Summary: On this episode, Devin and Lauren tackle all of New York's historical markers at once — sort of. Devin and Lauren discuss how the state's historical marker program got started, what happened to it, and how communities can apply for a marker today. As an added bonus, Devin and Lauren speak with Susan Hughes of the William G. Pomeroy Foundation about the foundation's new "Hungry for History" grant program — and they also speak with Bill Pomeroy himself, about his interest in history and some of his favorite markers. Guests: William G. Pomeroy, founder and trustee of the William G. Pomeroy Foundation; Susan Hughes, historian and archivist for the William G. Pomeroy Foundation A New York Minute In History is a production of the New York State Museum, WAMC, and Archivist Media, with support from the William G. Pomeroy Foundation. This episode was produced by Jesse King. Our theme is "Begrudge" by Darby. Further Reading: Apply for a New York State Pomeroy Marker New York State Museum history of the State Marker program Teacher Resources: Stop the Drive-Bys: A Teacher Makes the Case for Local Historical Markers, American Association for State and Local History. Not Your Usual History Lesson: Writing Historical Markers, National Council of Teachers of English Follow Along Devin: Welcome to A New York Minute in History. I'm Devin Lander, the New York state historian. Lauren: And I'm Lauren Roberts, the historian for Saratoga County. This month, we are departing from our regular format of focusing on a single William G. Pomeroy-funded historic marker, and instead, we're going to talk about all New York state historic markers - generally speaking. Now, the Pomeroy Foundation has been funding markers since 2006, but we all know that those recognizable blue-and-yellow historic markers have been around a lot longer than that. We're going to discuss when and why that original marker program started, and what became of it. And also, maybe after listening to some of our previous episodes, you might be thinking about the history in your own community, and are considering applying for a William G. Pomeroy historic marker. And maybe you have some questions about what that process looks like. So we're going to talk to Susan Hughes, who's the historian and archivist for the Pomeroy Foundation, who will walk us through the application process and answer our questions. And as an added bonus, we get to speak directly with Bill Pomeroy himself about the creation of his amazing foundation, how his interest in New York state history came about, and even find out what his favorite historic marker is. So Devin, as New York State historian, you've got access to the records in the archives of how the New York state historic marker program started. Can you tell us a little bit about how that program came to be? Devin: Absolutely. And it's really an interesting story, as we are transitioning and planning at the state level - and at I know you are in the county as well - for the 250th commemoration of the American Revolution. It really gave us the opportunity to look into some of our records, specifically the records of the 150th anniversary, which took place in 1926. And the New York State Archives has an extensive collection of material from that era, and from that commission that was formed, and one of the initiatives that came out of that was this historic marker program. And it really had its genesis in the granite-and-bronze markers that were designated for sites related directly to the American Revolution. So Saratoga Battlefield has one, there's one at Bellcore Island, there's others around the state. They also talked about markers that would commemorate historically significant sites, or people or events, that took place outside of the Revolution. And that's where the idea for the blue-and-gold markers really came about. You started to see the productio
