Office of State History

COMMEMORATING WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE 100TH ANNIVERSARY Honoring the Fight for Women's Rights From the inception of the women’s rights movement in Seneca Falls in 1848, New York has been a leader in advancing women’s equality. To honor the cente...

Greetings and Happy (Belated) New Year!  2017 is a huge year for History in New York State.  Throughout the year we are celebrating several important and exciting anniversaries including the 200th anniversary of the beginning of const...

Several months ago, New York State Historian Devin Lander sent out a survey to the various municipalities in New York about their local government historian. This survey included questions such as: salary, time spent at the post, college degr...

The Madison County World War I project was an offshoot of a project we undertook in 2013.  Each year in October we host Archives Day, usually displaying documents from our archives.  In 2013 we decided to “create new archives.”  Par...

“We fall forward,” said women in New York in November 1915 when the suffrage bill failed by 80,000 votes. After that initial stumble, two years later New York voters passed the 1917 Suffrage Amendment. President Wilson then changed his position on...

Article originally appeared in America: The National Catholic Review.  Access article HERE.

2017 is New York State's 240th birthday! The first State Constitution was finished and approved in Kingston on April 20, 1777, and promulgated two days later by being read from the courthouse steps in that city.  The document had been written...

Find statewide history at your fingertips. The idea for this website is to provide an online conduit for information exchange between the New York’s historical field and the work of the NYS Museum Office of State History.  The website includ...