Category: Local history

Contributing writers will sally into archives and recover stories and voices from the past, from many communities in this independent stretch of hills between wide rivers and the Taconic and Hoosic ranges and the Green mountains.

  • Issue:

    Bound by cotton — region’s forgotten role in slave trade

    , ,

    Historian, artist detail region’s forgotten role in slave trade By EVAN LAWRENCE Contributing writer NORTH ADAMS, Mass. Most Northerners assume that slavery was a Southern issue, and that the main role of people in upstate New York and New England was to help slaves flee to freedom in Canada and to muster troops to fight read more

    Bound by cotton — region’s forgotten role in slave trade
  • Issue:

    Celebrating a folk legend

    , ,

    Performances around region mark Woody Guthrie centennial By EVAN LAWRENCE Contributing writer Woody Guthrie, one of America’s great voices during the Great Depression and World War II, was a restless soul. Leaving his home in Okemah, Okla., at the age of 18, he spent the next 23 years wandering the nation, moving frequently and traveling read more

    Celebrating a folk legend
  • Issue:

    A pinnacle of culture? Partners shape mission for Bascom Lodge

    , , ,

    By JOHN TOWNES Contributing writer ADAMS, Mass.Brothers Peter and John Dudek and their business partner Brad Parsons are extending the vertical reach of the culture and the creative economy in the Berkshires. Three years ago, the men took over operation of Bascom Lodge, a historic structure at the summit of Mount Greylock, the highest point read more

    A pinnacle of culture? Partners shape mission for Bascom Lodge
  • Issue:

    Confronting a painful past

    , ,

    Berkshires artist leads as new group takes aim at sex trafficking By JOHN TOWNES Contributing writer LENOX, Mass. It’s a long way from Jeanet Ingalls’ early experiences of extreme poverty, violence and sexual abuse as a “street kid” in the Philippines four decades ago to her life as a mother, fitness trainer and artist in read more

    Confronting a painful past
  • Issue:

    Extravagant structure, uncertain future

    Board seeks new direction for North Bennington’s Victorian jewel By EVAN LAWRENCE Contributing writer NORTH BENNINGTON, Vt. The Park-McCullough House, one of Vermont’s architectural treasures, has fallen on hard times. The 35-room, Second-Empire-style mansion, set on 200 acres near the center of North Bennington, has in recent decades operated as a museum and served as read more

    Extravagant structure, uncertain future
  • Issue:

    In rural Columbia County, a Quaker group tests a new model of community

    ,

    In rural Columbia County, a Quaker group tests a new model of community By TRACY FRISCH Contributing writer CANAAN, N.Y.Along a quiet dirt road in the foothills of the Berkshires, a half-dozen new houses have taken shape on an old farm over the past decade. But the social norms and values of this new community read more

    In rural Columbia County, a Quaker group tests a new model of community
  • Issue:

    A hard act to follow — Hubbard Hall

    , , ,

    As founder’s retirement looms, Hubbard Hall seeks a new leader By EVAN LAWRENCE Contributing writer CAMBRIDGE, N.Y.Hubbard Hall, the 19th century opera house that was reborn more than 30 years ago as a performing arts center for southern Washington County, is facing some big changes. Benjie White, the executive director of Hubbard Hall Projects Inc., read more

    A hard act to follow — Hubbard Hall
  • Issue:

    What corsets, petticoats revealed

    ,

    Exhibit traces social history through 19th century undergarments By STACEY MORRIS Contributing writer BENNINGTON, Vt. Can a corset tell a story? Perhaps. Callie Stewart, the collections manager at the Bennington Museum, knows that corsets, stays, and petticoats signified a lot more than the mere wearing of undergarments for women living in New England in the read more

    What corsets, petticoats revealed
  • Issue:

    Children of industry

    , ,

    By JUDY BERNSTEIN Contributing writer   BENNINGTON, Vt.Looking at the canvas, you can almost hear the enormous machines whirring and clanging and feel the cotton lint hanging in the air of the mill room as you, a child, work. In another, you see “the overseer,” an ominous, shadowy presence. Maybe he’s there, or maybe he’s read more

    Children of industry
  • Issue:

    A grand church saved by the arts

    , , ,

    Spa City landmark finds new life as performance space By STACEY MORRIS Contributing writer SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. The massive brick edifice that became the Universal Preservation Hall never crumbled to the ground in the physical sense, but it has become known in the past decade as a phoenix of a structure. When the grand old read more

    A grand church saved by the arts