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10 40 762 https://ssmp.skidmore.edu/files/original/649d6b2e1417e1ceca6b48187ea3379e.jpg ae90fcf7c944050780e5c39e754484dc Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Saratoga Springs History Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1706- Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Repository Name of the repository that holds the original item. Saratoga Room, Saratoga Springs Public Library Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Jillian Seigel Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 43270 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Council tables transit plan Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 5/1/07 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Coleman, Lee Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The Daily Gazette Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. Saratoga Springs Subject The topic of the resource Transportation Description An account of the resource After being presented with a 1059-signature petition opposed to the city's downtown transportation plan, the City Council on Tuesday tabled action on the proposal. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource text EnvironmentalJustice SaratogaSprings transportation https://ssmp.skidmore.edu/files/original/cc1a4dde7b6362fed7b0a9bb532691a6.jpg b18b9328a7a8f5a6941f08dfb4db1b8c Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Saratoga Springs History Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1706- Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Repository Name of the repository that holds the original item. Saratoga Room, Saratoga Springs Public Library Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Jillian Seigel Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 43270 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Spa City to improve walkability Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 5/14/15 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Mitneau, Lauren Subject The topic of the resource Transportation Description An account of the resource The city is taking steps to improve conditions to walk, bike or travel around via alternative transportation. Those efforts have been recognized with some national attention. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource text EnvironmentalJustice SaratogaSprings transportation https://ssmp.skidmore.edu/files/original/472b8d2e48b1958d6f10e1b932b9935d.jpg 00f0eb53bcbeb39ecbc0da0fd6e48a08 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Saratoga Springs History Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1706- Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Repository Name of the repository that holds the original item. Saratoga Room, Saratoga Springs Public Library Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Jillian Seigel Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 43270 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource City looks to expand access for cyclists, pedestrians Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 5/15/15 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Williams, Stephen Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The Daily Gazette Subject The topic of the resource Transportation Description An account of the resource Officials announced Thursday that Alta Planning+Design of Saratoga Springs will be conducting a $60,000 study to develop a bicycle, pedestrian, and transit plan for the city. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource text EnvironmentalJustice SaratogaSprings transportation https://ssmp.skidmore.edu/files/original/d565dbcd20281c1de499069f71db446b.JPG 7169ad0586c8e6f07905d91c71cd4dc9 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Saratoga Springs History Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1706- Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Jillian Seigel Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 43270 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Planning Board Approves Lake Ave. Development, Water Line to Be Extended Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 5/17/49 Subject The topic of the resource Urban Renewal Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource text SaratogaSprings UrbanRenewal https://ssmp.skidmore.edu/files/original/9e326d1fda0dae5618ad9bfa22875b9e.JPG b09e8d5053efd0335f5137dfb8ce55ac Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Saratoga Springs History Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1706- Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Jillian Seigel Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 43270 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Housing Development Wins OK Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 5/19/49 Subject The topic of the resource Urban Renewal Description An account of the resource The application of William H. Moran, local real estate dealer, before the Planning Board, for approval of a project for housing development along the east side of the Recreation Field, between Lake Ave. and Caroline St., apparently has been settled to the satisfaction of all concerned. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource text SaratogaSprings UrbanRenewal https://ssmp.skidmore.edu/files/original/ccbe00665c5e0f86a21305aa940cd508.jpg d4af624237049f6e7dd18e607045d2d3 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Saratoga Springs History Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1706- Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Repository Name of the repository that holds the original item. Saratoga Room, Saratoga Springs Public Library Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Jillian Seigel Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 43270 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource CDTA plans meetings to discuss bus routes Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 5/2/15 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Williams, Stephen Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The Daily Gazette Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. Saratoga Springs Subject The topic of the resource Transportation Description An account of the resource A new route system would be designed based on ridership data and the changes in development patterns since the last restructuring, as well as on public input. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource text EnvironmentalJustice SaratogaSprings transportation https://ssmp.skidmore.edu/files/original/fdaaa048eb195847bcd1cda675b9ce8c.jpg 98410b0d8bc7657e089f50e1068c8281 https://ssmp.skidmore.edu/files/original/684cbc13b00906e00e70ce7f2f8458c3.jpg 28daf186eb61c32d4b1b392d15e8966a Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Saratoga Springs History Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1706- Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Repository Name of the repository that holds the original item. Saratoga Room, Saratoga Springs Public Library Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Jillian Seigel Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 43270 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource CDTA unveils new routes Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 5/27/16 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Paul, Post Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The Saratogian Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. Saratoga Springs Subject The topic of the resource Transportation Description An account of the resource New routes, increased frequency and reduced travel time are highlights of a revamped public transportation system officials unveiled Tuesday. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource text EnvironmentalJustice SaratogaSprings transportation https://ssmp.skidmore.edu/files/original/37596ce4c2e97845442069a354945154.JPG 4c4440a4289c4c9f68539550b39aa1eb Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Saratoga Springs History Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1706- Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Jillian Seigel Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 43270 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Planning Unit Urges Low-Rent W. Side Housing Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 5/27/55 Subject The topic of the resource Urban Renewal Description An account of the resource Additional safe and sanitary housing of a low-rent character is 'necessary and desirable,' according to the Saratoga Springs Planning Board which, at a recent meeting proposed a second, 75 apartment project on the west side of Broadway, preferably in a location where old and dilapidated structures could be removed. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource text SaratogaSprings UrbanRenewal https://ssmp.skidmore.edu/files/original/1d8135dc50f0eed8985bfe9788135548.JPG 4539424e8186cb01c189ba665ccdac5b Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Saratoga Springs History Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1706- Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Repository Name of the repository that holds the original item. Saratoga Room, Saratoga Springs Public Library Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Jillian Seigel Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 43270 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Dr. Roohan to chair urban renewal board Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 5/6/81 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Nero, Phil Subject The topic of the resource Urban Renewal Description An account of the resource Dr. Leo W. Roohan Jr., was unanimously voted to succeed the late James Benton Wednesday as chairman of the Saratoga Springs Urban Renewal Agency. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource text EnvironmentalJustice SaratogaSprings UrbanRenewal https://ssmp.skidmore.edu/files/original/071fd4131c2f7c9c23cf397d6c9caf9c.jpg feb724ba06eb1f20dc7aeb3cc272a9d1 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Saratoga Springs History Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1706- Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Repository Name of the repository that holds the original item. Saratoga Room, Saratoga Springs Public Library Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Jillian Seigel Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 43270 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Cycling toward a bike-friendly city Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 6/1/07 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Reinert, Ted Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The Saratogian Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. Saratoga Springs Subject The topic of the resource Transportation Description An account of the resource Bicycle racks are scattered across downtown Saratoga Springs. The horse-headed rings, installed.beginning last year, are an ornamental version that can accomodate two bikes at once. The department of public works. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource text EnvironmentalJustice SaratogaSprings transportation https://ssmp.skidmore.edu/files/original/b335c41fd8774c5733e42b949d21e11e.jpg 407b961896bba23d1a2413c791d8b0de https://ssmp.skidmore.edu/files/original/e6c131cf139ef089fecae5e8e1304f56.jpg 2f8507bd56124ee0c9120f3a52f550a4 https://ssmp.skidmore.edu/files/original/a2333a6d82af06d0863633665b8af6d7.jpg 5b587fdecf30c01bdffe1b17709574d3 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Saratoga Springs History Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1706- Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Repository Name of the repository that holds the original item. Saratoga Room, Saratoga Springs Public Library Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Jillian Seigel Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 43270 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource On Track? Details of $12 million rail project emerge Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 6/13/98 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Woodyard, Michael Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The Post Star Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. Glens Falls Subject The topic of the resource Transportation Description An account of the resource Plans for a new rail project are emerging Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource text EnvironmentalJustice SaratogaSprings transportation https://ssmp.skidmore.edu/files/original/ea6fb22a0f02ce41970810673dec18a9.jpg 5a0142cd7794589318817f282a5abac9 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Saratoga Springs History Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1706- Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Repository Name of the repository that holds the original item. Saratoga Room, Saratoga Springs Public Library Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Jillian Seigel Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 43270 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Walking, biking, to Spa park studied Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 6/17/10 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Coleman, Lee Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The Daily Gazette Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. Saratoga Springs Subject The topic of the resource Transportation Description An account of the resource A new study of the Route 50 corridor near the Saratoga Spa State Park recommends $1.5 million in improvements to pedestrian and bicycle access to the park and nearby city trails. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource text EnvironmentalJustice SaratogaSprings transportation https://ssmp.skidmore.edu/files/original/24fe29e206584bd0ec4eb5896568fddd.JPG 41c3b95d77cb45d9e4f0439599ae574b Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Saratoga Springs History Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1706- Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Repository Name of the repository that holds the original item. Saratoga Room, Saratoga Springs Public Library Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Jillian Seigel Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 43270 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Saratoga URA to Sell Land For Senior Citizens Center Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 6/28/76 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Wildy, Red Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The Daily Gazette Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. Saratoga Springs Subject The topic of the resource Urban Renewal Description An account of the resource The Saratoga Springs Urban Renewal Agency last night passed resolutions in preparation to selling land for a Senior Citizens Center and use of URA land as a temporary softball field, discussed plans for businesses on Lake Avenue, and heard Mayor Raymond Watkin announce an interest from a developer to construct between 50 and 60 housing units for Senior Citizens. At this time, many properties are available. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource text SaratogaSprings UrbanRenewal https://ssmp.skidmore.edu/files/original/86a0f6a2272ba46332d12f532f39e818.jpg c02287a75a75d766933f78de15bc116d Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Saratoga Springs History Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1706- Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Repository Name of the repository that holds the original item. Saratoga Room, Saratoga Springs Public Library Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Jillian Seigel Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 43270 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Saratogians Will Greet Amtrak RR Train Today Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 6/8/72 Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. Saratoga Springs Subject The topic of the resource Transportation Description An account of the resource In an about-face yesterday, the Saratoga Springs Chamber expressed support of a New York State route of a state-mandated train service from New York to Montreal. The chamber authorized Executive Vice President Joseph W. Dalton Jr. to put together the symbols of the area's tourist attractions. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource text EnvironmentalJustice SaratogaSprings transportation https://ssmp.skidmore.edu/files/original/3db5d132f1524015b8ca95ba671c4f20.jpg b427bf8e931cfd1930f1124751511bcc Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Saratoga Springs History Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1706- Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Repository Name of the repository that holds the original item. Saratoga Room, Saratoga Springs Public Library Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Jillian Seigel Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 43270 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Grant will end Spa bike trail Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 6/9/03 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Brady, Sally Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The Post Star Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. Saratoga Springs Subject The topic of the resource Transportation Description An account of the resource State provides $100,000 infusion Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource text EnvironmentalJustice SaratogaSprings transportation https://ssmp.skidmore.edu/files/original/762acc4dde5db4f9be916a5a9a6037a1.jpg 19e31d4306d12079f11f61a7ec6813f8 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Saratoga Springs History Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1706- Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Repository Name of the repository that holds the original item. Saratoga Room, Saratoga Springs Public Library Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Jillian Seigel Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 43270 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource A&P Opens New Lot to Ease Downtown Parking Problem Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 7/11/57 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The Saratogian Subject The topic of the resource Transportation Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource text EnvironmentalJustice SaratogaSprings transportation https://ssmp.skidmore.edu/files/original/bf4892c31620231c859aeffcd09944bd.pdf 67ae2365a8d4dc642ae41a995f4d9323 PDF Text Text � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Adult and Senior Center of Saratoga Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 5/12/17 Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Phoebe Radcliffe Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1959-60YearsYoung-FundraisingLetter Title A name given to the resource Fundraising Letter Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 7/16/59 Description An account of the resource A letter from the Board of Directors asking people to donate to the Cetner Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. Adult and Senior Center of Saratoga Language A language of the resource English Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Document funding Saratoga Springs Senior Center https://ssmp.skidmore.edu/files/original/aeec88ea7737f374e032e97a67df396c.JPG 8e0bf68df8f1053393cf949811f26786 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Saratoga Springs History Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1706- Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Jillian Seigel Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 43270 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Better Housing Demanded of Council Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 7/17/68 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource McKechnie, Nancy Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. Saratoga Springs Subject The topic of the resource Urban Renewal Description An account of the resource The Saratoga Springs City Council last night was confronted for the first time by a group demanding that the council live up to its responsibility to Negros and poor people by providing better housing. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource text SaratogaSprings UrbanRenewal https://ssmp.skidmore.edu/files/original/0650c09d605931af888cb24cb577c9d2.jpg b375c034bb820dbabc79f4596a952995 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Saratoga Springs History Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1706- Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Repository Name of the repository that holds the original item. Saratoga Room, Saratoga Springs Public Library Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Jillian Seigel Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 43270 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Several parking changes this year Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 7/20/05 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource McCord, Jason Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The Post Star Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. Saratoga Springs Subject The topic of the resource Transportation Description An account of the resource With track season, parking is challenging. Mayor Lenz hopes to open the bottom level of the Church Street parking deck by the first week in August. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource text EnvironmentalJustice SaratogaSprings transportation Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Saratoga Springs History Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1706- Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Repository Name of the repository that holds the original item. Saratoga Room, Saratoga Springs Public Library Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Jillian Seigel Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 43270 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Hitting the trail Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 7/26/15 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource De LA Rocha, Kelly Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The Daily Gazette Subject The topic of the resource Transportation Description An account of the resource Description of a few local areas to run, bike, and stroll. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource text EnvironmentalJustice SaratogaSprings transportation https://ssmp.skidmore.edu/files/original/3ad825f81084efc6512ab07f179d0e27.JPG b61ec36ccabdfbc8b86580a2644dfe01 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Saratoga Springs History Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1706- Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Repository Name of the repository that holds the original item. Saratoga Room, Saratoga Springs Public Library Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Jillian Seigel Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 43270 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource City urban renewal agency hold final meeting Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 7/26/86 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Brooks, Dick Subject The topic of the resource Urban Renewal Description An account of the resource The Saratoga Springs Urban Renewal Agency was terminated at its final meeting last week and milestones were established. Dr., Leo W. Roohan, chairman, was present as he was at the first meeting on May 14, 1962 and every meeting since its inception 24 years and two months ago. The only other living member of that original agency is former Finance Commissioner Mahlon C. 'Mike' Tunlso. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource text EnvironmentalJustice SaratogaSprings UrbanRenewal https://ssmp.skidmore.edu/files/original/8cbed90fc5eb3db636dbf12b243b823a.JPG b04b4ffae057227bc0df44c21bf6dde8 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Saratoga Springs History Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1706- Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Jillian Seigel Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 43270 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Housing study: Low-income residents priced out of Saratoga Springs market Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 7/26/90 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Smero, Sarah M. Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. Saratoga Springs Subject The topic of the resource Urban Renewal Description An account of the resource The number of low-income people in Saratoga Springs has dropped because they are being priced out of the housing market. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource text EnvironmentalJustice SaratogaSprings UrbanRenewal https://ssmp.skidmore.edu/files/original/393ea90fa1e883c6b7e004f29c580a91.jpg b530347483447f5d22a2813a7e9bda2b Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Saratoga Springs History Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1706- Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Repository Name of the repository that holds the original item. Saratoga Room, Saratoga Springs Public Library Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Jillian Seigel Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 43270 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource CDTA unveils bike-share program in four cities Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 7/28/17 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Robarge, Mark Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The Saratogian Subject The topic of the resource Transportation Description An account of the resource Local officials gathered in the rain Thursday morning in Washington Park to formally kick off CDPHP Cycle!, a new initiative that will allow people in Albany, Schenectady, Troy and Saratoga Springs to rent bicycles from any of 41 stations as what the authority is billing as 'healthy, affordable and fun mode of transportation. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource text EnvironmentalJustice SaratogaSprings transportation https://ssmp.skidmore.edu/files/original/5735d730d9e1b63f0046ed303d422f41.jpg 4e147f9b6e4428b9d25096a3adef2c47 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Saratoga Springs History Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1706- Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Repository Name of the repository that holds the original item. Saratoga Room, Saratoga Springs Public Library Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Jillian Seigel Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 43270 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Touring on the Trolley Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 7/30/03 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource McCord, Jason Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The Post Star Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. Saratoga Springs Subject The topic of the resource Transportation Description An account of the resource Hour of Saratoga sightseeing only costs $1 and is popular with the tourists Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource text EnvironmentalJustice SaratogaSprings transportation https://ssmp.skidmore.edu/files/original/2036c0abd64823648f91a8b4d1f3c2aa.jpg f4250216dad84ead792da8bcb6524f3e Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Saratoga Springs History Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1706- Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Repository Name of the repository that holds the original item. Saratoga Room, Saratoga Springs Public Library Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Jillian Seigel Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 43270 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The city, on 2 wheels Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 7/30/14 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource De LA Rocha, Kelly Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The Daily Gazette Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. Saratoga Springs Subject The topic of the resource Transportation Description An account of the resource BikeShare Week offers tours, provides free rides to the public. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource text EnvironmentalJustice SaratogaSprings transportation https://ssmp.skidmore.edu/files/original/fbcd092ee75f63a02221871d9de6901c.jpg 7f2764296e67ace50c30f1f2e6558981 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Saratoga Springs History Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1706- Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Repository Name of the repository that holds the original item. Saratoga Room, Saratoga Springs Public Library Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Jillian Seigel Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 43270 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Parking spaces freed for summer Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 7/4/03 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Brady, Sally Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The Post Star Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. Saratoga Springs Subject The topic of the resource Transportation Description An account of the resource The city could have another 80 spaces downtown this summer to help aid its parking congestion. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource text EnvironmentalJustice SaratogaSprings transportation https://ssmp.skidmore.edu/files/original/d49b741c22e67efb755156f24977c0fb.jpg 0b7d1dcf452226103cf6f58d347e73d2 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Saratoga Springs History Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1706- Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Repository Name of the repository that holds the original item. Saratoga Room, Saratoga Springs Public Library Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Jillian Seigel Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 43270 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource NYC bus company adds Saratoga run Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 7/7/10 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Zarnowski, Tatiana Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The Daily Gazette Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. Saratoga Springs Subject The topic of the resource Transportation Description An account of the resource A bus line that is expanding its expres service to Saratoga Springs will pick up passengers at 6:30 a.m. in front of Congress Park at the tourist booth on Broadway, and leave from New York at 8 p.m. for a return trip each day. A ticket will cost approx. $20. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource text EnvironmentalJustice SaratogaSprings transportation https://ssmp.skidmore.edu/files/original/088aebb53359da1497993aad06fff1b8.jpg 2dcb0c0aac85108dbd1aacb3d863908d Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Saratoga Springs History Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1706- Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Repository Name of the repository that holds the original item. Saratoga Room, Saratoga Springs Public Library Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Jillian Seigel Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 43270 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Bus route from NYC to Spa City cancelled Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 8/12/10 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Donohue, Emily Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The Saratogian Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. Saratoga Springs Subject The topic of the resource Transportation Description An account of the resource The bus route planned to travel between Saratoga Springs and New York City has been cancelled, according to an announcement on the company's website. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource text EnvironmentalJustice SaratogaSprings transportation https://ssmp.skidmore.edu/files/original/dd7d22f62ffb6e935b14dbf69110a724.jpg 445ec0a5821f7c782c94d22e188b0127 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Saratoga Springs History Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1706- Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Repository Name of the repository that holds the original item. Saratoga Room, Saratoga Springs Public Library Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Jillian Seigel Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 43270 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource New bus route will aid track workers on dark days Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 8/3/15 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Williams, Stephen Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The Daily Gazette Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. Saratoga Springs Subject The topic of the resource Transportation Description An account of the resource A new bus route that should help senior citizens and track workers get around the Saratoga Springs area debuted last week, to the praise of city officials and advocate groups. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource text EnvironmentalJustice SaratogaSprings transportation https://ssmp.skidmore.edu/files/original/c3e84a6551ce6f9226136077043871ea.jpg 70f6b6981a9cedde8ca7dcc8780ba8e5 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Saratoga Springs History Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1706- Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Repository Name of the repository that holds the original item. Saratoga Room, Saratoga Springs Public Library Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Jillian Seigel Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 43270 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 600 at Spa City Greet Amtrak Adirondack Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 8/5/74 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Shepard, Judy Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The Daily Gazette Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. Saratoga Springs Subject The topic of the resource Transportation Description An account of the resource Close to 600 persons were on hand when Amtrak's Adirondack train pulled into the West Avenue railroad station yesterday in its inaugural run from New York to Montreal. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource text EnvironmentalJustice SaratogaSprings transportation https://ssmp.skidmore.edu/files/original/3343b18a0f65780e8bb208eb366c8c78.JPG 477172d1a4177c0987a82506199f7446 https://ssmp.skidmore.edu/files/original/83bd0a35caca1ff2fbc418d26cdc5706.pdf c277e64f4a87f5c17ab42a571e0358a4 PDF Text Text Interviewee: Saladin Allah Interviewer: Shanleigh Corrallo Location of Interview: Niagara Falls Underground Railroad Heritage Center, Niagara Falls, NY Date of Interview: 9 March 2026 Shanleigh Corrallo (SC) [00:00:05] All right, so today's date is March 8th- March 9th actually, 2026. Thank you so much for volunteering to participate in the oral history project. As you know, this will be housed in Skidmore College and you can choose not to answer any question during this time or opt out at any time. My name is Shanleigh Corrallo. I'm a Mellon Humanities postdoc fellow with ACE and also, research associate with Skidmore. And can you please state your name and confirm your consent to be interviewed? Saladin Allah (SA) [00:00:34] Saladin Allah is spelled S-A-L-A D-I-N A L-L A-H and I confirm my consent to be interviewed. SC [00:00:43] Awesome, thank you. So the first question is can you please introduce yourself and share where you are from? SA [00:00:49] Yes, so my name is Saladin Allah. I was born and raised in Niagara Falls, New York. SC [00:00:57] Wonderful. Can you walk us through details of your ancestors and your family tree? SA [00:01:04] How much time do we have? SC [00:01:06] We've got time! SA [00:01:07] This is deep. So I always like to start with my family, my parents, because they set a very firm foundation in terms of my family dynamics. My mother was a social psychologist by trade. And my father, he was a tradesman that worked for the city of Niagara Falls as a painter. But he also collected African artifacts. So I grew up in a household that was very social and culturally conscious. And it was very common to learn about classical African civilizations and the fact that we're first world people and fathers and mothers of civilization. And we also learned a lot about our history here in North America. So it was pretty different growing up amongst some of my peers that didn't have that kind of family dynamic or access to that kind of social and cultural consciousness because, with some of my peers, that might have been from Italy and they could talk to me about their last name originating from a certain village in Italy or other peers who had Irish ancestry or German ancestry, I could also contribute to that conversation because I was learning more about my identity through my parents setting that foundation. They were also part of the Black Panthers. So they were always involved in the community, always involved with the community. And because of that, it kind of shaped my consciousness in such a way where I developed a sense of pride and confidence about who I am. And then also to have more curiosity and learn more about who I am and my ancestors. So I was born here in Niagara Falls. But many of my ancestors made it through the Underground Railroad and settled on the Canadian side. My grandmother Inez Dorsey was born on the Canadian side and she lived in a very important community known as Colored Village which was established in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada and this was one of many settlements of people of African descent who made it to the Underground �Railroad and began to create communities throughout southern Ontario. She was a member of the historic Salem Chapel, which is on Geneva Street, which is also the historic Harriet Tubman Chapel. She got married in 1925 and moved across- into America, and my father was born, and then I'm one of his seven children. So I knew a little bit about some of those stories growing up, and like oftentimes many children, you're interested in other different things. But as I begin to get older I began to get more interested in my ancestry and where I came from. And it's more of just a journey of knowledge of self. So I can learn a little bit more about why I have certain inclinations or maybe my temperament in a certain type of way or why I have certain types of interests. And it is literally because I'm a composite of all those who came before me. So doing more investigation and genealogy research and learning some of the stories of not just my parents, but their parents, and their parents and their parents, I begin to get a greater insight into who I actually am and then also to be in a position to transfer that knowledge to the next generation–my children. SC [00:04:44] You already described some of your family members, but I guess I have a follow up on what you just said. So had that interest in family history and specifically going all the way back to specific African roots, was that instilled in every generation in your family or did your parents kind of start that interest? SA [00:05:01] So... An important word in African tradition is griot (greey-o) or griot (gree-ot). That is a history keeper or a storyteller within our tribes. It may be a different word used in other different tribes that are indigenous to North America or maybe Australia or other different places, but all of these tribes have a tradition of a griot or a history-keeper and I happen to have two of them in my family, both of my parents. Now on my mother's side, her mother was also a griot. She was an avid reader. She was always introducing us to various different perspectives in life. On my father's side his sister, my Aunt Honey, was the griot. So usually when you look at families you have one or two members who naturally become the storytellers or the history keepers to transmit that to the next generation. I'm one of those people in my family and oftentimes being connected to your other family members, some of them may not know that they are storytellers or history keepers, they may just be having casual conversation, telling you about their uncle or about how their great-grandmother came from the South with one suitcase and five dollars. But yet, 30 years later, she's a homeowner. She never went to college or anything like that. How did that happen? Why did she leave from the South with one suitcase? What was happening during that time frame? Sometimes we may not know those different types of stories, but when we get bits and pieces of those stories, just through casual conversations or comments, or even looking at dates or names on the back of photographs that are in photo albums, we're putting the pieces of that story back together. So historically, as a person of African descent, there has been a cultural discontinuity in terms of the transmission of our heritage, our values, our traditions, those of us who have gone through the transatlantic trade of enslaved people and being disconnected from some of those things. We've had to set up on a path of reclaiming our culture and much of what we do is genetic or there is a natural instinct to be attracted to certain type of ways in which we express ourselves, but there also requires a path of gaining that knowledge of self through research, through learning the stories of those that came before us. One of the challenges is in America, those kinds of stories and people who are significant in our ancestry are not highlighted. Many of our graves are unmarked grave sites. So there's times when we can't even go to a grave site to see the names of an ancestor that was buried there that may have done something significant in our lives. So that becomes �very challenging sometimes to be able to put those pieces of the puzzle back together. And I'm fortunate to be able to have those within my family that understood the importance of that to make sure that me and my siblings were in environments where we had access to learning about these things as well as conversations. My family was–, a very very very important part of our family values was to have conversations and what I mean by that is if we're watching films or documentaries, my parents would pause it and we would have a conversation in the middle of what we're watching to get context and for them to expound on certain things that we're actually watching. It's kind of like I grew up in a laboratory or something. SC [00:09:24] It sounds like it. SA [00:09:25] You know? SC [00:09:25] Yeah. SA [00:09:27] Um, so yeah, so... It's been a process and a journey, and I always describe knowledge itself as a never-ending inner journey. It may appear as if you are striving to access information externally and research that's being done and stories that you hear on the outside of your ear, but in reality, it's really an inner journey because that is where the motivation actually starts, from within. SC [00:10:02] How does that, how has that influenced you and how you…created interpretation here [at the Niagara Falls Underground Railroad Heritage Center]? SA [00:10:10] As a foundation, there is a direct correlation between confidence and competence. Also aptitude and attitude, and many of my people, because of the journey here in America have low self-esteem and vacant esteem. Because we've been defined as non-human for many years as enslaved people. When segregation came, we were not even honored and looked at as equal citizens. So we still were dehumanized in that regard. America this year is celebrating its 250th anniversary. More than 71% of the time that people of African descent have been on this soil from 1776 to 2026, we have been defined as property. We have been defined as non-citizens. We have been disenfranchised. That has been the majority of our experience on this land and those constant attacks on our identity from a psychological perspective, from an educational perspective, from an economic perspective, from a social perspective. All of those various different types of attacks can really do something to your esteem and how you see yourself. And then many of us were introduced to Christianity, and when you look at a lot of the iconography within Christianity, we don't even see ourselves reflected in what we worship even. God to us looked exactly like the enslaver, and many of us practiced that for many generations. When we look at the angels we don't see Black angels. And that does something in terms of shaping your consciousness and what you think is possible. So growing up in a society where everything outside of you does not reinforce your identity, you may not have the healthiest sense of esteem at all. So part of that reclamation of culture that I spoke about earlier is a part of rebuilding your identity, not based on lies. SC [00:12:40] Mm-hmm. SA [00:12:40] Because a lot of what we see in America are lies that are reinforced based upon a so-called white supremacist ideology and racism. Many of it is not true. But when you start to really uncover true history, you realize that people of African descent or melanated people are the global majority. We've been here so long that they still- �archeologists are still finding remnants of ancestors in various different places. And that is a very long history of civilization. And the ability to just think about society, relationships, our connection to what we define as creator, as well as creation, that is a very long time to be able to think those things through. And to be directly connected to that, and to know it, and to understand it, not only builds your sense of confidence and esteem, but it connects you to competence because now you're gaining a better understanding about things beginning with yourself as well as others in the world around you that you may not have access to growing up in a society that does not and has not ever centered your people and to be able to start centering the stories of your people and your ancestors. It reaffirms your identity and it gives you a sense of real confidence and competence that many others have had but it's based upon a falsehood and sometimes people don't understand this type of conversation and sometimes I have to shift it into intersectionality dealing with gender because as a woman and women they can perfectly understand the things that I'm talking about SC [00:14:33] Oh, I understand. SA [00:14:33] You know? SC [00:14:35] Yes. Yeah. Absolutely. SA [00:14:38] And I was having a conversation with a couple of elder women that came to our space a few months ago. SC [00:14:45] Mm-hmm. SA [00:14:47] And they went through a 90-minute tour with one of my team members and they pulled me aside after the tour and they said they had a few questions. And they said, “you know, I was wondering like when people got across to Canada and they made it through the Underground Railroad, like how were they able to like build these communities and communicate and to make livings for themselves and how were they able to do all of that?” And then I smiled and I said, “they did it just like white people do it.” And they said, “oh no, no, I didn't mean that.” And I said, “I meant that.” I said “because you're not looking at them as human beings.” I said, “anybody else, you would never have questioned their ability to do something as simple as communicate and build communities.” And I say “the irony of this is you're talking about people who literally built the White House. Literally.” SC [00:15:38] Yeah. SA [00:15:39] You're talking about, yeah, one of the most skilled labor classes in this entire country. SC [00:15:43] Mm-hmm. SA [00:15:44] I said “as a woman,” because they were two elder women, I said, “I'm sure that you can appreciate the fact of having that competence and those skill sets and intelligence and being erased, because I'm sure in your lifetime, you've been in positions and in spaces where men just disregarded you because you're a woman and didn't think that you were capable.” And I said, “even when you look at European history, the further you go back, you start realizing that women are not even mentioned by name. You're that insignificant. You're just the mother of someone, the wife of or the daughter of somebody.” And that erasure established the power dynamics that we see to this day. �SC [00:16:23] Absolutely. SA [00:16:24] And history is exactly what it is, it's his story. It's not her story and it's definitely not the story. SC [00:16:31] Mm-hmm. SA [00:16:32] In order to reclaim that sense of esteem, confidence, competence, and identity, you have to be able to center your stories, and to ensure that those types of stories are transmitted to the next generation, not just for women, but men too. Everyone needs to know these stories. SC [00:16:54] Absolutely. SA [00:16:55] So it's always a battle in terms of reaffirming your identity. You know, in my own household, there are images, there are artifacts that reflect my ancestors and my people. I can't control that when I walk outside of the house, or I can’t control that if I turn on social media or television, because I often times don't see many representations of myself in positions of power. And it's important to be able to create that because that is more reflective of what my story is as a person of African descent, because the further I go back, that's what I actually see. SC [00:17:36] Yeah, I think that that's important, and you touched on something that if people are not educated, especially white people, about this history, or they're not receptive, at least to listening, it's an abstraction. Like, self-identity, pride, those are terms for most white people that would be abstractions, or like, not a central core of a human being in communities. So, yeah, I can imagine that's a difficult thing to try to convey to people. SA [00:18:02] And even when we say white people or white culture, what are we even talking about? Are we talking about Irish, you know? Are we talking about Italian? Are we talking about German, Polish, Ukrainian? What are we talking about and where does this concept of white even come from? And what is it based upon? What is it rooted in? SC [00:18:27] Yeah, right. That's a good point. SA [00:18:28] You know, people oftentimes don't even want to examine that. And I think the further they go down that rabbit hole, they realize that this is something that's made up. There's no scientific basis behind it. It's a social-political idea. And in order for us to recognize the humanity of us, we have to be able to look at what's behind this veil that has franchised right here in America. Because if you go to other places people typically identify based on their nationality. SC [00:19:03] Mm-hmm. SA [00:19:03] If you go someplace and they say that they're white, it's like, okay, yeah, that came from America somewhere. What they're gonna say, no, I'm Canadian, I am Italian, I'm this. Even if you go to other places like the continent of Africa, people are gonna say either they are Tanzanian or Tanzanian, or they're going to tell you that they are Maasai. They're gonna tell you the actual tribe that they come from. They're typically not gonna just say I'm Black or I'm white. You know it's kind of like here in America, it's so �ironic. America celebrates itself on being the home of many different people you know, even just in the English language you look at the etymology and the words we use they didn't come from here. They're either rooted in French, that's the origin of this word, or German, or Spanish, or Indigenous, or Arabic. These are all contributions to enrich what this society actually is. It's kind of like people enjoy that to the extent of cuisine. [They might think] “I love taco Tuesday but I really don't like Mexicans and I have no relationship with any Mexican people. I can't tell you nothing about their culture but I love tacos.” That's the kind of mentality that a lot of times people have. SC [00:20:26] Mm-hmm. SA [00:20:27] Instead of realizing that cuisine can be a path to culture, to gain a better understanding about the various different people that ultimately makes this country great and what it actually is. When people are being taught, when you come here to America, you chuck whatever that is at the door. SC [00:20:45] Mm-hmm. SA [00:20:47] And you become an American, but it's like, okay, okay, we can be American, so we're gonna have to celebrate all of these contributions that make America what it is. We can't compartmentalize or minimize those contributions because there would not be an America without those type of contributions, other than food. SC [00:21:09] Yeah. I mean, especially in a state like New York and all the cities we have, it's super diverse. I don't know how you, I don't know if it's the same in like, Idaho or… perhaps it is, but we see that every day, so I don't know how people avoid that. SA [00:21:25] Mm-hmm. SC [00:21:26] But you touched on such an interesting point that I don't think people usually talk about, which is this distinction between white and Black, which is super American, and it's also how so many conversations are framed about race. And it does kind of wipe out nuance, but how do you approach talking to the average American about that? SA [00:21:48] Well, my goal is to strive to meet people where they are. My neighbor, there's a couple of doors down from me, Mr. Davis, he's 96 years old. He uses the phrase colored people. That is how much of an elder he is and how long he's been around. I don't correct him. That's his language and that is what he commonly uses. And he's an elder, right? So I respect that dynamic with him. I really don't use that phrase and I'm not going around telling people, you know, colored people, unless I'm referring to people who may be classified as white because I don't change colors. So I strive to meet people where they are. I know some people who are offended by the word Black. They don't want to be called Black. They want to be called African American. I know people who don't wanna be called African American or Black. They want to be called Moor, a Moor, or Hebrew. Or some people don't use any of those. I'm just a human being. So I strived to meet people where they are and communicate with them and if I have an opportunity to show them that how we define ourselves along this timeline of human chronology, you choose to define yourself at this particular point in our journey, which may be very recent. SC [00:23:19] Mm-hmm. �SA [00:23:19] You know, I know some people, they don't, they just wanna be called Christian. Okay, so that's a very recent way in which we choose to define ourselves. But if you go further back and you go to various different geographic locations, we didn't use that way to define ourselves. So sometimes it may be challenging for some people who are looking at our journey in a very linear way to understand that the most accurate way to really define ourselves is first world people or original people. Well, we were here before language and we defined ourselves in many different ways and as we began to create language and define ourselves in a communicative way and migrate to various different geographic locations, we developed various different identities that are all still connected to being the original people and in that journey. Sometimes people don't look at that overall perspective. So, sometimes I may have the opportunity to have that conversation with somebody. Sometimes I can't even go there. I'm just gonna honor where you're at and how you choose to define yourself right there and strive to find some type of common ground. Because I don't define myself as Christian, I don't define myself as Muslim, I don't define myself as many different things, but I strive to find those common grounds in terms of values and principles that we can relate on. Because there's certain things that we do relate on that are non-negotiable. We, as people here in America, we've both been catching hell regardless of how we define ourselves. So that’s, you know– SC [00:25:06] Yeah. SA [00:25:06] That's something we share in common, you know? And the ability to persevere and to have resilience and to find joy in a lot of the things that we have generationally experienced. That's somethin' that we can relate on, whether you go and worship at a synagogue or whether you're going to worship at a masjid or a church. SC [00:25:29] Thank you for clarifying that. So, could you talk a little bit about your household? You talked about your parents and how they educated you so well and thoroughly. Can you talk about maybe a typical day and anything you really fondly remember in your household growing up? SA [00:25:48] As I mentioned, my mother was a social psychologist and there were things that she would do that I did not understand until I reached my 40s because she was that far in advance. I remember being in my early teens and she would say things like, If you meet a girl, you better study their family dynamics. I don't know if I knew how to spell dynamics at that time, but it took me years to understand what she was meaning from that. And not only would she do that, but here in Niagara Falls, she would get me and my siblings who are closest in age and put us in a station wagon. And she would say, come on, let's go people watching. So I'm like, okay. So we get into the station wagon and we would go to places like public parks or a mall where there was a lot of foot traffic and we'd just sit there and she would just analyze people. She was teaching us deductive reasoning and she'd just have questions for me and my siblings sitting there and this is when I'm like maybe 11 years old and she asked “do you think that they're married?” or “what do you think their profession is based upon the way that they’re dressed?” And she would just have questions and we would have conversations and just analyze people. We used to just think it was fun, but she was teaching us how to observe our social environment and the various different stations of life that people are in as well as their humanity because sometimes people just don't pay attention to their environment at all. When it would rain, there was a viaduct here that has recently been removed. Based upon a development project here in Niagara Falls. And when it would rain, unhoused people �would seek shelter underneath this viaduct. So sometimes when it would rain, my mother would say, come on, let's go look for our friends. And she would put us in the station wagon. We would drive around the city. And then when we would get to the area where unhoused people were seeking shelter from the rain, she would point them out and say, “There's your friends. There's your friends, wave, make sure you see them.” And we would go back home. It took me years to understand what she was doing. She was very intentional about that. And then she also introduced me in particular to writers like Kahlil Gibran, other different writers, as well as my grandmother. My father, like I mentioned, he collected African artifacts and he also had indigenous ancestry, Tuscarora. So me and my brothers and my father, we would spend a lot of time on the Tuscaroras reservation and he would collect African artifacts, and figures, and various different types of other things. And he would have very intentional conversations with us about classical African civilizations. So he would teach us about General Hannibal, and how he conquered the boot of Italy and he would take elephants across the Alps and he would tell us about that and about other different tribes in the continent of Africa like the Maasai tribe and the Dinka tribe and the Dogon. We're having those kinds of conversations when I'm very, very young as well. So being in that kind of environment, it not only helped me develop a sense of pride, but also like I mentioned earlier, that sense of confidence and competence because now I can talk from a worldview and a perspective that is outside of the indoctrination thatI was getting within the educational system, as well as just walking around in the world where people just saw things from a totally different perspective. So that was a very rich environment that I grew up in, and when I left high school I attended Central State University which is a historic HBCU, in Wilberforce, Ohio. My eldest brother, he went to Alabama State University, which is an HBCU in Alabama. One of my sisters went to Morgan State, which is a HBCU in Baltimore. My other brother, he went to Central State as well, HBCU. Two of my daughters, my oldest daughters, went to Howard University, an HBCU. And it wasn't because my parents raised us and said, “all of you are gonna go to an HBCU.” We never had that kind of conversation. It was because of our sense of pride and wanting to be in spaces where we are centered and we can get a greater sense of cultural competence about who we actually are and to be a part of that legacy and lineage of institutions that were built for that particular purpose. SC [00:30:53] How, having that background, how was it navigating the public school system, like, compared to other- your peers who didn't have that? SA [00:31:02] Part of it was I wouldn't just go along and get along. I was having this thought last week and I oftentimes hear the phrase “make America great again.” In my mindset I'm like, “Okay what year? What year?” We're celebrating 250 years. What year has it really been great? I don't know, and I brought this point up to somebody I was having a conversation with. I said, when you look at this 250 years of America's history– even when we talk about American history, American history in a linear way is demarcated by incidences of war and conflict. It starts in revolution. Then you go into the Civil War, you go through all of these different wars. There's not been one year, one year out of the 250 years that America has existed, one year that there has not been external or internal conflict. America has always been at war from its inception, always, always, and thinking about how history is written and shaped that way, it's very challenging and difficult to… have an idea of what peace is and what prosperity is and what progress is. Because when you study other different societies, they don't write their history in war. They write their histories totally differently. There may be incidents where they've had conflict, but it's not centered in the way in which they write their stories. That's something that happened, but �that was an incident in their history that eventually gave birth to more of a peacetime that lasted for quite some time. America has a very short lifespan. If you look at it in terms of world chronology, America is like a kindergartner because you have societies that have 10,000 years of history. That's a lot of time to think about what works and what doesn't work. And if it lasted that long, you figure some things out to be able to sustain yourselves. So…. learning some of these types of things and growing up in an environment and growing through a school system where I wasn't learning some of those types of things, I never felt comfortable pledging allegiance to the American flag. When I see people who are celebrating and– something I've never felt that type of connection at all, or that sense of pride, I've just never felt that. And I'm not alone. I know many peers or other people that when they look at that American flag, they don't feel that same connection that other Americans feel to that. And growing up in an educational system where that is centered, a lot of times it's kinda like looking at a photo album and you don't see no pictures of your people or family, and it's kind of like, “okay, yeah, whatever.” There's no real pride or connection to a lot of different things. And then, when you look at the teacher workforce–my background is education. So I've taught early childhood education, I've taught fourth grade, fifth grade, sixth grade, I've taught a college course on advocacy and organizing for justice in the political science department. I've taught the spectrum of education from Pre-K all the way up to college age. And as a man of African descent or a Black man, I'm less than 2% of the teacher work force in this country. So I'm like a Black unicorn or something people never- people can go their entire educational career and never see me in a classroom. Never. And when you get into early childhood Pre-k It's even less than that in terms of representation. So the lack of cultural competence is something that has been pervasive in education in this country period, and that's very challenging to not represent the stories that are being centered in everything that you learn. And I'm not just specifically talking about history, I'm talking about every subject. Because if you're talking about home economics, it's taught from the perspective of someone that does not represent you. If you're talkin' about mathematics, they don't go into teachin' you about how you had Egyptian mathematicians that were teaching the Greeks, and that's how they learned about geometry and all of these other different sciences. Or if you're learning about the Renaissance in Europe, they're not having conversations about how the Moors came to Spain and they were there for over 700 years and were teaching them about sanitation, about mathematics, about architecture, and all these things. They're not going into any of those kinds of conversations at all. So, me learning about those kinds of different things, I wasn't the kind of person that just went along with everything. Sometimes I would question people like, oh, no, well, what about this? And as an authoritarian in a classroom, being a teacher, they wouldn't like some child questioning them. So, I had to learn to pick battles as well, that this person is giving you a grade. And the great thing about it is I always had parents that would advocate for me because even if a teacher didn't like the fact that I was sharing another perspective of what they were striving to teach, I had my parents that would be able to support me and back me up on that, right? But there's many children that may have access to things that I'm talking about, but they may not have advocacy in the form of adults to be able engage with the administration or teachers and say, no, this is true what they're talking about. Right, so… I had a challenge going through the school system, learning these things about myself and about the world and about others. I was able to retort a lot of the indoctrination based upon knowledge that I was learning. But I had many peers that didn't have the language, they didn't have the knowledge or the wisdom to be able to navigate these kinds �of spaces and to respond to misinformation and disinformation about the world and about themselves. And they have a much more difficult time where I experienced trauma in these spaces, but there are many peers that I know that experienced trauma to the degree where they don't even wanna go into educational spaces at all. They have a total distrust. They don't want to engage in that. They would never be interested in forms of higher education or continuously putting themselves into that environment. And worst of all, they would never want to become an educator themselves, to strive to be a part of this institution and strive to do some good. That is also, I think, why you see such a lack of representation of people of African descent or Indigenous people or others who have experienced such trauma in this society that has been transgenerational to the point where, I don't want anything to do with being a part of the criminal justice system in terms of being a police officer. I don't want to be a person that is a part of a fire department. I don't want anything to do with any of these kinds of institutions because I've been harmed. And many people don't even know how to articulate the ways that they've been harmed. The other layer to that is it affects your mental health and your physical health. And because many people have gone through this type of experience, the society itself is never diagnosed. If you're having mental health issues or physical problems, it's because of your own personal choice. It's not the society. It's not anything institutional that was happening. You just don't have the capacity. We can either self-medicate you or prescribe you something to be able to manage this, or we have another place to put you. And you have many people who are incarcerated that need therapy, they need some type of assistance that has been offered to other community members. Never diagnosed in terms of how they're a product of this society. Not only is our psychology the manifestation of the sociology, or the society, but the society or the sociology is also the product of the psychology. You know? SC [00:41:19] Yep, that makes sense. SA [00:41:20] And sometimes people don't want to examine the society at all. Because if you acknowledge that that's broken, you also have to acknowledge that you broke people. You have to acknowledge that resources are necessary to help people help themselves put themselves back together, so that we can build better societies. SC [00:41:45] Absolutely. Yeah, I feel like in the 60s and 70s when sociology was blowing up the whole thing was pathology. Like the one half of what you're saying. So this behavior means that this community is pathological, but they didn't look at the other end of it. SA [00:42:00] Mm-hmm. SC [00:42:01] A huge issue with resource allocations specifically. SA [00:42:05] Exactly. It's like some communities have become like sawmills to help build other communities because you can always find some kind of pathology over here. Oh, that requires some kind of funding to just study this. SC [00:42:20] Mm-hmm. SA [00:42:21] You know? SC [00:42:22] Mm-hmm. Yeah, and it creates a whole little economy for the researcher, but not the community. That’s the problem. �SA [00:42:29] Absolutely. Absolutely. SC [00:42:33] It's really interesting. I'm gonna... Do you have anything else you want to share about your family before we move on to the questions about memory and history and things like that? SA [00:42:45] Um... I wanted to share this as well. One of the challenges in terms of the reclamation of culture and being able to learn some of the stories of those that came before you is what I shared a little while ago about trauma and how it has become transgenerational. There's certain things people just don't wanna talk about. You know, my great grandmother, she was 104 years old before she passed and I spent a lot of time around her. And she had a lot of perspectives on life. She was a sharecropper. SC [00:43:20] Oh, wow. SA [00:43:21] So she had a lot of perspectives on life. And many things that she would never talk about. Never talk about. It's hard to be able to get stories that people are not inclined to be able to share because of the trauma. And that's a human thing as well. It's not just people of African descent, but I know people whose ancestors came from Ireland, and they just know bits and pieces of them coming from Ireland and then why they Americanized their last name. SC [00:43:53] Mm-hmm. SA [00:43:54] To be accepted and assimilated into society because they was being discriminated against. They didn't have that conversation with them, but just through their mission of being able to do some genealogy research and put the pieces of the story back together, they came to that conclusion, right? That has always been a challenge as well. It's hard to put the pieces of a story together where things are not being spoken about at all. SC [00:44:27] Mm-hmm. I just had a similar conversation with my dad actually on the way here. He um, so my grandparents- great-grandparents came from Sicily. SA [00:44:36] Okay. SC [00:44:37] Their children, they taught the children only to listen to understand Sicilian dialect, but only speak English. Gave them all, they had 13 kids, all American names like Charles, Margaret. And my dad was like, it's such a shame we lost our whole culture, we lost our language, we lost everything. And he didn't realize that– he's 60, he's like, “oh, now I get it,” but it just was an epiphany, like you said, he came to that conclusion, And it's a such a hostile thing to do to human beings, erase their whole culture and make them make that choice. SA [00:45:16] Exactly. Erase everything that I don't want, but I keep the different parts that can help enrich me. SC [00:45:23] Mm-hmm. Yeah so that's interesting, it does resonate. But where was your great-grandmother a sharecropper? What state? SA [00:45:36] She was in Alabama. �SC [00:45:37] Okay. So how was that for your... I don't remember if it was your sister or brother who went to Alabama, went back. Like was there some sort of... How did they feel about that when they went to school there? University? SA [00:45:50] Their experience was a little different. One of the differences is the racism is different. In the South, people, and in my experience and in the other's experiences, people will let you know right up front how they feel about you and if they don't like you or not. SC [00:46:08] In the South? SA [00:46:09] Yes, they won't smile in your face. If you're in an area where you're not supposed to be, they will tell you. You don't have to try to figure things out. Here, up North, a lot of times you may not know how somebody feels about you genuinely. They can smile in your face or, there might be what they define nowadays as microaggressions. But there's certain things that you may not be able to pick up on socially in terms of how to navigate or being in certain spaces. It's very clear in the South. If you're a northerner coming to the South, it may be even more pronounced or extreme in terms of what you are encountering because you may just be used to people not being very direct about how they really feel about you. You know, they may hang out with you and be your so-called best friend. But then you sit and think about it and wow, they've always been over at my house and playing with me and everything else even having dinner over at my house, I've never been in their house before, I've never eaten at their house before. It's certain things that you start to realize like okay, we're not looking at each other the same SC [00:47:22] Mm-hmm. SA [00:47:23] We're nice to each other, we can play and we're friends, but there's an invisible barrier or a wall that exists there. Whereas in the South, a lot of times you can see that wall. There's no misconception about where that is. So that's one thing that my brother was able to experience, him being in the south. SC [00:47:47] That has to be challenging to think about, both of those perspectives, which are horrible. SA [00:47:52] Mm-hmm, because you think about it as a child, right? SC [00:47:55] Mm-hmm. SA [00:47:56] And I'm gonna put my early childhood hat on for a second. When children are growing and developing, they're also learning their sense of spatial awareness, the difference between here and there, or the distance of things just in their physical environment. They're learning those things, not only psychologically in terms of their orientation, but also learning the language and developing the vocabulary to communicate here or there, or that sense of spatial awareness. One of the most insidious things about racism is that it warps your sense of spatial awareness. In the South, like I just mentioned, it's very clear of your spatial awareness, don't go here, you don't belong in this space. And historically, there were even signs up to tell you, you are not wanted here, don't go here. So as you're growing up as a child, you have a sense of spatial awareness about the dimensions of your environment and the difference between here or there, access as well as opportunity. �When you're in an environment where it's a veil and it's not clear, that warps your sense of spacial awareness because somebody might be treating you nice and it seems like you're equal and everything else, but you're realizing that for some reason, I'm striving to get into this door or to have this opportunity, but every time I get close to it, the door moves. Or, in other words, some people say moving the goalposts. Every time I strive to score, the goal post just keeps moving. That really does something to you psychologically where you have the credentials, you have experience, you have skill sets, but for some reason, you just don't get that opportunity. Or you just, for some reasons, you just can't live in this neighborhood. Or you can't go here. You can't go there. That really does something to you psychologically because some people begin to think that they're crazy. They really begin to question their own sense of sanity instead of acknowledging that no, this is– what you see is actually real. And people are just not gonna acknowledge it. They're gonna gaslight you and make it seem like what you are experiencing and how things keep moving around you, that it's not because of you, they're warping your sense of spatial awareness. And there are many people who right now are getting mental health services because they do not know how to cope with that reality that they exist in. And everybody walking around like what you're saying is not true. You know, it's something else. And then a lot of times, if people may want to get some type of services and they wanna go see a psychologist or a psychiatrist and they're sitting in front of somebody that don't even look like them, that reinforces this gas-lit environment. SC [00:51:16] Mm-hmm. SA [00:51:18] That's getting them to question, “huh, well, maybe it is you.” And you're striving to get professional help. It's, it's, ooh. SC [00:51:26] How do you resist that, or how does one even come to the point of one comprehending such a reality? And then, how do you even resist that when you're physically in this space? SA [00:51:38] Yeah, so again, I go back to my parents and the foundation that they laid. These are kind of conversations that I would have with my parents when I'm young. I grew up with a DSM-4 in the house. SC [00:51:53] Oh wow, okay. SA [00:51:56] So 11, 12 years old, my mother is showing us about the classifications of mental illnesses and how people are diagnosed and all of these things. That was a part of the nomenclature of my household. Not only is she helping us build our vocabulary, but also equipping us with the language to articulate the phenomena that's happening in our environment. Everything I'm saying right now, people can relate to it in terms of experience. They may not have the language to say, “ah, that's what's happening. That's what that is.” So, I'm not a rarity in terms of studying this phenomena and striving to articulate things that are going on and equip the present and younger generation with the tools to be able to navigate this. When you go further back and you start looking at various different movements within our community, it's all centered in a reclamation of culture. Whether it was religious through liberation theology, whether it was social movements, all of it was rooted in the exact same thing that I'm talking about. Developing the language and the ability to not only communicate phenomena or what's going on, but how to navigate these political spaces, these religious spaces, these educational spaces, physiological spaces, like there are many figures within our chronology as a community who have always been striving to do this type of work. And like I said earlier, a lot of those �figures are not highlighted within the educational curriculum. We have to be more intentional about finding out about these historians in our community, these researchers in our communities, these scientists, these entertainers who were very intentional about their roles. Or like a person like Oscar Micheaux, who was one of the first black film directors and producers and he was very intentional about the films that he created to center the stories of people of African descent when we weren't even allowed in the film industry at that time. And if we were it wasn't even us, it was a white person in black face depicting who we were. SC [00:54:33] Mm-hmm. SA [00:54:33] So there are many people who have been predecessors and people who've charted courses that we can learn from and access their research or their stories to get a greater insight into who we are and to be able to navigate these spaces and maintain our sanity at the same time. And it's important that I say that because you can be going through various different things and it can be difficult and, some people may fall into various different forms of dysfunction just to strive to cope or to maintain and to just have some sense of sanity in a crazy society. SC [00:55:19] Mm-hmm. SA [00:55:19] So it's an everyday thing. You know every day you have to confront various different things and knowledge is the foundation. You know you are able to have that sense of not just information but awareness that sets the stage for access to wisdom or discernment for you to be able to navigate and judge rightly what you need to say, what you don't need to say, where you should go, where you don't need to go. But you can't make those wise decisions if you don't have knowledge to begin with. So there has been a, in my estimation, a systematic, and we definitely see it nowadays, where it's kind of like a- an anti-intellectual movement that is going on where you can't even have educational conversations with some people and they're proud of being ignorant. That's something that I think we've seen just historically in this society, right? And that is something that you consistently confront, that you have to be able to navigate around or through or above or beneath or… But knowledge is critical for you to be able to do that and to have a sense of being able to deal with these various different things that are on the landscape of life. SC [00:56:50] That's great that your family gave you that background and it sounds like you're passing it forward soSA [00:56:55] Yes, striving to be. Yeah. SC [00:56:59] Um, so you're descended, I read on your bio but you haven't explained this yet, you're descended from a freedom seeker. SA [00:57:06] Mm-hmm. SC [00:57:09] So can you talk a little bit how your family has instilled that story or talked about that history with you and how you integrate that here in your work? SA [00:57:20] Yes, so I am the third great grandson of a very famous freedom seeker by the name of Josiah Henson. Josiah Hanson was the central figure that the writer Harriet Beecher Stowe used for her famous book, Uncle Tom's Cabin. And to kind of put that in �perspective, Uncle Tom' Cabin was the best-selling novel of the 19th century. The only book that sold more copies than that was the Bible. SC [00:57:48] That's incredible. SA [00:57:49] Yeah, he was born 1789 in Charles County, Maryland and enslaved and in short, he was enslaved for 41 years of his life. At one point he was on the plantation of his enslaver, Isaac Riley, and he was sent to his brother Amos Riley's plantation in Owensboro, Kentucky. And one thing that led to much of the disconnect between families, people of African descent during the time of enslavement, was because many people were oftentimes sold off to other plantations. Sometimes enslavers weren't the best managers of their property and sometimes it was threats of their properties being confiscated. So sometimes they would hide their property at various different locations and send people into other areas to maintain their property. So that's sometimes what would happen with people of African descent. They would be shifted around to various different places. Josiah, he was sent down to Owensboro, Kentucky and it was at that point in his life that he decided to escape. He had four children at the time. He had a wife and I use the word wife loosely because being seen as subhuman, people who are non-human don't have relationships. They definitely don't truly access an institution of marriage, right? But his partner, his wife, they escaped from there and they took a 41-day journey from Kentucky all the way up through Ohio and made it here to Western New York, Buffalo, New York. They crossed at a place known as Freedom Park today, Broderick Park. October 28th, 1830, they made it across to the Canadian side and settled for about several years in the place known as Fort Erie. That community was known as Little Africa at that time because other freedom seekers traveled and made it to that location and began to make a living for themselves. At one point, Josiah was given the... instructions to find land that he thought was suitable for the community to relocate so he went further North to a place that was called Dawn at that time, purchased over 200 acres of land, and the community was resettled in that area and became known as the dawn settlement. Today that area is known as Dresden, Ontario, Canada. He led a black militia during the rebellion in 1837. He built the British American Institute, which was a vocational institute in the area of Dawn. It taught teachers how to teach and it also taught students how to develop and access the land that they acquired as well. He went to England, he met with the Queen, he also traveled back and forth into the United States. He was responsible for helping emancipate over 186 people. And it was during that time on one of his visits into the United States that he met Harriet Beecher Stowe and she recorded elements of his life and used it as a central narrative for her book, Uncle Tom's Cabin. When she published her book in 1852, she got a lot of negative backlash because this is the first time that the institution of slavery was put on public display, for discussion. People knew what was going on in America, but people weren't openly having those kinds of discussions about it. And because it was a novel, many people began to discredit her and say that she was making up stories, she was stretching the truth, “we treat our slaves good.” So copyright laws are not the same as they are today as during that time period. So people begin to write alternative stories about Uncle Tom's Cabin. They begin to do stage plays, write articles and newspapers, everything they could to discredit her. So a year later, she writes a second book called The Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and in this book she cites all of her references where she did research and how this was the foundation of her book Uncle Tom's Cabin. In that book she writes extensively about my third great-grandfather Josiah Henson and how she sourced his life as the basis for the book. I didn't know the extent of this when I was young because I was more into playing sports and chasing girls �and doing all kinds of other stuff. But as I got older, I began to gain more curiosity and insight into that. And I began to realize that when I was growing up, these were just casual conversations about our family. We would go over to Canada and I would talk to my grandmother and, you know, it's just... Things that are part of your story and I'm sure that you could probably relate to your family just sharing things in casual conversation and you hear it's like, “what that's that's what they used to do?” Or this is what– but to them it's kind of like eh, it's just just our story. SC [01:03:32] That's an impressive story! SA [01:03:34] Yeah, yeah, so my grandmother, her name was Inez Dorsey, and she is the direct descendant of Josiah Henson. What's interesting about my grandmother is, like I mentioned earlier, she was born on the Canadian side. She was born in St. Catharines, and she was a member of the Salem Chapel, which was the church that Harriet Tubman attended. My grandmother, Inez Dorsey, her parents, was a woman named Edith Harper and her husband was Joseph Dorsey. They were both also members of that church. Edith Harper’s parents was a man named Charles Harper and Harriet Harper who were also born and lived in St. Catharines. Charles Harper's parents was a man named James Harper and Margaret Harper. James Harper and Margaret Harper are originally from Columbia, South Carolina. So they made it all the way from Columbia, South Carolina to St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, and I don't know how yet. I'm still researching how they made that journey. I found census records of them being in Columbia, South Carolina, and then I found other records of them being in St. Catherine's, Ontario, Canada. James Harper, Margaret Harper, make it to St Catharine's Ontario, Canada, and they're there right after the Fugitive Slave Act is passed in 1850. So they're living right in St. Catharines, and James Harper becomes the pastor of the Salem Chapel. While he's the pastor there at that time, this is when Harriet Tubman crosses over into the Canadian side, and she rents a boarding home right across the street from the church. And while she's actually attending the church as a congregate, my other third great grandfather, Reverend James Harper, is her pastor. So that is through my grandmother's lineage. SC [01:05:28] Mm-hmm. SA [01:05:29] And today, when you go to the Salem Chapel in St. Catharines, my cousin Rochelle Bush, who is connected to me through the Harpers of my family, she's the Executive Director there at the church. And when you go downstairs, there are a bunch of images and content about the first families that settled there. And many of those first community members are my family members. Many of them are Dorseys. Like I mentioned, my grandmother is a Dorsey. Harpers, Bells, that church also organized the first Black hockey team in the province of Ontario and they have an image of this hockey team and of those 12 members that are in that image. Seven of them are my ancestors. SC [01:06:16] Oh my God. SA [01:06:17] And I can't play a lick of hockey so they didn't pass that on to me. So it wasn't until I began to get older that I began to find out more of these dimensions of who I am and the importance of my ancestors and their stories. I had a great aunt named Gertrude who was a sister of my grandmother, Inez Dorsey. She was married to a man named Leo Dorsey, Leo Dorsey is a famous Canadian poet. His wife, my Great Aunt Gertrude, was a violinist. Oftentimes, when he would publicly perform his poetry, she would play violin. Gertrude was also a member of the Salem Chapel, and she was a part of an organization through the church that would welcome immigrants that were coming �and settling in St. Catharines. She was also a public speaker. So she would go and talk about and teach about her ancestry as a part of the Underground Railroad. Then she had another sister named Olive. Olive was a part of the African-American Heritage Organization in Buffalo, New York. She was also a public speaker and she would teach about our ancestry as it relates to the Underground Railroad. So a lot of the things that I've grown to begin doing not only did my family set me on that type of trajectory, but as I begin to look back and to find those other members of my family that were doing the same work it gave me greater insight into why I do the things that I do today. SC [01:08:01] Yeah, that makes a lot of sense from when we were first talking this morning and you said you can't rest. SA [01:08:06] Mm-hmm SC [01:08:08] That's why. SA [01:08:09] Yeah, yeah, and I'm still learning stories. I'm learning about family members, you know? One day, I was here at the Heritage Center and there was a gentleman that came here and visited from Canada and he had his two children with him, and we were just having casual conversations. I looked at him, I'm like, he kind of looks like my brother, one of my twin brothers, so I just continued to do what I was doing in the space. And then we struck up a conversation, he was telling me that he's a lawyer that works for the Canadian government and he was just coming across to check out the museum and bring his children and blah, blah, blah, blah. His name is William Dorsey…I don't say anything, I'm just listening to him. And then eventually I pull out my phone and I pull up the picture of the hockey team and I start telling them about–this is the first Black hockey team in the province of Ontario. They were organized through the British Methodist Episcopal Church, the Salem Chapel. They were called the Oreos. And these are four Dorseys that are on the hockey team, so they must be your relatives. He's looking at me like, how did this person just pull this up within five minutes and know to tell me this? SC [01:09:13] Mm-hmm. SA [01:09:14] So he asked me, well, how do you know all of that? I was like, yeah, cause you're my cousin, man. We're related. My grandmother was a Dorsey and was born in St. Catharines. She moved over here. That's why I was born over here and it's funny because I took a picture of him and I showed that picture to family members and friends and I asked them, who does this guy look like? I didn't tell them anything. And he was like he looks just like your brother. SC [01:09:41] That's wild. SA [01:09:42] Yeah, so I'm always learning things about my family and it's so exciting. It's so exciting to be able to do that because like I said, you get a greater insight into who you are. SC [01:09:58] Yeah, absolutely. So you already talked about how you learned about Black history and it's interesting because a lot of the people who I've interviewed, some of them, it's like an adult journey that they have to learn all this. They don't have, sadly, they don't have that from school of course, but also sometimes even from family, for different reasons. Sometimes the family is ashamed of that heritage and there are other reasons, but can you talk a little bit about that, I guess, anything that you want to add about what you learned about black history in general? �SA [01:10:38] Yeah, I would say like through my parents, what I learned primarily is that we are greater than what our sojourn and our experience in America has been. That's a very, very narrow, narrow perspective of who we are. And then I learned about who we are across the diaspora, that we're not just here in America, we're everywhere. If you go to ancient India, in the southern part, you see people that, if I went to some of these places today, whether it's Brazil, whether it is Venezuela, whether it southern India, whether is East Africa, I can go to many places, even Mexico, and blend in because I look just like the Indigenous people who are there. So I learned through my parents to have a global perspective of who I actually am. That our contributions and who we are as a people is not just limited to America. America is less than 1% of, it's about 1% of the total square miles of the planet. The planet is like 196 million, 940,000 square miles. And many, many people don't really even explore America like that. So, think about their worldview and their perspective. It's limited to less than 1% of the whole planet. And when you look at the diaspora and people who are melanated, we are the global majority. You're gonna see us everywhere that you go. And without those types of connections, we may not have a path to global citizenship or to see that we are greater than what we've been taught in this society. So... I was taught a global perspective of who we are. In that, I developed more of a sense of pride and confidence about who I actually am. It equipped me with the ability to respond to and to retort attacks on my identity that intentionally has not historically seen people of African descent in this country as connected to first world people or acknowledge any of our contributions to this world. I've been able to navigate those kinds of spaces and to be able to confront those types of attacks on my identity. So, the foundation that my family laid, really taught me as well as my siblings about the infinite potentiality of who we are and that we're not limited to the conceptual ideas of who you are within America. SC [01:13:56] Can you talk about what is an action step that needs to be taken to recover and unsilence these histories? SA [01:14:07] Number one, we have to access our reference library of life. And I tell people all of the time, every year that we are on this planet is equal to a book of life in our reference library. As I shared earlier, my great grandmother was 104. So she had 104 books before she left this planet. And me talking to her, listening to her, asking questions, that has helped build my reference library of life because I have access to more of these stories now that have knowledge, that also have wisdom, which leads to me having a greater understanding of who I am, others, and the world around me. So that is one of the first steps that I tell people. Talk to those who are around you. There are many people that don't even know their parents' stories. Talk to them, find out who they are, because you're really learning more about yourself. If you have grandparents who are still around, talk to them, ask them questions. I think sometimes people have this concept of history being something that happened 200 to 2,000 years ago. In reality you may be sitting in a historic building, because it wasn't built that day. That is a part of history. You're referencing books that have been written in the past. History is around us all of the time. I think that when people begin to better understand that, they can have better access points to learning more about why things were done and how those events or actions have led to what we presently see. And if we don't like the direction that things are traveling in, to be empowered to be able to alter that course in terms of how we wanna see a different future. So part of that is having conversations, talking to those who are around you and learning about the world through their lens. And then also, like I mentioned earlier about access and knowledge, to go beyond Chat GPT and Google and all of these other things, go pick up a book. �SC [01:16:23] Mm-hmm. SA [01:16:24] And don't just pick up one book and think that that is the central perspective. Look at the reference section in the back of the book. And look at those books that give you even more insight into what it is that you're learning in this book. Research alternative perspectives of what this person is saying to get a well-rounded perspective of what things are. It's some work and the challenge with the technology today is that it makes it seem like things are more immediate and easy and accessible and people oftentimes have become intellectually lazy. SC [01:17:04] Mm-hmm. SA [01:17:06] It may require you to go get an active library membership card because there's things you're gonna find in books that are not on the internet. SC [01:17:12] Mm-hmm. SA [01:17:13] That gives you some perspective. So people have to be intentional and committed to knowledge of self, gaining this information and expanding their awareness, which is gonna require some work. It may require an actual financial investment because you might have to actually buy a book. You know? Or you may actually have to go and travel somewhere. SC [01:17:40] Mm-hmm. SA [01:17:41] To be in the space where an event actually happened. So those are some of the things that are necessary in terms of steps. Talk to the people around you. If you have elders who are up in age and they may not seem like they're gonna be here much longer, document those conversations. Record those conversations and ask them questions. And then, like I said, invest in knowledge, learn it. Watch documentaries and don't just watch them and say, “that's a great documentary.” Follow up with things that are mentioned in the documentary and do further research. Some people may look at this like, “oh my goodness, it's too much work, oh, God.” People are already doing that in other different ways. You know, they're doing all that kind of research when it comes to certain celebrities. They can tell you everything about this celebrity, where they grew up in, their brothers and sisters, and probably where they have a mole on their body. You know? They're that into this. Do the exact same thing, apply the exact thing to your own family. They're just as important to know about. SC [01:18:54] Absolutely. Can you talk a little bit about your career, anything you want to add, and then if there's any particular project you're working on right now that you want to share, that would be great. SA [01:19:10] I'm an educator at heart. When I was about 11 years old, my mother came home one day and she gave buttons to me and my siblings with images on it. She gave me a button with a guy sitting on a rock, with his head rested on his hand, just sitting there. And I asked her, “What is that?” She said, “It's a famous statue called ‘The Thinker.’” And she said, “That's who you are. You're my thinking child.” And she saw that in me that early in life. And because she saw that that was one of my qualities and characteristics, she was also in a position, her as well as my father, to help reaffirm and to support that and to put me in spaces and encourage me. So they saw me in that regard. So I've been a thinker, �I've been an educator my whole life, my whole entire life. And being on that type of trajectory, that's how I got into education in terms of early childhood education and then teaching on an elementary school level, teaching on a college level. I really enjoy the ability to turn any environment into a classroom. Whether I'm looking at ants and being able to teach some children about lessons in life, we can learn from studying ants or whether we're doing some gardening. And we can talk about the medicinal uses of different types of plants or things along those lines. Like I love the ability to just learn and to learn it well enough to be able to teach it to somebody else so that they can teach somebody else. And that has been like the core of who I have always been. I've published 25 books– SC [01:21:04] Wow. SA [01:21:04] –about various different subjects. Five of them are in a curatorial activism archive in The British Library right now. SC [01:21:12] That's amazing. SA [01:21:13] Yeah, I've created animation to be able to teach children about various different ideas so that it can help foster conversations between them and adults about difficult subjects like police violence or about racism or many different things that they may just not know how to access a point to communicate with children about. I created those types of things. I've done numerous projects, programs, and initiatives around just education and empowering and inspiring youth. I've also worked in documentary spaces, which I love because no one's handing me a script telling me what to say. Just roll the cameras and just edit what you like. So I've done that and I'm always striving to be at the forefront of utilizing any kind of technology or techniques in order to be more efficient in being able to empower, educate and inspire the next generation. So professionally that has led me to many different spaces. I was one of about 300 people that helped open this institution, the Niagara Falls Underground Railroad Heritage Center. I've served on many different boards. I'm a part of the Historic Preservation Commission here in the city of Niagara Falls. I'm also a part of the International Civic Society Working Group for the Permanent Forum of People of African Descent, which was established through the United Nations. I work directly with the United Nations. And I'm a father. So I wear many, many different hats and I'm just always striving to learn more in order to help equip the next generation with the ability to be better and to do more than what I've done. And that's kind of like my way of striving to solve some of the problems that I see that are going on right now. To reach the youth and to help ensure that they become better adults than some of the ones that we see right now making these decisions. SC [01:23:43] Yes. SA [01:23:44] You know? SC [01:23:45] Right. That's wonderful. What a career! So you talked a lot about the 250th, which is great, because it's such a moment right now and such a reckoning moment and all of that. But can you talk specifically about A250 as an African American New Yorker or a New Yorker of African descent. What does it mean to you? �SA [01:24:12] Yeah, it means that it's important to frame our stories as American history because a lot of times people may talk about American history, but then marginalize the contributions and the stories of people in America. And I think that as long as we reinforce the fact that we're talking about American History, we're talkin' about contributions and events and experiences that have happened on this land, then we can help shift the consciousness of people to understand that America is what it is based upon its contributions from many different people. So I think about the journey of my ancestors and our contributions to this society as an important part of making America what it is. And if people want to make America great again, then you have to include the contributions of people who have helped make it great. That have historically not been given the credit for making it great. And, you know, I just continuously reinforce the idea that we're talking about American history. If we're talkin' about the Underground Railroad, that's not an alternative narrative. We're talking about American History. If we’re talking about the Civil Rights Movement, American History, we're talkin' about presently what's happening, American History. As long as we center it as that is what it is, then it'd be very difficult for people to strive to erase and marginalize or minimize or ignore these contributions that make America what it actually is. And the fact that we're celebrating 250 years, I think it's also important for people to realize that there are trees that are older than 250 years in this country. So as great as we think America is, it's still very, very young in comparison to many other different societies. And there is a lot that we have learned and that we can continuously learn from other, different societies to enrich this country and to make it greater, not just economically, not just as a military power, but morally, ethically. There are a lot of things that we can learn from other different societies in terms of those type of values that really can make this country great. And people, like I mentioned earlier, who don't really even fully explore America like that, that don't travel outside of the borders of America, when you go other places, a lot of countries don't have the healthiest perspective of being an American. SC [01:27:16] Deserved most of the time– SA [01:27:19] You know? Yeah. I've been many places and when they find out I'm from America or other people are Americans sometimes they put their head down like “oh my god I feel bad, I feel so bad for you.” You know? Like it is not that sense of pride that some people believe that other countries have for so-called Americans. SC [01:27:42] Mm-hmm. SA [01:27:43] You know, and then you go to other places, people generally speak two languages. They may speak English, but they speak another language, too. Here in America, you generally only speak one language. So in terms of just psychological orientation and conceptualizing things from another cultural perspective and worldview, a lot of people in America don't even have that because they can't even speak more than one language, it's very limited. SC [01:28:12] Mm-hmm. SA [01:28:16] Just thinking about A250, it's important to put it in perspective. It's short, you know we're still learning and we need to acknowledge that and if we want to learn more then we should talk to our elders because there are many societies, many of them indigenous to this land who are literally elders to this country that we can access and find many different ways of living. That they've continuously and historically shown us, which is the better perspective to have, than what many of us are striving to embrace. �SC [01:28:57] Thank you, that's so well said. Is there anything else that you want to talk about? You covered so many deep topics that I think lots of people will benefit from hearing. But is there anything left unsaid? SA [01:29:15] I tell people all of the time, to do the kind of work that I'm talking about in terms of being agents of change because that's ultimately what all of this hinges upon. And being an everyday person that is capable of doing the extraordinary, you have to access the stories of those whom you come from because they've all done something extraordinary. Which literally means that you have the capacity within yourself because you are the product of those decisions. Whether they triumph over something, whether they fail, whether they made a good decision or a bad decision, whether they move somewhere geographically, you are a part of all of those stories. And to access the extraordinary aspect of those stories, you have to learn who people are, which gives you greater insight into who you actually are at the exact same time. In order to do that, it's also important that people start from where they are. Because sometimes people can develop the misconception that in order to be a change maker, you have to be the face and the figurehead of a movement. You know, I tell people all of the time that history is written like Mount Rushmore. And when you look at those faces on Mount Rushmore, it's not representative of the many hands who have helped them. So if I ask people who's on the Mount Rushmore of the Civil Rights Movement, people usually say MLK, Martin Luther King. Rightfully so, yet at the same time, what about the people who opened up their homes to him and his colleagues when they were traveling and having meetings because they couldn't get accommodations? These are kind of like people who started the first AirBnBs. SC [01:31:14] Yeah. SA [01:31:16] And fed them, their role was equally as important as his, but we may not know their names. That might be somebody in your family who was doing that important work. Same thing with the Underground Railroad. We hear about Harriet Tubman because she was such a huge figure. Frederick Douglass, who was the most photographed person at that time period. But what about people who were tailors and seamstresses, and that's all they did is help supply clothing for people who are making these journeys? Their role was just equally as important, but we may not know their names. An important part of that is people also understanding that you start from where you are and you do what you can. I was doing a tour here a few years ago. We had students that came from Sheboygan, Wisconsin, and they would come here during the summertime, different students from around the country doing service work in the city Niagara Falls. Wednesday evenings they would come and do tours and then we would have time for reflection and just talk about some of the things that they learned. Those students that came here from Sheboygan, Wisconsin, there was one woman that came up to me after the tour and she was just super excited about just wanting to do something like, what could I do? The first thing I told her is you have to minimize your exposure to the propaganda that you see on television and on social media. Because regardless of what you do or think that you're doing, if you watch enough news, and the propaganda you see on social media, it would look like the work you're doing is not making a difference at all. So you have to minimize your exposure to that kind of propaganda. Watch it to the extent of knowing what's going on, but not to the extent of being discouraged. So that's number one. I said number two, you know, I asked her what does she do professionally, because I wanted to get a sense of how she appropriates her time. And she said I'm a firefighter, and �just said it in a very dismissive way, like it wasn't important. And I said, what is your profession? Because I wanted to get more clarity on what she said. And she said it again and shrugged her shoulders. And I said, “You realize that historically, that's why the name was changed from fireman to firefighter. Because historically women were not allowed in that profession.” I said, “You are charting a course and a trendsetter in ways that, do you know how many children have ever seen a woman in a firefighter uniform before?” Because historically that has been a male-centered profession, just like many of them. I said “You're a forerunner in terms of the work that you're doing professionally.” I said, “Children just seeing you in that uniform is a sense of inspiration and empowerment because you're showing them the possibilities of something they've never seen before.” I said “If you really really want to do something more than that, you can go to elementary schools and show up in your firefighter uniform and just talk to students about putting out fires and some of your experiences. It's not necessary to do what you may believe is work as an agent of change, you're literally doing it right now. You're literally doing it.” I say that to many people, acknowledge and take credit for what you're doing right now. It may be something as simple as patronizing a local business as opposed to going to some corporate entity where it might be cheaper. SC [01:35:16] Mm-hmm. SA [01:35:19] But you're more committed to supporting local businesses and making sure that that family who has been here generationally is still able to provide the services and the products that not only reinforces that local history, but the identity of your community. That is something that people may just simply take for granted, they just might like the breakfast there. But you're playing an important role in making sure that this local business remains and that you're supporting your own local economy. There are things like that that people do every day but they just may think is insignificant. But that's important. Always communicate that to people, assess what you're doing right now. You know and start from where you are. If you can do more, if you wanted to join a group or to connect with others that have a passion for elders in our community or working with children or people that may have various different types of disabilities or you might be into joining a group that plants flowers and they literally help create environments that are more physically beautiful. That's also something that attracts pollinators and other different things that are an important part of our environment. Do that, but do something. SC [01:36:47] Mm-hmm. SA [01:36:47] Right? Because any kind of change that we've seen has always been because of the everyday people striving to do the extraordinary. SC [01:36:59] That's so well said. Yeah. Thank you! Is there anything else? You've shared so much, and I appreciate it. SA [01:37:07] Yeah, so I think that's all I wanted to say. SC [01:37:10] Okay, thank you. I really appreciate it. � https://ssmp.skidmore.edu/files/original/0bbedb031a432cf1354aacf13c0811c6.m4a 89e74353bf2398ee0c2ab5b87c0e845e Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Saladin Allah Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 9 March 2026 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. Skidmore Saratoga Memory Project Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Shanleigh Corrallo Description An account of the resource This interview delves into the life, career and lineage of Saladin Allah, a descendant of individuals who were enslaved but sought their freedom. Saladin Allah is an Educator, Author, and Award-Winning Producer born in Niagara Falls, New York. He is the third-great grandson of Underground Railroad Freedom Seeker Rev. James Harper, minister-in-charge of the Salem Chapel, British Methodist Episcopal Church (BME) in St. Catharines, Ontario Canada and key ally of Harriet Tubman when she lived and attended services there in the 1850s. He is also the third-great grandson of famed Underground Railroad Freedom Seeker Josiah Henson whom Harriet Beecher Stowe used as the primary narrative for her famous 19th-century novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Saladin has authored twenty-four books; five of which are part of a Curatorial Activism archive in the British Library. Saladin was a featured historian in the award-winning IMAX film 'Into America’s Wild' narrated by Morgan Freeman, and a featured historian in the six-part award-winning docuseries ‘Enslaved’ executive produced by and starring Samuel L. Jackson directed by three-time Emmy award-winning journalist Simcha Jacobovici. Saladin was globally featured in a United Nations short documentary for International Day of People of African Descent, a co-host in the award-winning The Nature of Things CBC documentary ‘Secret Agents of the Underground Railroad’, and co-producer of the two-time Emmy Award- Winning Abbey Mecca/Buffalo & Erie County Naval Park documentary ‘Two Wars: The Road to Integration’. Saladin is currently the Director of Community Engagement at the Niagara Falls Underground Railroad Heritage Center, Chair of the Descendants Council for the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad NY Byway, Public Projects Coordinator at the Niagara Falls National Heritage Area, Adjunct Professor in the Political Science Dept. at Niagara University, an International Civil Society Working Group member for the United Nations Permanent Forum on People of African Descent, and Founding Director of the Atlantis School For Gifted Youngsters. Language A language of the resource English (en) Subject The topic of the resource Descendants Oral History Project Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral History Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Adult and Senior Center of Saratoga Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 5/12/17 Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Phoebe Radcliffe Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1973-60YearsYoung-Cardplaying Title A name given to the resource Concentration Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 9/16/73 Description An account of the resource A newspaper clipping showing three women playing cards at the center Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. Adult and Senior Center of Saratoga Language A language of the resource English Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Newspaper activities cards Saratoga Springs Senior Center https://ssmp.skidmore.edu/files/original/83611040ef458415511facac7c1bbf6a.JPG a532ca02b7bfd8e9373185e4b1d64a15 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Saratoga Springs History Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1706- Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Jillian Seigel Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 43270 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Officials: Low-income city housing necessary Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 9/6/88 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Cloos, Paul Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. Saratoga Springs Subject The topic of the resource Urban Renewal Description An account of the resource City Council members said they were not against low-income housing in the city. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource text EnvironmentalJustice SaratogaSprings UrbanRenewal https://ssmp.skidmore.edu/files/original/4aea028df24299fb939411d4d3b2b819.jpg f2cefe88c543babca67c79894b418b72 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Saratoga County Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Repository Name of the repository that holds the original item. Brookside Museum, Saratoga County Historical Society (Ballston Spa, N.Y.) Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Will Kertzman Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Indian splint basket Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource after 1800 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Brookside Museum https://brookside.pastperfectonline.com/webobject/14DDC26E-6C77-400C-88FB-853469144896 Abstract A summary of the resource. A woven basket made by Native Americans who remained in Saratoga County and the surrounding areas after the revolutionary war. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Will Kertzman Indigenous Saratoga County https://ssmp.skidmore.edu/files/original/08bb8b75b249f1ccd1d055a6363360d2.jpeg 8aabdda2e9ea51b96d91d70ac1748fed https://ssmp.skidmore.edu/files/original/b0292f596654ae125ae87eb1bfa2eb79.jpeg a4f3eb18a664ad367a2a5128d8450746 https://ssmp.skidmore.edu/files/original/2bf2decb546b50f70777100bf4a95e2a.jpeg 40f12fa01b0fdc1e20eb39d43fcda73f Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Adult and Senior Center of Saratoga Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data black and white photograph Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. J. Dym Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 19/05/2017 Date Depicted (Display) Text version of the date field -- can handle non-numeric characters (ca. 1850s, [1844]). This is the content date field that will display. April 1, 1979 Date Depicted (Numeric) Date that the information on the item depicts. In many cases, this will be the same date as that in the date field, but there will be exceptions. For example, a historical map drawnin 1890 might show Saratoga Springs as it was in 1820. Or, the information on the map itself might include detailed information that enables us to extrapolate a date, for example, "based on a survey done in 1841." Many State Archives map catalog records refer to this as the "situation date." 1979 Abstract (& Historical Note) Natural language description of the map itself, providing a general summary of the map and noting significant features. This is the place to introduce keywords and proper names that might be of interest to researchers, but do not warrant a separate subject heading of their own. Inset maps should also be described here, with their full titles given. Whenever historical or explanatory information is available, it should be included here as well. This includes information about items or events that are larger than just the map itself; for example, information about cartographers, a description of the map's historical significance (for example, "This is the first printed map of Saratoga Springs"), notes on the laws leading to a map's creation, descriptions of changes in state or county lines, information about the organization that created the map, how often maps were updated, and information about the map's creation and publication. Many State Archives maps have historical information in the catalog record -- that should be captured in this field. One of these photos was used in the April 2, 1979, Saratogian article about the dedication ceremony Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Dedication of 5 Williams Street Senior Center Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource April 1, 1979 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Bell, Clark https://ssmp.skidmore.edu/files/original/20b9f9e6c7413a867afeea71d3695b9c.jpeg ea5486f0deb5742dcdbaa6d72cb6d9a3 https://ssmp.skidmore.edu/files/original/0421657ff77f46e94823386f4194b6ad.jpeg 6a1620145fd8183b17839848f7979cad Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Adult and Senior Center of Saratoga Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [Program, dedication ceremony] Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource April 1, 1979 https://ssmp.skidmore.edu/files/original/c49dbb072141af24218a6b3f7d9950f1.jpeg 782e950e96bb90d3e58edcce072ce7b0 https://ssmp.skidmore.edu/files/original/c014441b308b698696029cf70a01ad3b.jpeg 3cc9a12274426a940d08f28e96a1ea94 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Adult and Senior Center of Saratoga Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [INVITATION, Dedication, 162 Williams Street] Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource April 1, 1979 https://ssmp.skidmore.edu/files/original/3081bdedc3e73020aa74452180f8db9f.jpg 8869f64df1d9fc9e987387dff877a623 https://ssmp.skidmore.edu/files/original/be858e860befcec07fd69dda47ec889d.mp3 bc75d3d47960924b58771e55820e5a56 https://ssmp.skidmore.edu/files/original/3bf3ab72698aa14d1b4e5b7e47ca9a2f.wav 2a005eb0f720cb9afe4cccf4f2f80015 https://ssmp.skidmore.edu/files/original/2abd52655158f56eef842464f5084abd.pdf 79da71e07be34a13f33e8aeee90c5812 PDF Text Text Interviewee: Barry Goldensohn Years at Skidmore: 1981-2003 Interviewer: Lena Drinkard Location of Interview: West 55th Street, NY, NY Date of Interview: 6/16/2015 00:00:00.00 Header 00:00:33:00 Born in Flatbush Brooklyn, in an immigrant community. Attended a diverse and eclectic James Madison High School with many famous graduates. 00:01:21:00 Barry’s Sister is the famous choreographer Deborah Hay. 00:04:44.24 Went to college at Oberlin University. Met his wife Lorrie Goldensohn and many close friends. 00:7:52.00 Rob and Peggy Boyers found out that Barry could be hired at Skidmore College because Hampshire does not have tenure. 00:8:31.20 Barry takes us through a day at Skidmore as a Professor. Taught two literature classes and one workshop a week and saw students in between and after classes. Discusses senior thesis informal meetings for a potluck dinner. 00:11:17.00 “A perfect professor of poetry.” 00:15:51.15 Barry discusses the students he stays in touch with. 00:19:03.08 Discusses Skidmore’s approach to education. 00:24:57.13 Barry talks about the writing critiques and workshops he led for students. 00:27:22.15 The writing process. 00:27:26:20 “If there’s one thing I know about my friend Barry Goldensohn, it’s that he dislikes sweet food, sweet music, sweet literature” - Peg Boyers. 00:29:23.22 Rob Boyers and the liveliness of Salmagundi and other faculty members is what kept Barry at Skidmore. “Saratoga’s a one horse town and you’re the horse.” 00:32:22.17 Barry on what makes a successful marriage. 00:39:50.28 Barry ended up teaching three to four classes a semester with students who know him and one another very well. 00:45:44 “I only retired from teaching not from writing.” The way he taught took a lot of time, so he needed more time for his life. � https://ssmp.skidmore.edu/files/original/65e7c7c64e3013ecb9f169b96e98fcb1.pdf 430983a94293ac4a42e5bcafda2e9139 PDF Text Text Interview with Barry Goldensohn by Lena Drinkard, Skidmore College Retiree Oral History Project, Saratoga Springs, New York, April 1, 2017. Lena Drinkard: This is Lena Drinkard, interviewing for Skidmore Retiree Memory Project. I am with Barry Goldensohn in New York City and it is April 1st, 2017. Barry, I’d like to start off my giving you a chance to introduce yourself and talk about where and when you were born. Barry Goldensohn: I was born in Brooklyn, in an area that used to be called something like Flatbush, and now is probably called something else. Went to grade school and high school in an overheated, immigrant-family community—extended community. Pretty varied, my closest friends in high school were a mixture of Italian, German, Greek and Jewish. The—My high school was just a neighborhood high school but its graduates are Ruth Bader Ginsburg, my sister who’s a very famous choreographer Deborah Hay, and Chuck Schumer, Norm Coleman (used to be governor of Michigan or Minnesota, something like that), five nobel prize winners—Ruth Bader Ginsburg did I mention her? And… full of second and first generation immigrant families where there was a lot of pressure to succeed on the part of the kids. My family came from, my mother’s family came from Odessa, and my grandfather was an officer in the (...) army. They left Odessa after the great purge, the great pregome, that drove all the jews out of Odessa in 1905, after the potential episode. And, it was a family that followed the pattern of Odesza families. There was one gifted child in the family, that was my mother, so the family all sacrificed and sacrificed so she could have her ballet lessons. She studied with a student of Magnitsky who would drive up to the mental hospital that Magnitsky was at at the Hudson and bring him down to teach classes. Which was spectacularly for my mother because he really took a shrine to her, regarded her as very special, sent her off to work at an LA company in New York. Then, she got rheumatic fever, which damaged her heart so she taught ballet for the rest of her life. But my sister had no choice. Choice of a career. Nor did my daughter. My mother started on my daughter right away, working on her flexibility. As an infant, Mind you. [Laughs] But my sister stayed with it my daughter didn’t. I got brought on and put into ballet classes when I was a kid because it was cheaper than getting a babysitter. It took for my sister but it didn’t take for me. I left at thirteen. Being dragged to the studio, I had no ability whatsoever. But again, this was James Madison high school. And then in my junior year I took a national test where the Ford foundation early admission scholarship and I wound up at Oberlin. I wanted to go to Columbia but they had no dorm room’s for students for the first couple of years and it would have been three hours a day commuting from Brooklyn. And Yale had pulled out of it at that point. And I was forbidden to to go University of Chicago by a father of one of my close friends who persuaded my parents that the school had been ruined by John Maynard Hutchins. Remember him? He turned it into a very progressive, wonderful school, but I wound up at Oberlin in the process of elimination. Met my wife and got married there and met my closest, my oldest friends. �LD: Did you start studying poetry at Oberlin? BG: In High School. And had a very good, wonderful teacher. Very inspiring and sophisticated. LD: So how did you end up at Skidmore? BG: I was the Dean of Humanities and Arts at Hampshire College before I was at Skidmore and decided that I was writing too little and was persuaded by a psychiatrist friend, that if I wanted more time at writing I should quit my dean’s job which was too engrossing. So I applied to Skidmore and got a job almost by accident as it turned out. The committee chose me but then it went up to the dean and the president and they said oh we can’t accept him, he’s a dean and he’s probably got tenure and we can’t hire people with tenure. Bob Boyers was giving some lectures at Northwestern University and was sitting on a poetry segment and of all things, the teacher was teaching a bunch of my poems. So Bob walked into the faculty lounge with that teacher, and said to him as he entered the room, oh we tried to hire him but we couldn’t because he’s got tenure at Hampshire. And a voice in the back of the room said, “they don’t have tenure at Hampshire.” So Bob called up Peggy, asked her to confirm that, and if that was in fact the case, tell the dean and tell the committee and I wound up getting invited for an interview [Laughs] That’s enough background. LD: Can you take me through a day at Skidmore as a Professor? BG: Well, a day, interesting. Just teaching literally two literature classes and one workshop a week So, and then seeing students in between and after classes. And I wound up often teaching three or four classes a semester because I had a bunch of students who wanted to do their senior thesis in writing poetry, poetry writing. So they met as an informal group but as a class. And we’d meet in the meaning so there wouldn’t be schedule conflicts with their other classes. Often over a potluck dinner. Then it would go on sometimes into the wee hours at either my house or one of their apartments. So it was kind of a senior seminar, right? Every semester I taught a course I loved which was The Introduction to Poetry. I taught it sort of half as a history of English poetry class and half as a course of methods and different types of methods, different historical periods. Starting with Chaucer and winding up with contemporary poets, spending a lot of time with seventeenth century and nineteenth century. I mixed up along the way. And then I taught seventeenth century poetry. My first lecture in that class was Shakespeare’s greatest plays. Al of the work of John Milton was written in the seventeenth century. Some of the greatest poets in language and we’re not going to look at them at all [Laughs] You’ll have to get them in other courses and I focused on the lyrical poems of the seventeenth century. And then writing workshops, and other intro fiction classes. �LD: When I spoke to Professor Goodwin she described you as the “perfect professor of poetry.” BG: What could she have meant by that? LD: I’d like to know what you think! BG: Well, I was actively involved in making it, and reading it, and teaching it as well. So I brought together a pretty full background in the literature and of course the poets concerned with making poems and how poems are made. Looking at the students, how poems are made, how these particular poems are made. LD: Can you talk about your relationship with the students? BG: As my wife puts it describing her students at Vassar, “Oh you fall in love with a few students every year” and I think that’s pretty true. And I like students and in general, I liked teaching them. I liked expanding their minds, and expanding their knowledge. And I was trying to teach them to love what I love, and maybe that’s what Susan was talking about. Also, teaching writing courses at Skidmore, generally I worked with students for 3-4 years and they got to be my friends. You know, ordinary lit teachers don’t have that experience, working semester after semester with the same students. You know you’ll take one course with Professor Boyers maybe the intro to fiction course and another fiction course but that’s about it. Or a victorian lit course, you’d take a three courses in the course of four years. Anyway, my students worked with me semester after semester after semester. Because you could repeat workshops and so, it was the especially nice part of the kind of teaching I’ve done over the years, that you got to know the students very well. LD: Can you think of one student in particular that you had that had an impact on you during your time at Skidmore? BG: That had an impact on me yeah. Well, Mark Woodward, who stayed around working at Salmagundi. Mark did a lot of work with both Bob and me, and has stayed writing and writing. But in this neighborhood there are a couple of students who, anyone you really know and care about has an impact on you. And I went to a reading earlier, or last weekend, by one of my Skidmore students who lives in Austin now but, showed me a draft of her book, she said, it doesn’t have the dedications in the book so I’ll have to send you a regular copy!. Jardeen Lebair, is a wonderful writer, only student I remember who won both our jury poetry and fiction prize in the same year. Remarkably talented student. But there are a lot of students I stay in touch with. �One of my former students, Laura Marshall lives a few blocks up on the west side. Bruce Baker, who’s a very very gifted student, star of the hockey team and he’s now coaching… he’s deeply involved in the city since he’s graduated with minority education, education of the deprived. So he coaches for different hockey teams ad well as teaching. He started off on the ground floor for Teach of America. He was the recruiter for Teach of America and then he said, “Why am I recruiting people to do something that I should do myself?” So he wound up teaching in the city schools, but one because he was male and because he was white, and because he is movie-star handsome, he became a very popular teacher. So popular, that he decided to have a semi-pro hockey career while he was teaching, so they’d keep him on a semester a year while the other semester he’d be playing hockey. He explained to me how, he lives on this block, so we see him, and of course in his hockey career he’s broken every bone—small—bone in his body. He’s also a coach for Columbia's informal hockey team, it’s not a varsity sport. But I don’t know there’s been a lot of students over the course of the years I’ve come to love and stayed very close too and it’s a significant part of our social life, my relationship with former former students, not only from here but from Hampshire and Goddard. Now, Goddard in the mid-sixties when I got there was a magnet school for the daring and the adventurous student. That resident undergraduate program no longer exists. But my students there were spectacularly good. A lot of them are pulitzer prize winners and guggenheim winners and you know major award winners. One of you I’m sure you know of, the playwright David Mamet, and I’ve had two students while we’ve been here in New York. Naomi Wallace who was a Hampshire student and Mammoth. LD: How would you describe Skidmore at the time that you taught, if you describe Goddard as the school for the, can you fill in the blank for Skidmore? BG: Skidmore had a much more traditional approach to education, like the schools I went to, like Oberlin than Hampshire or Goddard. My Hampshire students—I don’t want to slight them either, two of my senior thesis students went on to win Macarthur Genius awards. Naomi Wallace was one of them and Peter Cole who has been teaching one semester at Yale and the other semester living in Jerusalem and running a press for Israeli and Palestinian poets, crossing a lot of boundaries. But Goddard was more a traditional education in a way for someone who has devoted his life to advanced, progressive schools. Like the progressive high school we started early in the sixties, in the Bay Area with a bunch of quaker friends. That was at the very beginning of a whole rash of progressive high schools that were starting to emerge and people would come, we’d often have more visitors than students. LD: What year was this? �BG: That was ‘62-’65 and I graduated with the first graduating class I wanted to go back to college teaching. But my first graduating class of students went to Reed, Stanford, Santa-Cruz. They were on the board of the student-faculty administration group that was defining Santa-Cruz which is interesting. And other schools within the california system. Interesting group of students. That school, after the people that started it passed it on to other faculty members, it got sort of swept up as a southern most adjunct of the haight-ashbury counter-cultures and it was destroyed basically by that it became a fairly destructive place and only lasted a few years. But it was good for the students who went there. One of the student went to Oxford with a grant and got first in PPE, Politics, Philosophy and Economics, that’s degree you get if you want to be prime-minister. Almost all of the proceeding prime-ministers and most of the subsequent prime-ministers had that degree first. LD: It seems like you really knew and understood each student you had— BG: Oh, I would never say that [laughs] LD: Do you think the types of students changed at Skidmore from when you first got there to when you retired? BG: I’m not sure. I taught for about twenty-two years. There seemed to be always, a leavening of very committed and very serious students. I taught fairly esoteric courses. Seventeenth century poetry, poetry writing, and the Intro to Poetry course, that was the longest draw class of the largest cross-section of students. But by and large, the students who went on to work with me, were a largely self-selected group, so I find it hard to generalize about the general run of students. And I heard one of my students saying to someone else, “Oh I would never dare offer Shitty work to Professor Goldensohn.” With a self-selected crew that knew I expected a lot from them, they worked hard. So, I don’t know if that’s the whole student body it’s hard to generalize but they were always enough of those to keep my classes full. LD: Is it challenging to grade someone else's creative writing? BG: Oh, I hardly think of grades. The really challenging part is discussing them. And how you talk it over in the group, in the workshop and individually. What to say, often the harsh things to say, that will help them see the problems that they are running into. [Laughs] Another overheard conversation. I was talking to one of my students in my office and three of my students were right outside my office, having a raucous so I couldn’t help overhearing, conversation about “You know what he said to me?” “ You know what he said to me?” You know, like throw this away or that’s terrible! Or start over again! But if you’re going to teach writing seriously, you have to be candid about what they’re doing. And it’s hard, you try to be rigorous but teaching �poetry writing, which is the main thing at Skidmore has these contradictory elements. You want rigorous attention to what you’re doing, but you don’t want to lose as in any art, the sense of play in getting there. Because a lot of the most creative work comes with playing with it. Play with it play with i! I told my students. You have to catch your mind at its most expansive and least predictable moments. Often this is helped by just lying down. You know, your mind often releases itself more creatively, at the moment before you fall asleep or at the moment you’re waking up. Or when you’re just lying down. I remember one of my students saying “Oh he thinks we do our best work on our backs!” [Laughs] But it’s being open to the mind at play and not working in predictable grooves. And then showing it to people that will tell you the truth about what you’re experiencing. LD: How do you experience criticisms? BG: Well, Peggy Boyers. Just last week, I showed her a draft of a poem. And she said, “Barry, it’s too sweet!” [Laughs] And I said Peggy, you’re the person I remember saying,” If there's one thing I know about my friend Barry Goldensohn, It’s that he dislikes sweet food, sweet music, sweet literature. I think she’s right. And as a matter of fact, I had written the word “sweet” a number of times and swept them out. She was right, I was giving into the sentimental side of myself. It had to do with being eighty and losing a lot of your friends. You know? And that comes with being eighty. It’s in some ways an apologetic… and how do you keep going when people are dying? People you love are dying? So I took some sweetness out. It didn’t belong in that poem. LD: So it sounds like your identity as a writer… well everyone’s identity as a writer changes throughout their lives, in what specific experiences they are going through, but when you were at Skidmore as a professor, how did you divide your time between teaching and writing? And because you were surrounded by Peggy Boyers, and Rob Boyers and all these faculty members that were passionate about poetry did that inspire you? BG: It’s what kept me at Skidmore. It was Bob and the liveliness of the Salmagundi world he created. I used to tease him by saying, Saratoga’s a one horse town and you’re the horse. [Laughs] But Salmagundi brought conferences together every year, it brought fascinating people every year, so I got to know and be friends with Susan Sontag (who I had actually known earlier from my New York City Days) and George Steiner, and all sorts of fascinating people, intelligent people. I got an offer for both Lorrie and I to teach at University of Florida, just move down there from Iowa, (oh I left out that I taught at the Iowa Writers Workshop for a couple of years) and it enabled Lorrie to get a free PHD because she was a faculty wife. LD: And at the time you were at Skidmore she was at Vassar. �BG: Well we lived in Saratoga, and I would drop her off Tuesday morning on this train and pick her up Thursday night. And she would teach all day Tuesday, all day Wednesday, all day Thursday. As the president of Hampshire said to me, when she found out, “Oh my god that sounds like the kind of relationship where your marriage is going to last forever.” Because there’s just enough space between you. And it happens, we have our sixty-first anniversary coming up, LD: What’s the secret to a long—? BG: Hanging in there. LD: Can you elaborate? BG: Becoming one another’s best friend. My wife says, “learning to understand the things that are difficult about the person you’re with,” which is profounder than “hanging in there.” LD: And she writes poems as well… BG: Yes, she’s my first reader always. LD: What were some of the things you guys did in Saratoga at the time? Because as you said, it’s a one horse… BG: Hanging out with Bob and Peg and the other writers. One of my former students from Goddard, Catherine Davis, I recruited her for teaching poetry at Skidmore and we hung out a lot. And, she called me up and told me I was offered a job at University of Washington for half the work and twice the pay, what should I do? And I said, if I ever heard of a no brainer in my life.. LD: Was there anything about Skidmore that you disliked during your time there? Or what was challenging? BG: Well, it’s hard to say. I’m not a good hater. Let me tell you one of the things I liked a lot. The English Department was very congenial, there was not a divided part department. As a Dean at Hampshire, none of my senior faculty were on speaking terms with one another. That happens in schools and departments. I was the Dean of Humanities and Arts. I mean that’s ridiculous!. Lorrie’s Vassar department was which she called a “dysfunctional family.” We saw one of her colleagues recently and I said, “Oh how is so and so?” and she says, “Urg.. She’s still teaching…” [Laughs] “I mean this is a woman in her late seventies I’m speaking to, still carrying �over the animosity from her teaching years, and it deeply divided… that’s never been the case in my years at Skidmore. The only experience I had like that was when I was at Iowa. The Writing Workshop was loosely related to the English Department. And the English Department had a wonderful guy.. was what the rest of the school called “happy valley” because he was just great at human relationships. He then moved to take over the English Department at Suny Albany, I think his name was John Gerber, and when i took over the Hampshire job, I brought him down to Albany and asked him how did you do it? How did you create such a peaceful environment and unified community? And he said, it wasn’t me, it was the years. It was in the sixties and seventies when everything was expanding and I never had to get rid of anyone for budgetary reasons and all I could do was hire people, and set things up. It was the time, but that underlies his genuine openness to people that made that experience at Iowa so wonderful. What he had to do at Albay was very difficult which was cut down the undergraduate programs because Albany had no right offering a doctorate. LD: What do you think made the English department at Skidmore such a unit at that time? BG: I don’t know, I asked Bob Boyers at the time if it was always like that and he said during the Vietnam war, political divides really split up the department but then they got back together or at least by the time I got there it seemed like a congenial group of people. LD: And then did you watch, sort of, new faculty members come in throughout the years and it shifter? BG: Yeah. One of them, Susannah MIntz, who is chair is getting married so I offered her (.....) LD: And those sort of soirees you mentioned, where you would sit with students and have a seminar at houses? Did that happen the entire time because— BG: Yes, pretty much. After a year, the pattern became that I would have a bunch of students. Say six- ten independent students wanting to work on poetry as their senior projects and I realized I would be dead meeting with them every week as a service session and that they had a lot to learn from one another, so they would sign up for an independent study but we met as a group. The faculty thought I was crazy for teaching three, four classes. But that was fun. It was students who knew me well, and one another well, which means they could speak very cANDIDLY TO one another. I remember students saying once in class about a poem, “that’s the stupidest poem I’ve ever read in my life!” In a thick New York accent and the student who wrote it said, “Oh you know… I wrote it on my way to class and I really shouldn’t have offered it. [Laughs] And You know, students could hear one another say things like that, and they didn’t have to be mandy-pandy with one another. You try to create in your class a series with a respect �one another, as people who are trying to learn to do something very difficult, to write a poem. They had to be able to speak to one another and say I think you should change this. And then those exchanges would be very illuminating. LD: I’ve wondered if we’ve sort of lost something over the years because the relationship you describe with your students, *Lorrie walks in * it feels like there are more boundaries implemented at Skidmore between the Professor’s and the students and each other. It feels like there are more unspoken rules about you know, a maybe more professional relationship established today? BG: Well, I thought my relationship with my students was very professional ​about​ writing poetry. Uh, a greater, are you talking about a greater area of things you can’t talk about? LD: Mhm, yeah. BG: You know, I’ve thought about that a lot. [Lorrie talks to Barry] BG: No one taking a course in seventeenth century who has been sexually traumatized should take a course in Shakespeare’s tragedies or comedies for that matter, or seventeenth century poetry which is often playful and its respect for women was less accompanied with attitudes about male and female roles. Very unusual. One of my favorite eighteenth century poets, was about one of the great boundary breaking woman who was irreverent and a giant figure in her age, her name was Aphra Bayne. I would blush now to recite her most famous poem. You know it’s really hard to say. The pre-selection process that I was talking about I think would have… and also the atmosphere, the free give and take served as a kind of barrier for people whose vulnerabilities would now allow them to do that. Because they were open. It was an open secret, so to speak. Very much self-selected. Just as it is an open secret that terrible things happen in Hamlet and Othello and Macbeth. You can’t taming of the shrew for the instance, is a brilliant comic fantasia on sex roles or gender roles. And the women keep their power. The shrew says you “marry me you marry my tongue.” LD: Okay, well we’re reaching the end of the interview. I’m wondering if there's anything we didn’t get to that you’d like to talk about or share. Maybe a story or some piece of information that you’d like to end with. BG: No, I’d just like to say I really liked teaching at Skidmore. But I put a lot of work into dealing with student papers and was eager to retire at sixty-five to have more time of my own for my own writing. I’ve written three books since then. Lorrie’s written three ever since she’s �retired. We’re… as much as I like teaching, I only retired from teaching ​not ​from writing. Because the way I taught took a lot of time, and I wanted more time for myself. LD: That’s a great place to end .Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me today. I really appreciate it! BG: I enjoyed it! � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Skidmore College Retirees Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Lena Drinkard Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Barry Goldensohn Location The location of the interview New York City Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Lena Drinkard Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit 4/26/17 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview With Barry Goldensohn Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource April 1, 2017 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. Skidmore Retiree Memory Project Language A language of the resource eng Bibliographic Citation A bibliographic reference for the resource. Recommended practice is to include sufficient bibliographic detail to identify the resource as unambiguously as possible. "Interview with Barry Goldensohn," Skidmore Saratoga Memory Project, accessed April 26, 2017, http://ssmp.skidmore.edu/admin/items/show/620 Description An account of the resource Barry Goldensohn came to Skidmore in 1981 as professor for poetry in the English department. In this interview, he discusses everything from the diverse Brooklyn community in which he was raised, to his experiences teaching and writing alongside his wife, Lorrie Goldensohn. He also describes his close relationship with his students—many of which went on to find immense success as writers. Despite his love for teaching, Barry left Skidmore so that he could devote all of his time to his true passion—writing. Academic Rigor Campus Culture Curriculum English Department Faculty and Administrative Relations Faculty and Student Relations Salmagundi https://ssmp.skidmore.edu/files/original/ed31850cb6be576a9bc5875267ab30a4.jpg 571e16376084ca21c26b1b973f287e71 https://ssmp.skidmore.edu/files/original/5d1819f18b44ad194e8e8a898d26085a.mp3 593eb3d4b3322243632583cbf3091463 https://ssmp.skidmore.edu/files/original/858826f48e4f10200d244a7caffb9f63.pdf d315d7f7d88d58690df2f7b7ba7fe2d3 PDF Text Text Interview with Sarah Goodwin by Lynne Gelber, Skidmore College Retiree Oral History Project, Saratoga Springs, NY, April 11, 2024. LYNNE GELBER: This is Lynne Gelber with Sarah Goodwin and Sue Bender and Leslie Mechem to interview Sarah Goodwin for our project. We're at the, what is it, the Surrey Inn? LESLIE MECHEM: No, the communications. LG: Communications center, excuse me, on the Skidmore campus today. Did I say it was April 11th, 2024? So, to get started, Sarah, can you tell us where you grew up and a little bit about your early days and then how you got to Skidmore? SG: Sure. I was an Army brat. So, I was born at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, and lived at Fort\ Huachuca, Arizona, and thenLG: Fort? SG: Fort Huachuca. LG: Huachuca. SG: It's near Tucson. LG: How do you spell Huachuca? SG: H-U-A-C-H-U-C-A. LG: Okay. SG: Huachuca, where my father actually developed the first drone program for the military. LG: Oh. SG: Yeah. His vision, because he came out of reconnaissance in World War II, was to have drones doing the reconnaissance instead of human beings that were sent off and often didn't come back. But they cut the program for whatever reason, so he spent another year at the Pentagon after that. Let me see. After Fort Huachuca, we spent four years in Germany with the military, which was formative for me because I learned some German and was exposed to Europe. LG: And how old were you then? SG: Four years old to eight years old. Just strangely enough, Germany, we lived in Karlruhe, in �Heidelberg. Those felt like home to me really, actually, throughout my life. I've had a sort of pull back to that region. But I also was exposed to France, and my parents had a passion for France. They spent some time there after the war. So that happened too. All those seeds got planted. Eventually, when Dad retired from the Army, we moved to Palo Alto, California, when I was nine. And that was my mother's hometown, so we moved in with my grandmother and stayed. I was pretty happy to have Palo Alto as a hometown. Even as a child, I recognized that it was pretty special, all those sunny days. You know. And it had been my mother's hometown, so there was a feeling of welcome there for the family that was very nice. It was quite different from the Army, a feeling of continuity, of a connection to the past and so on. When it came time to apply to college, I was drawn to the Northeast for whatever reason. That's most of the schools I applied to were in the Northeast. I wound up going to Harvard as an undergrad. And at Harvard, I majored in English, but I did their comparative literature option so that I could focus on a period instead of the history of English and American literature. I focused on the 19th century and did English, French and German. There was a time when I was in college when all I really wanted to do was become fluent in French and German. It seemed I could not find a way to justify that rationally, but it was a drive that I had. So I spent as much time in France and in Germany as I could and wound up doing a PhD in comparative literature at Brown. Brown was the only East Coast school I applied to. I was still trying to get back to California, but it was the one that offered me a full ride. And so there it was. I liked the program at Brown. I found graduate school really hard. I don't know, just the expectation of work was, as one of my professors pointed out to me, "This is good training for being an assistant professor somewhere." And I thought, "Ooh, is that the life I want?" LG: Did you have a combination of classes and teaching? SG: Yeah. Classes and teaching. Yeah. The first year I had a fellowship. They called it a university fellowship, so I didn't have to teach actually until year three. I can't remember what happened in year two. But it was below poverty level living, but everybody I knew was... You all know what it was like. It was fine. It was very close relationships. I'm still connected with some graduate school friends. I finished my PhD, and I spent time in both Germany and France during my work on my dissertation and applied all over the country. I actually got one offer the year before I got the Skidmore job, but it was a tenure-track job that had been turned into a one-year position at UC Riverside. And I've thought a lot during my life about how differently things could have gone if I'd been doing German and comp lit at UC Riverside instead of English at Skidmore. I mean, you could not get more dramatically different, I think, than that. But when I went out for the interview, I saw teaching German in the middle of these orange groves was going to be a slog, and I just could not see that in the long run actually working out. So for better or worse, I went back on the job market and got the Skidmore job the next year. My committee was delirious. They said, "You're going to love it there." �At that point, I was already a subscriber to Salmagundi. That was all I knew about Skidmore. I was a reader of Salmagundi. I loved it, and I found it very intellectually stimulating. LG: So, did you have an initial interview at MLA [Modern Language Association]or? SG: The initial interview was at MLA. I remember Susan Kress and I'm pretty sure Terry Diggory was there too. Don't remember exactly who else. And then they brought me to campus. And the day after I left the campus interview, it snowed 27 inches. I remember that because I was thinking, "Well, I'm glad I got out of there and, oh wow, what's this going to be like if this turns out?" But the interview went really well on both sides. I loved it here. I could see that this was a place that I would be very fortunate to teach at. LG: And what year was that? SG: That was January of '83. Right. And Ralph Ciancio was chair, and he made the offer. He was, of course, totally charming, as you can imagine. Mimi and he hosted me at their house. It all felt very welcoming. And at the same time, I will not forget my interview conversation with Terry Diggory, who I thought, "Okay, he's got all the brain power I need in a colleague." Just very simpatico, understood exactly what I was trying to do theoretically and went straight to the heart of the meat of what I was working on. Then I also remember Tom Lewis because he was so irreverent. That was good. LG: In what way? You want to talk about that? SG: Well, he just said to me, "Do you like graduate school?" And I said, "You know, Honestly, not really." I might as well be honest. I found it kind of grueling, and I won't bore you with that, but it did not feel like a warm and fuzzy experience at all. It was more sort of like the survival of the fittest, and I was never sure on any given day whether I was considered one of the fittest. And so it was just an intensely uncomfortable situation for all those years. LG: Did it have anything to do with male/female? SG: Oh my God, absolutely. I mean it's telling, for example, that I co-edited a Festschrift for our thesis advisor, Al Cook, who intellectually, a wonderful person, but he just didn't have time for women students. But I was one of his advisees, and he dutifully read my thesis. He wrote about five words on each chapter, sort of encouraging me to go ahead and finish it. I mean, it had virtually no feedback of substance. And yet there I was co-editing the Festschrift for him and with these other two guys who were his visible favorites, but I was so used to that. I mean, that was the way things were at Harvard. You were invisible so much of the time. And by the way, I spent a year in Paris at the Ecole Normale Supérieure des Jeunes Filles. LG: Oh. �SG: Yes. And the jeunes filles were allowed to sit in the back of the room while the normaliens sat in the front with all of the illustrious professors, and they tutored them. I mean, they were on informal terms with those professors. Our housing was on the outskirts of town, [French 00:09:50]. The Rue Dunois, of course, was right in the center near the Sorbonne. I was just used to it. It was such a norm. So when I got to Skidmore, it was an incredible pleasure that right away, there was a Susan Kress in my interview who, she was phenomenal. She was that perfect combination of professional and welcoming and also, just intellectually just so alive. Phyllis was on leave that semester when I first came, but I did get to meet her. And I think that was whenLG: Phyllis Roth? SG: Phyllis Roth, yeah. I think she was pregnant with Ruth and then maybe gave birth then. I'm not sure. It was right around then because I'm pretty sure when I first met her, she was very pregnant. That was kind of inspiring too. I thought, "Okay, may be possible." It was different. I was very different. And the fact of it having been a women's college felt to me like some kind of mark on its character that was entirely positive for me. LG: So, when you first came, what courses were you teaching? SG: Whoa. LG: If you can remember. It's been awhile. SG: Well, actually, I'll mention that during my interview, Ralph Ciancio took me out to dinner, and we were talking about how everybody in the English department teaches English 105, which I guess it was always English 105, Freshman Composition. At some point, I sort of heaved a sigh. I was just trying to relax a little, and he said, "What are you thinking about?" And I said, "I'm thinking I'd really love to have this job." And he said, "But will you really love to teach English composition?" And I said, "Oh, yeah. I can do that." And it was true, I was ready. I had taught it at Brown. I knew what it was. I loved to teach, and I could see this is a place where loving to teach would be viewed favorably and not with some kind of suspicion that you weren't serious enough. And I felt pretty serious as a scholar. I was ambitious. I'd already had some publication. I thought, "I can do this stuff." But I also wanted to teach. So, English 105 every semester, did I get tired of that? Sure, yeah. All those papers all the time, relentless, just that paper grading mill. LG: Did it also give you a chance to interact with the students though? SG: Oh, there's no shortage of interaction with students. I will say one thing. The English majors were not the same as the students from across the college. And 105 was my chance to interact with students from all over the college. There were more men in English 105, for example, than in your typical English classes when I first began. It evolved. �LG: Because it was a required course of everybody at the time. SG: Exactly, exactly. And then also, Skidmore at that time was more tuition driven, and so a lot of the kids came from very privileged backgrounds. And that was truer of English majors, I think, than of the student body as a whole, I would guess. I don't know that there's any data about that. So there was a certain pleasure in having more of a chance to work with kids who were maybe a little scrappier where they're trying to figure out, how can they turn this education into a leg up somehow when they were done. I remember one English major sitting in my office, and he was doing kind of B work. And I knew he was smart. He was a sophomore, and I just said, "John, where you going to go after college?" And he said, "I don't actually need to worry about that." LG: Oh, dear. SG: And I said, "Yes, you do. Of course you do. You need a life." He looked kind of astonished that I wouldn't take that so seriously. LG: So, what courses were you teaching after that? SG: Oh, 105. And I also taught Intro to Poetry, the 200 levels, so I'm going from 100 to 200. Intro to Poetry. I taught Introduction to Women in Literature. I taughtLG: Had that been taught before? SG: Oh, yeah. That had been there, I'm not sure how long, not that long. And by the way, it didn't count towards the major, so that was a change that some of us did bring about. Yes. That's a story, I don't know, should I just tell that right now? LG: Mm-hmm. SG: We had two 200-level courses, Women Characters and Themes, something like Themes. I don't know, it's been awhile. And neither of them counted towards the major. And so the curriculum committee, which consisted mostly of womenLG: The English department curriculum committee? SG: English department curriculum committee brought a proposal to the department to divide them into Introduction to Women in Literature and then an advanced course in, gosh, it wasn't Women Characters, which by that time was theoretically dated. It might've been just more theory, just something more advanced. Sorry, I can't do better than that. And that the advanced course would count towards the major. And at that time, this was in the '80s, feminist theory was really taking off. It was very interesting. There were controversies within it that were toothy, questions of essentialism or sort of pro-women. Well, I won't get into that. �But anyway, I'm going to say this. The men in the department did not want that course to count towards the major, and these were my good friends. And I was just astonished at the resistance that they put up, including going to the... One of them said, "Well, you can't have that course count towards the major because so many of the readings are in translation." And I looked at them and I said, "Well, what about Bob Boyers' Contemporary Novel course where almost everything was read in translation?" It was like that somehow was prestigious but feminist theory in translation was not prestigious. So we kind of beat them down. There obviously were some men who voted with the women or it wouldn't have passed, but there was that very vocal opposition. And maybe some of them in the end just couldn't sustain their opposition. Yeah. LG: Other courses that you taught? SG: Yeah. Well, see, I'm saving the best for last. LG: Okay, good. SG: Because my absolute favorite course that I taught for decades was British Romanticism. I played with that a lot over the years. I did a lot of different things with it, but I did really love just teaching the canon of British poetry. And I don't think that course can be taught that way anymore of British romantic poetry. What I loved about those poets, the late 18th, early 19th century poets, is that I felt that they were of an age that was very similar to my own. I felt as though 1968 was a definitive year for me where my world got turned upside down. And I think something like that happened around 1789 to '91 for these youthful poets. I read them, and I felt as though they gave voice to the same kinds of anxieties and aspirations and rebelliousness and desires that I lived with. It was so much fun to teach them because the students did not come in to this course really expecting to love them as much as they could. And almost always, they left loving those poets. And I threw in Wuthering Heights because that's such a great romantic novel even though it's a generation later, or I threw in Frankenstein. That was another one which is a dream to teach. I loved that course. That was my main 300-level course and the Feminist Theory course, also at the 300 level. I did teach research seminars on the Brontes. The department turned out a little top-heavy with Victorianists, though, so that course sort of slipped away to me, to my regret, because that was a really fun course to teach. LG: Now, at some point you got into administration or to administering at least the engineer department? SG: Yes. LG: Want to talk about that? SG: Yeah. But before I do, can I just add that I also taught in the liberal studies curriculum. �LG: Oh, good. SG: My LS-3 course on memory was also one of my very favorite courses, and I thought that was a brilliant curriculum. What I loved about LS-3 was that it had a theoretical construct going into it, and you had to teach to that construct, which was the relationship, what was it? Remind me. Between the arts and philosophy. That was essentially, that was at the core of LS-3 and how to theorize but also how to express things aesthetically and the tensions between those two modes of discourse. And to have that put there before the students as this is what you have to learn about in this course felt to me like a validation of everything I loved to do but the students sometimes didn't want. They sometimes just wanted to go with the flow and read for the story, that kind of thing. The other... Oh gosh, I just lost it. What was the other LS course? Oh yeah, I taught an LS-2 course. Sorry, what was LS-2? It felt like sociology to me. But I taught a course on romance that was really fun where we read schlock romances but also Pride and Prejudice. And often, the students would come in there, one student said to me once, "I thought I was going to get some tips." But again, it was a joy to teach. Okay, how did I get into administration? Well, it started being chair of the English department, which is a slippery slope. Department had 30-plus FTEs at the time. Just delivering that writing requirement, it was on one department, it was a huge burden. And I kept trying to find ways to get other departments to assume more of that, and some of them took and some of them didn't. Because I thought I'd rather have Leslie Mechem teaching her students in classics to write than somebody I've had to pull in off the street at the last minute because we over-enrolled the class again. And that sounds terrible, but I am not kidding, sometimes I had to hire people who were seriously underqualified to deliver that requirement. Sometimes they turned out to be really good teachers, but you just don't know. And to be doing that in an unplanned way and then sometimes also what we were paying people, trying to get people on a per-course basis so we wouldn't... I mean, it was awful. But I did navigate all that, and I suppose that gave me some administrative skills. And English was a complicated department in many ways, so I got some experience, just all of the hiring, all of the performance reviews, navigating curriculum reform and the challenges of that. I would say the hardest thing was the reappointment and tenure decisions when there was controversy. And hiring was often almost as controversial but not as bitter, typically, sometimes as bitter. So there would be divides within the department, and you tried to reposition those divides so that they didn't split us down the middle. I got a lot of practice with administrative work. Sue Bender was associate dean when I stepped down from department chair. And I don't know, I think maybe a year or two later you were leaving the position, and Chuck Joseph, who was then dean of the faculty, called me and asked me if I would be interested. I had just stopped chairing. I was really not interested, to be honest. But we had our first female president since the beginning of the college. LG: Who was? �SG: Jamienne Studley. And she called me and said, "I'd really like you to do this." I didn't really know her, but I thought, "She must need it for some reason to have a woman in that position. She's losing a woman." And I wasn't sure who else was even under consideration. So I agreed to do it, and I sometimes think how different my time at Skidmore would have been if I had somehow just said no. It was hard. It was very hard, and Sue did warn me. LG: What were your big challenges in that role? SG: What wasn't a challenge? So, let me say from the get-go that I'm not a very organized person, and I'm not good at saying no. I take on too much. And those were not qualities that worked well in that position, so I did have too much on my plate. People were happy to pile that plate full. It was we were a little shorthanded, and then it gradually became clear that I could not, in fact, manage everything. But things that I loved, let me start right there. I loved it that I got to work with the Tang. I justLG: Good. I was going to ask you about that. SG: The Tang for me was that made everything else worth it. It was transformative for me. I don't mind saying that it changed my life. I had to be intellectually honest and find out what about the work with the Tang actually seemed urgent to me. And pretty soon it all seemed really urgent. LG: Can you go into some depth about what it was that you were doing? SG: Okay. So virtually within weeks, a few weeks, the first summer that I started the job, our then director, whose name, I'm sorry... Sue Bender: Charlie Stainback. SG: ... Charlie Stainback, who was marvelous, right? He submitted his resignation. And we were on a president's cabinet, then staff, retreat when that came in. And we're looking around the table. At that point, Charlie had been reporting to me. I'd probably met with him once at that point. And Chuck said, "Well, I guess you'll be leading the search." So, I had to search for a museum director, which was insane. I mean, I had run many searches, but this was something about which I knew nothing. And so I took advice from all sides, and I will say that there were people on the Tang's, oh gosh, what do they call it? Their advisory board, essentially, who were enormously helpful. Adam, ooh, he just resigned. He just retired from directing the Whitney Museum, actually, where he went after doing the Addison Gallery, Andover. Adam Weinberg, he could not have been more generous in his help and his advice and helped me make it. We were on such a shoestring that year. We did it, if you can imagine, without a search firm. LG: What was his connection to Skidmore? �SG: He was on the advisory board. LG: Okay. SG: And I'm not sure, did he have any other connection? Maybe not. It might've been a networking thing for him. Sue Bender: I think Charlie brought him in. SG: Charlie brought him in? Yeah, it was a good advisory board. It was pretty amazing. Between donors and people in that museum world, they brought in fabulous candidates, not all of whom were actually interested. But we had to figure out how to court them somehow. And I remember when it was Ian Berry, who is now the director of the Tang and was then curator and much younger, but he found John Weber, who was at that time director of education for the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. And I called John Weber and cold call, and John said, "I've been wondering if you would call." Yes, he'd sort of had his eye, but someone he knew had applied for the position. And he did not want to apply and compete with his friend, which I just thought, "Okay, very much in your favor." And so we sorted that out. He was going to be in New York, I don't know, a week or two later. And I said, "Well, why don't you just make a little day trip up?" We courted each other, let's put it that way. I thought he would be a really good hire. It was not my decision, but he had the right experience. He had the right eye. I mean, Ian Berry's eye is incomparable, honestly, but you have to know. Then people on the advisory board said, "Go for it." And the search committee, of course, was also at that point fully pulled in. So, that was one of my favorite things to do and then just making sure that it happened, just being the person that John would bring ideas to, and you just don't say no. You say, "Let's figure it out." That was so much fun. LG: All right. SG: What else? Something I hated? LG: Why not? SG: Well, one of the other hats that I wore was overseeing assessment at the college. I found a way, again, to believe that it was urgent. I found a way to believe in it. That was the only way I could do something. I couldn't do it if I didn't believe in it, but I certainly didn't believe in much of the culture of assessment nationally. And so I thought what we really needed to do as a college was talk about, in terms that really made sense to us, what do we want our students to be learning and how do we know whether they're learning it? LG: Was this generated by Middle States? SG: Yes. �LG: Okay. SG: By accreditation. Thank you for asking that. The new standards for accreditation that Middle States had passed involved being able to define the goals for our students' learning and measure their success. And the whole idea of measuring learning to me seems to me wrongheaded, but I come out of the romantic anti-empiricist tradition. But I did think we ought to be able to tell some pretty good stories about it and they ought to be evidence based. I mean, I'm fascinated by the status of evidence in every discipline. I always wish that our faculty could have a multidisciplinary discussion of the degree to which evidence is actually valid in our disciplines. But I think a lot of people don't want to have that kind of conversation because it's kind of scary. But okay, don't let me go down that road. I was sometimes asking people to provide evidence that I myself wasn't sure would be valid for much, given the numbers and given the weakness of the statistics and stuff like that. But I also thought, "Regardless of all of that, faculty need to be talking with each other about what they hope their students are learning because we don't know." We know that our best students are doing really well, but what about all the rest of them? We had so much anecdotal evidence of stellar achievement. I mean, not just anecdotal but hard evidence of stellar achievement from 10% of our students. But I thought there were others that were actually, and I saw it in my department, that were slipping through the cracks that were not learning what we thought English majors should be learning. And they were going out in the world representing the English major at Skidmore College, and we didn't have any way of identifying them early and working with them and stuff like that. But faculty were deeply resistant to those conversations. They saw it, as I said once on a panel about assessment at the Modern Language Association Convention, I said, "I felt like a Vichy collaborator." And I said, "I didn't think like one, but I could see people viewing me that way." And it was hard. It just never stopped being hard. The resentment that people had, the ways that they would see me coming and turn around and walk away. It was the hardest thing in my entire Skidmore career. I don't know. But I just have one more thing to say about it. The thing that motivated me the most thinking about it was that I got interested in where learning not to be racist had a home in our curriculum. And I didn't see that it had a home in the curriculum. There were some courses in sociology, but I didn't see that we were asking our students to think about racism as something fundamental in American culture that we needed to be more knowledgeable about collectively, all of us. And the more I read about that, the more I thought, "This is an urgent problem that is not being talked about enough." And I started seeing assessment maybe as a way to leverage that. And in fact, when I ultimately became a campus visitor for some colleges like us for Middle States and for New England, the New England Association, and if I said to the faculty... A lot of places, there was faculty resistance to assessment. And if I said, "Well, do you agree that a liberally educated person should not be a racist, should not harbor racism?" And people would say, "Yes." �And I said, "Well, do you know where that is located in your curriculum? And how is it being taught? Even if it's located in the curriculum, what are they learning, and are they actually learning it?" That was one of the reasons that I got involved in the IGR program at Skidmore, the inter-group dialog, Intergroup Relations. LG: You want to say what the... SG: Yeah, Intergroup Relations is what IGR stands for. That came after my time as dean, so I want to finish the time as dean first. But that was sort of the pathway that most engaged me after my time as dean. Anything else about being a dean? LG: Well, one of the things that I think would be interesting to note is the increasing diversity of both faculty, staff and students during your tenure. SG: Yes. That was definitely something that was talked about regularly in president's staff. It was something that Chuck Joseph and also the other associate dean, John Brueggemann, and I were very interested in. Pat Oles, who was dean of students most of the time we were there, also very interested in. And admissions was quite responsive, so it was really led by admissions. But that was a slow process, but I think the college was transformed maybe over, I'm going to say a 20-year period. I think it was transformative, ultimately. Yeah. LG: Was it driven because of the need to widen the number of students who were coming to Skidmore? SG: No, I think it was driven by a need to keep up with changes that were happening in the academy. I should mention that when I was in the dean's office, I led our re-accreditation effort with the Middle States accreditation, the regional accreditation. That was a major effort. And one of the decisions that we made was to leverage that process to advance changes that we were trying to make. And so we were trying to introduce a new first-year curriculum. We were trying to strengthen the sciences and position ourselves better to qualify for more major grants than we could then qualify for and ultimately, build new science facilities. And we were also trying to strengthen the diversity of the college in every way in every department. So using those topics as part of the accreditation process helped us to advance the conversations because we were asking people to collect the data on these topics and bring those to us. And let's talk about them and what's the story that we have to tell there. I thought that was a very positive way to leverage accreditation to further change, and that was something I was very proud of. It worked. It worked well. I do remember one particular moment where all of the working groups were gathered in a room, and I asked them, I said, "So, what are the connections among these three things, diversity, the first-year experience, and the sciences?" And they looked at me like, "No connections." They were very siloed in their own strategies. And it was pretty thrilling �when Muriel Poston came in as dean of the faculty and just said, "What do you mean there's no connection between diversity and sciences? You need more students in the sciences, right? And you're losing students in the sciences, right?" You know what I mean? It was very, I mean, just such low-hanging fruit to change our ways. LG: So, what are your fondest memories? SG: Of Skidmore? LG: Of your time at Skidmore. SG: This is not a specific one, though actually, I could tell a specific one. But my happiest moments were in that classroom with the door closed when something landed with the students. And there was that slight hush after it landed, and you saw something just happened. It was like something went through the room. I don't know. Of course, I almost said, and often, it was a little transgressive, which is why I can't talk about all of them on a recording. But there would be something fun about it. It would be a way that you could connect with those students. They were young people. They were looking for their own way. Part of me was really interested in just the nostalgia of early 19th century literature, but another part of it was, how are they going to bring the future forward? And I would sometimes teach to that. I will say that I also did love teaching in Intergroup Relations. I don't know if we're almost out of time, but I'd like to take a minute with thatLG: Just go. SG: ... because that was so interesting. Muriel Poston, as dean of the faculty, hired, well, sociology hired Kristie Ford as a brand new PhD. And Muriel said to me, "You keep your eye on her." She came from University of Michigan, where the inter-group dialog program had been begun and developed over 20 years, really. And she wanted to start a program here. It was not a short process. I went out to Michigan, and I went through a training process at the University of Michigan in their program and came back thinking, "That was very powerful. I wonder how that would work here." I wound up teaching with Kristie and getting the program launched. And there were things about it that to me were just quite wonderful, and the main one was the strategies that IGR, Intergroup Relations, programs have for creating a classroom in which very hard conversations can happen and giving those conversations time so that they could develop incrementally. So that you would not, if you're talking about race, which is what it was all about, it was these were race-based dialogs, and the classes were based in dialog. And the students, they were composed of half students of color, half white students. That binary over the course of the semester would get richly textured because everybody would see that just being a white person meant pretty much not very much. Because our �white students, overrepresented in the white students were gay students or LGBTQ, students with invisible disabilities or sometimes visible ones, Jewish students who were very interested in racism in part because of their experiences and familiar experiences of anti-Semitism. And those things would surface, and everything suddenly seemed so much more textured. And those were, again, very powerful moments. And similarly with the students of color, I mean, they came from extremely varied backgrounds with very wideranging differences in how much privilege they had and in their familial expectations and socioeconomics circumstances. So, it would take a semester, and I loved that that would play out. It was sometimes quite imperfect. Some groups were more productive than others in reaching that deeper understanding. LG: Now, these were extracurricular groups? SG: No, no. LG: Or they were part ofSG: They were part of the curriculum. And to Skidmore's credit, we were the first college in the country to offer a minor in IGR. And many other schools are trying to do that now. I think the current one is Amherst College. It's becoming clear that that process of difficult dialog is exactly what we are going to need and also that it's not a one-and-done experience, that it takes time to develop it. For our students in IGR, taking one dialog course is one thing, but taking multiple courses and then serving as a peer facilitator for a dialog course was the moment when really, they would just come to shine. The students who left having done the IGR minor in the years when I was active in the program and stayed in touch with them, well, and also, Kristie's done research on this, it changed them. It changed them permanently, and they use those skills in their work. They talk about that. LG: Sarah, what have you been doing since you retired? And what year did you retire? SG: I retired in 2019. My final year before I retired, I had a sabbatical year because I'd postponed a lot during my time in the dean's office. And I did it on condition that I get a sabbatical year for my final year. And my project for that year was co-curating a show at the Tang Museum, which did turn out to be a pretty much full-time position. LG: Right. SG: We created a marvelous catalog that incidentally won a national award for small museum catalog. It was, I don't know, I want to sayLG: Exhibit was? SG: Oh, sorry. The exhibit was called Like Sugar, and it was a classically interdisciplinary, �transgressive, unexpected, fresh, wild Tang show. And honestly, not because of me. I would've curated a much tamer show, but you don't do that with the Tang. So I just sort of, I buckled up and went along. It was just such an intellectually stimulating experience. LG: And who at the Tang? Excuse me. SG: Who at the Tang? I worked very closely with Rachel Seligman, who was then and is still a curator at the Tang, and then also with a faculty group, Trish Lyell in art, who worked closely with Rachel on selecting the contemporary art that was a major part of the exhibit. Nurcan Helicke, who was Atalan-Helicke, I think she... And she was in environmental studies. But we all crossed over different things, but we were looking in part on the environmental impacts of sugar. And then Monica Raveret Richter from biology. Each of us contributed in different ways. I was very interested in, I'm going to say some of the sociological aspects, so sugar and its impact on race and racism in the United States. I had spent a number of years visiting Baton Rouge every February or every spring and had viewed many of the plantations down there. And had also gone, of all things, to Maui and wound up getting really interested in the sugar plantations there. And started to see that there were some themes here and that sugar was one of those invisible things. I'd always thought of cotton and tobacco as being the great products of enslaved workers in this country's history, but I saw that sugar had also played an enormous role and continues to play an enormous role that just needed somehow to be told. So, I would've had a preachier show probably, but at the same time I think it was perfect in the way it came out because it was unsettling. It was visually very arresting, and it wasn't preachy. It allowed for people to draw some of their own conclusions. And one of the things that was especially moving to me about that show that I didn't anticipate was the number of people who privately admitted to me their own eating disorders that revolved around sugar, and that was quite powerful. I thought, "This is just not something that's talked about that much in public discourse." But sugar is extremely powerful in our culture and is being exported by Americans now all over the world with terrible effects. And I thought that was one of the things that came out in the show as well. On the other hand, another thing that came out was sugar is damn fun. Right? And somehow the idea that those very wildly different emotions and lessons could coexist and be true seemed to me absolutely the best of what Skidmore does. LG: Okay. And since you've retired? SG: Oh, since that. I don't know, I'm really busy, just insanely busy, and so that part hasn't changed. I retired into COVID, and I was not insanely busy during COVID. COVID was this incredible hit pause, nothing happens. I know it sounds crazy, but it was restorative for me. Despite all of the anxieties around the pandemic, I was glad that I wasn't trying to teach during that time. I don't know that I could've done it. I think I was exhausted at that point. �But then I started up two reading groups on race and racism during COVID, one for Skidmore retirees and one for members of my college class. I graduated in the class of 1975 at Harvard, and it turned out there were a lot of people who wanted to do this. I won't describe the history of how that came about. It was completely unexpected to me, but it is still going on. And it is extremely time-consuming, very challenging. It's a mixed race group. We meet once a month, but I got roped into another group that meets another once a month that is slightly broader in topic that's about social justice issues generally. But as it turns out, Harvard is also the nexus right now of a lot of controversy related to race and racism and how colleges and campuses are doing diversity, equity and inclusion. And our group does not all see eye to eye on what's happening on campus at Harvard, and we just... I have to say, I'm using all of my dialog skills to keep that going, and it has been a very powerful experience. I will just add that we've also taken a wide detour since the October 7th Hamas invasion of Israel to incorporate more discussion of anti-Semitism in the group. And that was something I had already experienced in the IGR program at Skidmore on a much smaller scale, so it didn't surprise me. But that hasn't made it any easier to navigate. It's been very complicated and well worth doing. We had a meeting just last night that I thought, "Okay, wow, we got through that one." So that's kept me very busy. I also have four grandchildren, two on the West Coast, two here. I'm going to brag and say my daughter just got tenure at Mount Holyoke this spring and lives close enough that I can go visit but, mostly, not just for the day. So, I do shuttle back and forth a bit to Northampton, and that is a source of incredible delight to me, also a whole new generation to worry about, yay. But otherwise, I want to say something that's very weird and to put this out there is a little hard, but I almost never read poetry. And when I do, I find it hard to do. It's like, it's a part of me that isn't ready to be reawakened. And I read obsessively the news with dread and with horror, and that's not altogether healthy. And I sometimes think, "You know, Sarah, it wouldn't be so bad if you allowed yourself some poetry." LG: Anything else you want to bring up? SG: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I started working out, actually, the year I turned 40. And I don't know why in my academic preparation nobody ever talked about making sure that you think about the body, but it is really true. And in retirement, one of the greatest sources of satisfaction is I can work out in as many ways as I want for as long as I want, and nobody is saying, "Better go grade those papers." LG: Thank you, Sarah. This has been a delight. SG: Thank you. SUE BENDER: Thanks, Sarah. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Skidmore College Retirees Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Lynne Gelber Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Sarah Goodwin Location The location of the interview Saratoga Springs, NY Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Audio Recording Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 51:28 Record Contributor Individual who prepared the item and/or edited it. Sue Bender Record Creation Date Day/Month/Year of record creation/edit April 11, 2024 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Sarah Goodwin Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource April 11, 2024 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. Skidmore Saratoga Memory Project Description An account of the resource Sarah Goodwin joined the Skidmore English faculty in 1983 teaching courses in composition, women’s studies, British romantic poetry, feminist theory and participated in the Liberal Studies program.  Her passion was interdisciplinary thinking and courses focusing on student dialogue and diversity.  Intergroup relations were important components which she brought to her role as teacher, English Department Chair and Associate Dean of the Faculty.  Sarah led Skidmore’s Middle States accreditation assessment and later participated in assessments at other schools.  Since retirement in 2019 Sarah has led two reading groups on Race and Racism, one at Harvard and one with Skidmore faculty and staff. 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For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Mapping a City: Saratoga Springs Through 250 Years of Maps Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource April 14, 2015 Description An account of the resource Photographs of the exhibition Mapping a City: Saratoga Springs Through 250 Years of Maps from the opening reception, April 14, 2015 Language A language of the resource eng Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dym, Jordana Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Dym, Jordana Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource (c) Jordana Dym Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource jpg Type The nature or genre of the resource Photograph