A conversation with Dr. Michael B. Boston of SUNY Brockport about his revisionist work on the business strategy of Booker T. Washington and his efforts to increase African-American entrepreneurship through the National Negro Business League, including in New York City, the subject of Dr. Boston's latest article for New York History. We discussed the importance of Washington's business strategy, its application nationally, and the ways in which the NNBL affected the growth of Black New York. We also discussed the importance of nuance and context for historical assessments of Washington and his rivalry with W.E.B. Du Bois, as well as his longer legacy. Additionally, we discussed Dr. Boston's works on African Americans in Western New York, including his scholarship on the Underground Railroad in Niagara Falls, his work on the abolitionist Dr. P.H. Skinner, and his forthcoming monograph for SUNY Press, Blacks in Niagara Falls (2021).

More information:

https://www.brockport.edu/academics/african_american/directory/mboston.html

http://www.nysm.nysed.gov/research-collections/state-history/resources/new-york-history-journal

https://upf.com/book.asp?id=BOSTO001

https://www.sunypress.edu/p-7156-blacks-in-niagara-falls.aspx

A conversation with Dr. Marsha E. Barrett of the University of Illinois about her new article "'Millionaires are more Democratic Now': Nelson Rockefeller and the Politics of Wealth in New York," which appears in vol. 102.1 of New York History (Summer, 2021). We discussed Rockefeller's use of wealth to court advisers as well as supporters and to pursue both political and policy objectives; New York voters' views of wealth in politics; the early 1970s as a time of changing attitudes about disclosure and campaign finance; Rockefeller's executive style and broader ambitions; his relationship with Jackie Robinson and his paradoxical legacies on civil rights; Empire State Plaza as an architectural metaphor for Rockefeller's gubernatorial temperament; and the meaning of "Rockefeller Republican."

More information:

https://history.illinois.edu/directory/profile/meb

http://www.nysm.nysed.gov/research-collections/state-history/notes/historian-marsha-e-barretts-new-article-featured-new-york

https://rockarch.org/

A conversation with Prof. Melissa Franson, PhD candidate in the History Department at Binghamton University and an instructor in the history department at SUNY New Paltz, about her New York History article “'Wide Awakes, Half Asleeps, Little Giants and Bell Ringers': Political Partisanship in the Catskills of New York During the Elections of 1860 and 1862.” We discussed how local economic concerns, infrastructural aspirations, and generational divides informed regional politics in the Catskills on the eve of the Civil War; the role of racism and anti-slavery in informing those politics; the centrality of newspaper editors to 19th century partisanship; and the contradictions between primary evidence and accepted local narratives about the political and military motivations of the region at the time of the Civil War.

More information:

http://www.nysm.nysed.gov/research-collections/state-history/resources/new-york-history-journal