellent student researchers this past summer, two of whom found inspiration in “The Adirondack Chronology.” The brainchild of Carl George, emeritus professor of biology and lifelong Adirondack enthusiast, it contains nearly 20,000 entries of events in and around the Adirondack region. Using the Chronology, Jacob Abbot ’23 identified the history of dams in the Adirondacks as his topic. Maryam Ramjohn ’23 focused her project on “The Erasure of Native American Culture in the Adirondacks.” A video presentation of their projects is available through our website. Both students are environmental science majors who did their research remotely. Jacob was working from Colorado and Maryam from New Jersey. I am happy to report that they intend to continue their research. Our third student, Abby Stack ’21, is an English/psychology major who worked with English professor Jillmarie Murphy. They reviewed and indexed the unpublished poetry of Jeanne Robert Foster, whose archives reside in the ARL. This, too, promises to be an ongoing project. Following our inaugural 3-week Adirondack mini-term in August 2019, we were looking forward to the 2020 program. Sadly, it was canceled because of the pandemic and we are now aiming for 2021. But a happy outcome of the 2019 trip was the development of a new course, “Dark Deeds: Crime in the Adirondacks.” The course began with a module that professor Jillmarie Murphy taught during the miniterm. It included a tour of Moose Lake, site of the 1906 murder of Grace Brown, on which Theodore Dreiser based his novel, An American Tragedy. In lieu of in-person activities, we are planning an exciting slate of virtual winter and spring events. Monitor the KAC website and Facebook page for details. Meantime, our grounds, along with the adjacent Henry Gerber Reist Bird Sanctuary, remain available for your (safe) outdoor enjoyment. Stay well; we look forward to the day we can convene again at the KAC.
Doug Klein FACULTY DIRECTOR, KELLY ADIRONDACK CENTER
UNION.EDU/ADIRONDACK
FROM THE
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KELLY ADIRONDACK CENTER ONLINE RESOURCES
Walter Hatke, Yellow Birch, 2018
REMOTE LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES, VIRTUAL EXHIBITS, DIGITIZED COLLECTIONS, AND MORE
Homage:
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The types o f k n o w le d g e a re h E n u m e ra te e re d: node A n d k n o t, re a c h a n d d ri ft , C a s ti n g a n d e d d y in g. A s a re th e unnum b e re d S te p s y o u to o k to g et S o fa r A n d s o fa r back. BY M A RG I E A M O D EO, K EL LY ADIRO N DACK CEN TER COORDINATOR
-J o rd a n S m it h
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Whether you’re a Union student or employee, a UCALL member, community supporter or researcher, the Kelly Adirondack Center is determined to continue our conversations during this strange and difficult time. We’re working to make our website a learning environment that provides everyone with opportunities to advance our knowledge and appreciation of the Adirondacks, as well as relationships between nature and society. Past issues of Kelly Adirondack Center newsletters are now available online. In an effort to be more sustainable, our newsletters will no longer be printed and mailed. Please visit
Kay Flickinger Dockstader, Rocky Peak Ridge, 1935
our site to keep in touch with our activities. Online you’ll find announcements of new programs and
The “A Sense of Place” section of our site offers suggestions
have access to recordings of past programs, like those on
for local places to visit and explore. These historical sites and
birding and Adirondack architecture and industry. Addition-
parks provide a new way to connect with the people and
ally, all of this year’s Zoom programs have been recorded
landscapes of our region.
and are available in the “past events” section of our website. You’ll find a primer on how to use Zoom as well as presentations by our Summer Research Fellows and Adirondack photographer, Manuel Palacios.
The site also offers a wealth of academic resources. The research category features a direct link to the “Adirondack Chronology,” which spans the history of the Adirondacks from the Big Bang to the present. There you will also find
Although the doors of our facility are closed, visitors to the
every volume of the Adirondack Journal of Environmental
Kelly Adirondack Center site can still view our online exhibit.
Studies dating back to 1994. With articles on sustainability
We are currently featuring What Came Home: Works on pa-
and the unique environmental challenges faced by the Ad-
per from walks in the Adirondacks, with pieces from Profes-
irondacks, it’s a rich source of academic research articles.
sor Emeritus Walter Hatke and poems by Professor Jordan Smith. Our next exhibit, Drawn from Nature: The Illustrated Organism, will be added to the site in January 2021. John S. Apperson, Earl Paxter at Apperson Camp, 1920s
Grassroots Activism and the American Wilderness: Pioneers in the 20th Century Adirondack Park Conservation Movement showcases the work done by Paul Schaefer and John Apperson to protect the Adirondack Park. It was developed to share the legacy of these environmental activists and to inspire future researchers’ and preservationists’ work in the Adirondacks. We also invite you to visit the Adirondack Research Library website. While direct access to library materials is not currently permitted, ARL staff is able to offer scans of documents and images from the library’s collections. The site’s many finding aids describe the contents of archival collec-
We are making the archives and other resources as accessible as possible, and are always adding new content. Check the site often or use the “subscribe” button to receive alerts about new events and information. We believe that current challenges have resulted in new possibilities and it’s our goal to continue to bring them to you.
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tions making materials available upon request.
Oswald D. Putnam, Oliver children, Julia, Fannette and Cara, 1886
NEW DIGITAL COLLECTION THE OSMOND D. PUTNAM PHOTOGRAPHS MATTHEW GOLEBIEWSKI ADIRONDACK RESEARCH LIBRARY PROJECT ARCHIVIST Oswald D. Putnam, Fred and William Bates peeling bark on top a pile of felled trees
A digital collection of glass plate negatives showing rural Adirondack life in the 1880s will be available soon through New York Heritage. The Osmond D. Putnam photographs, taken between 1885 and 1887, are not the images of great camps and high peaks. Rather, they show the remote valleys where settlers labored as lumberjacks, skidders, log drivers and farmers. A focal point of the images is Johnsburg, N.Y., a small town in the northwest corner of Warren County. Situated near the Hudson River, the damming of several streams helped develop a thriving lumber industry accompanied by mills and tanneries.
Oswald D. Putnam, Mrs. Goodrich and Children, 1886
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Life in the Adirondacks was by no means easy. Winters were long and frost-free days were a rarity. The pioneering families understood that managing the harsh weather and poor rocky soil would not be an easy life. These small settlements were dependent on natural resources for their livelihoods, but it was not to last forever. By 1885, an estimated two-thirds of the softwood forests in the Adirondacks had been lumbered – causing forest fires and a diminished water supply. The Adirondack Park was established shortly after in 1892, and with it, regulation of industry and development. O.D. Putnam (1861-1926) was the grandson of Enos Putnam Sr. (1810-1865), a Methodist minister and abolitionist who preached at the Mill Creek Wesleyan Methodist Church in Johnsburg. The church was built by the Putnams in 1859 after separating from the Methodist Episcopal Church, whose senior leadership had refused to speak out against slavery. The Putnam farm was a familiar stop along the Underground Railroad. With direction from his father, O.F. Putnam, Osmond began training to become a minister in the 1880s. To pay for his education, he took photographs with a five-by-eight inch camera, selling prints to rural residents for whom photography was a novel service. The geographic scope of his work was limited to Warren and Essex Counties, due to the range of early stage wagons in the area. Though he probably shot other subjects, his Adirondack photographs are all that remain of his work. It is thought that the rest were
Oswald D. Putnam, Dam and Waterfalls, 1887
destroyed in a fire at the family’s farmhouse in Wilton, N.Y, in the 1920s. Thankfully, he had given over 100 negatives to his brother, Elliot, who in turn gave them to Jeanne Robert Foster (1879-1970). When Foster died, her Adirondack materials were willed to the Riedinger family in Schenectady, N.Y., finally coming into the possession of Noel Riedinger-Johnson. In 1986, Riedinger-Johnson edited Adirondack portraits: a piece of time, published by Syracuse University Press. The book collected Jeanne’s unpublished poems and prose about the people she knew in her early years in the Adirondacks, supplemented by Putnam’s photographs. The collection, in storage since then, was transported from South Carolina to the Adirondack Research Library this past fall. We then received a grant to digitize the negatives from the CDLC, with the work being performed by NEDCC. We are indebted to all the stewards of this collection and are glad it can finally be shared with the wider world.
Faculty Director of the Kelly Adirondack Center
Kelly Adirondack Center Coordinator
Doug Klein
Margie Amodeo
897 Saint David’s Lane Niskayuna, NY 12309
Contact us by emailing: kellycenter@union.edu
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THE KELLY ADIRONDACK CENTER AT UNION COLLEGE