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NY Yankees-Related Artifacts on Display, Including Signed Babe Ruth Baseball

A senior lecturer and historian, Robert Chiles, and Curator of Sports, Stephen Loughman, will hold a special lecture, Babe Ruth Gets Political: Sports and Identity Politics in the Roaring Twenties, on Thursday, November 17, 2022, at the New York State Museum.

Dr. Chiles’ lecture will take an in-depth look at how the Roaring Twenties had an impact on sports celebrities in American culture, and the role of identity in American politics with an emphasis on Babe Ruth and his support for New York State Governor Al Smith’s 1928 run for president. The event will also include a short presentation about the history of Babe Ruth and the “House that Ruth Built” from Stephen Loughman, Curator of Sports, at the New York State Museum. He will discuss New York Yankees-related artifacts in the Museum’s collection, including a recently donated Babe Ruth signed baseball.

This in-person event is free and open to the public. Media are invited to attend.

As a senior lecturer at the University of Maryland, Dr. Robert Chiles teaches an array of courses. Dr. Chiles became a Research Associate in History with the New York State Museum in 2021.  He is co-editor of New York History, a member of the editorial board of The Hudson River Valley Review, and the host of "Empire State Engagements."  He has written numerous pieces on New York State history, including in his first book, The Revolution of '28: Al Smith, American Progressivism, and the Coming of the New Deal, which was published in 2018 by Cornell University Press, as well as in articles for Environmental History, the Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, New York History, and op-eds for Newsday, the New York Daily News, and the Albany Times Union.

Stephen Loughman is the Curator of Sports at the New York State Museum. He has presented several times on New York State sports history and is working to build the Museum’s sports collections.

WHAT:              Special Lecture About Sports and Identity Politics

WHO:                Senior Lecturer and Historian Robert Chile and Curator of Sports Stephen Loughman

TIME:                 7:00 PM

WHERE:       Huxley Theatre, New York State Museum Cultural Education Center

222 Madison Avenue

Albany, New York, 12230

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