NEWSLETTER
New Paltz, NY – Just as Historic Huguenot Street (HHS) wraps up a major three-year project funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to conserve and digitize over 24,000 pages of New Paltz’s earliest documents, they received notification of a second grant of $349,956 from the federal agency to expand and complete the ambitious project. The additional funding will extend the project from the mid-1600s through the second half of the 19th century, encompassing another 18,500 pages from the HHS Archives, Haviland-Heidgerd Historical Collection at Elting Memorial Library, Town of New Paltz, and Reformed Church of New Paltz.
“Local archival collections like these deepen our understanding of the past and inform the work we do today. I congratulate Historic Huguenot Street on receiving a major NEH grant for this impressive project,” said Senator Charles Schumer of New York. “Thanks to HHS, these materials will be available online at NYHeritage.org, where they can be readily accessed for free by New Yorkers and audiences across the globe, including students, scholars, and genealogists.”
Continued funding will ensure completion of and continuity in the multi-year project which began in 2021. “We were so fortunate at the start to hire Donna Dixon as the Digital Librarian and Project Manager,” said Josephine Bloodgood, Project Director and HHS Director of Curatorial and Preservation Affairs. “Donna has done an amazing job keeping this complex project on track. Thanks to her work, so many more important stories are coming to light and we’re grateful she will continue with us.”
The documents being digitized convey countless overlapping references to diverse groups of people (including Indigenous and people of European and African descent), as well as places and significant events, including the U.S. Revolutionary and Civil Wars. Renowned historian and Yale Professor Emeritus Jon Butler has said, “Above all, [these documents] continue to reveal the chewy complexity of life in and around New Paltz and the Hudson Valley…these are wonderfully rich materials detailing two-plus centuries in the lives of women and men in a fascinating rural-town community…”
This second phase of the project is anticipated to take three years and covers preservation and digital imaging by the Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts in Philadelphia. Donna Dixon will continue cataloguing and making these collections available online, working closely with the Southeastern NY Library Resources Council which provides technical guidance. As Project Director, Josephine Bloodgood coordinates closely with the three other partner organizations and a team of international scholars and knowledgeable stakeholders who advise on the project.
To learn more and for links to search and browse the thousands of documents made available so far, visit https://nyheritage.org/collections/new-paltz-historic-documents.
The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is an independent federal agency created in 1965. It is one of the largest funders of humanities programs in the United States. For more information about the NEH and the projects they are funding this year, visit www.neh.gov.
The New Paltz Historic Documents project has been made possible in part by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Democracy demands wisdom.
Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this project do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Image caption: Debits and credits for Sesor DuBois, a Black man. Ezekiel Elting Account Book (1825-1843), Historic Huguenot Street Archives.
About Historic Huguenot Street
A National Historic Landmark District, Historic Huguenot Street (HHS) is a 501(c)3 non-profit dedicated to preserving a pre-Revolutionary Hudson Valley settlement and engaging diverse audiences in the exploration of America's multicultural past, in order to understand the historical forces that have shaped America. As an educational institution founded by the town’s French-speaking Protestant descendants and chartered by the University of the State of New York Department of Education, HHS explores the lives of the early European colonists, honors the region’s Indigenous people, and acknowledges the enslaved and disenfranchised peoples who built this place. Today, HHS is recognized as an innovative museum and community gathering place, providing visitors with an inclusive presentation of our shared past. For more information visit www.huguenotstreet.org.
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