Where
This is an online event.
It is free and open to the public. Direct link and password to the Zoom meeting will be emailed to all registrants ahead of time.
Mark your calendar!
All events are at 12:30 p.m.
December 8: Science Knows No Gender: Eunice Newton Foote and the Cause of Global Warming
A discussion with author John Perlin and the Emma Willard School
January 26: Organizing and Preserving Your Home Archives with D. Joshua Talyor the New York Genealogical & Biographical Society
February 16: Hidden Stories from Newly Translated Dutch Colonial Documents with the New Netherland Institute
March 16: The making of Betrayal at the Great Flats: How the Schenectady Massacre of 1690 Changed the World with filmmaker Chris Conto
April 15: Telling New York Stories: Celebrating 20 years of New York Archives Magazine
Tuesday, November 10 | 12:30 p.m.
In 2018, The New York State Archives and the Archives Partnership Trust received a “Save America’s Treasures” grant from the National Park Service and the Institute of Museum and Library Services for the conservation and digitization of historical court records and other important documents of the Revolutionary War era. These court records documented Enemies of the State, including over four hundred pages of indictments of Loyalists (American colonists who stayed loyal to the British Crown during the Revolutionary War) and Supreme Court minutes for 1775-1783 (both royal and state courts). Other documents to be conserved are fire-damaged minutes and papers of the royal governor and council in New York City (1776-1783) in the State Archives and loyalty oaths to the Crown during the war and military enlistment papers, held by the New York State Library.
Join us in a conversation with State Archivist Tom Ruller, head of Researcher Services at the New York State Archives and author of “Duely & Constantly Kept”: A History of the New York Supreme Court and an Inventory of Its Records Dr. James Folts, and colonial and revolutionary America historian Dr. Edward Countryman as we celebrate the completion of the grant project and learn more about the significance and value of these ecords in understanding New York during the Revolution.
About The speakers
Edward Countryman is an American historian of the late 20th century, with a focus on colonial and revolutionary America. He studied at Manhattan College and Cornell University, graduating from the latter with a doctorate in 1971. He won the prestigious Bancroft Prize in 1982 for his study of the American Revolution in New York. His 1985 book The American Revolution is a concise yet thorough study of the revolution that has been used widely in schools and colleges. Countryman has taught at Yale, in Britain and New Zealand, and is currently a professor of history at Southern Methodist University, Texas.
Dr. James D. Folts has been head of Researcher Services at the New York State Archives since 1992, and employed at the Archives since 1980. One of his early assignments was to arrange and describe the pre-1847 records of the New York Supreme Court of Judicature, transferred to the Archives by the Court of Appeals in 1982. That work resulted in a publication, “Duely & Constantly Kept”: A History of the New York Supreme Court and an Inventory of Its Records (New York State Archives and New York State Court of Appeals, 1991) which received the Society of American Archivists’ Philip M. Hamer and Elizabeth Hamer Kegan Award for Archival Advocacy. In 2016-17, he worked with Geof Huth of the Office of Court Administration, New York State Unified Court System, to implement the transfer of pre-1847 Supreme Court and Chancery Court records from the New York County Clerk’s Office to the State Archives.
Thomas J. Ruller is the State Archivist of New York, a position he has held since 2015. Tom began his career with the State Archives as a Senior Archivist in 1988. Most recently, Tom served as the Director of Operations for the Office of Cultural Education in the New York State Education Department from 2007 to 2015. Prior to his service with New York State, Tom worked as an Archivist at the Alabama Department of Archives and History.
about the project
Conservation of the Enemies of the State: Rediscovering the Patriot-Loyalist Struggle in Revolutionary New York is being supported in part by a Federal Save America's Treasures grant administered by the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the National Park Service.
The New York State Organization of the Daughters of the American Revolution and The William Nelson Cromwell Foundation also provided seed funding to preserve the documents for conservation and digitzation. Thanks to such generosity, these previously unknown documents will be made accessible to students, educators, researchers, genealogists and those passionate about history via the State Archives' Digital Collections.
More Event Details
A direct link and password to digital meeting space will be emailed to all registrants ahead of time. Contact aptrust@nysed.gov with questions or in need of assistance.