Upstate New York

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Upstate New York is the region of New York State north of the core of the New York metropolitan area. It has a population of 7,121,911 out of New York State's total 18,976,457. Were it an independent state, it would be ranked 13th by population.

Contents 1 Definition 2 Culture 3 Politics 4 Geography 5 History 6 Social, Political and Religious Movements 7 Religious and Spiritual Figures 8 The Arts 8.1 Literary Figures and Places 8.2 The Music Scene 8.3 Artists and Artistic Movements 8.4 Cartoonists 8.5 Architects and Architecture 8.6 Artisans 8.7 Design 8.8 Show Business Types with Upstate New York Roots 9 Major museums 10 Educators and Librarians 11 Inventors and Business Leaders 11.1 Upstate New York Companies That Have Moved Manufacturing Away 11.2 Inventions 11.3 Manufactures 12 Scientists and Physicians 13 Legends and Hoaxes 14 The Environment 14.1 Superfund Sites 14.2 Extinctions 14.3 Invasive Species 15 Political Figures 15.1 Downstate Political Figures with a profound influence on Upstate New York 16 Journalists 17 Subregions 18 Major highways 19 Major cities 20 Major universities and colleges 21 Major tourist attractions and destinations 22 Historic Events 23 Emigrants 24 Athletes and Athletic Events 25 Tragedies 26 Crimes and Criminals 27 See also 28 References 29 External links

[edit] Definition

There is no clear or official boundary between Upstate New York and Downstate New York, but the term "Upstate" is sometimes used to refer to the whole of the state besides New York City, Long Island.

Another common perception of the Upstate/Downstate boundary locates it at the point at which New York's suburbs segue into its exurbs. This line would place most, but not all, of Westchester and Rockland counties south of the boundary, putting the northwestern edge of Rockland as well as the northernmost quarter of Westchester (such as Peekskill) in Upstate New York. This definition of Upstate New York corresponds to the orange, yellow, and green areas on the map above.

A more nuanced view would suggest the boundary lies further north. Because most New York City bedroom communities in Dutchess and Orange counties are situated in the southern part of those counties and the city's suburban public transportation system extends some distance north, the Upstate/Downstate boundary can be defined roughly by a border extended from Wassaic (where Metro-North's Harlem Line ends) across to Poughkeepsie, down to Newburgh and then across to Middletown and Port Jervis. This definition of Upstate New York corresponds to the yellow and green areas on the map above and roughly corresponds with the area north of Interstate 84. This imaginary line also demarcates the northernmost reach of high housing prices associated with the Downstate region in contrast to the relatively low housing costs found further Upstate.

One factor complicating this issue is the fact that many communities clearly beyond the New York City commuter orbit are part of the City's media market, which includes Dutchess, Ulster and Sullivan counties, and thus do not get local television (via cable) from Albany or Binghamton TV stations. [1]

For some, the term Upstate evokes sentiments of rural lifestyles and traditional values contrary to those of New York City. In the New York metropolitan area, usage of the term "Upstate New York" typically implies unfamiliarity with (and often condescension towards)^{[citation needed]} the area that the speaker is denoting as such. It denotes areas that are both somewhat north of and considerably more rural than the home location of the speaker. Usage of the term is often taken to be an insulting manifestation of the famous New Yorker magazine's view of the world.^{[citation needed]}

New York City is dependent on upstate for a variety of services; it is the source of the city's water supply via the Delaware Aqueduct and the Catskill Aqueduct; much of the city's electric power supply comes from state owned hydroelectric plants at Niagara Falls and the St. Lawrence River such as the Robert Moses power station; and most of the state's prisons are upstate; hence the popular term "being sent up the river" (however, the term originally referred to Sing Sing, which is "up the Hudson River" from New York City, but being in Ossining in Westchester County is still in the "downstate" region). Conversely, the operation of state facilities providing these services is an important part of the upstate economy.

[edit] Culture

The region is culturally and economically distinct from the New York City area, though the Hudson Valley counties of Putnam, Orange, Dutchess, Ulster, and even Albany are increasingly peripheral sections of the New York City metro area. The northern upstate area consists of a handful of small and medium-sized cities, with surrounding suburbs, amidst vast rural areas.

Western New York has many cultural and economic ties to the other Great Lakes states as well as Southern Ontario, while the Capital District, the Hudson Valley, the Mohawk Valley and the Plattsburgh area have ties to New England (In fact, cultural leanings in the extreme northeastern portion of the state also cross the border so-to-speak with the presence of prominent French and Anglo Canadian ties - cultural, economic, and familial. Plattsburgh, for example, is an historically French town with closer ties to its neighbors in the Montreal and Vermont areas than to the rest of the state.). Some literary and cinematic depictions of upstate present a sense of small town, Midwestern lifetyles, such as It's a Wonderful Life, set in a small upstate town in the 1940s.

During the 1990s and the 2000s this area has suffered slow job growth [2] and a rapid loss of young adults. [3] It has been argued, however, that Upstate doesn't suffer from "brain drain" as much as it suffers from lack of "brain gain" (i.e. other areas of the country attract more educated persons than does Upstate.)^{[citation needed]}

A common misconception is that the predominant ethnic group in upstate are WASPs. Actually residents of English ancestry are dominant in only a handful of rural counties. but still have a strong presence in the remaining counties.The Hudson Valley, the Capital District and the Syracuse region are heavily Irish American, while the North Country is heavily French Canadian. Italian Americans are the largest ethnic group in Oneida County, Broome County, Utica and Schenectady, while German ancestry is most common across western New York.

Persons of Polish ancestry are predominant in Buffalo and its close suburbs. There is also a significant presence of indigenous Iroquois Native Americans in the area, who mostly congregate on several reservations: the Seneca nation and Tonawanda Band of Seneca Indians in Western New York, the Onondaga nation south of Syracuse, the Oneida nation of Oneida, and the Mohawk nation in St. Lawrence County.

The only two major league professional sports teams in Upstate New York are the Buffalo Bills of the National Football League (NFL) and the Buffalo Sabres of the National Hockey League (NHL). As a result, the collegiate sports program at Syracuse University (Syracuse Orange) attracts significant regional attention, as do minor league baseball and hockey teams. Professional sports teams from New York City, northern New Jersey, and Boston all have followings in the majority of Upstate New York, while some Western New York sports fans follow teams from Toronto. In Rochester several minor league teams play.

Other Upstate New York minor league professional sports teams include the Syracuse Sky Chiefs of the Triple-A baseball International League, the Albany Patroons of the Continental Basketball Association; and the Auburn Doubledays, Oneonta Tigers, the Jamestown Jammers, the Tri-City ValleyCats and the Batavia Muckdogs of the Class A baseball New York - Penn League.

In auto racing, Watkins Glen International Speedway is the only major race track in the area and hosts annual races in the Indy Racing League and NASCAR Sprint Cup. Holland Speedway in Holland hosts races in the Whelen All-American Series. In addition, numerous smaller speedways and dirt tracks exist in Little Valley, Freedom, Humphrey, Granby (serving the city of Fulton), Oswego, Lancaster, Ransomville and numerous other cities and towns.

Two of the most important rock festivals of the 20th century were held in Upstate New York. In 1969 the Woodstock Festival was held in Bethel, New York, while in 1973 another multiday festival was held at the Watkins Glen International Raceway.

Linguistically, from Western New York to as far east as Utica is part of the Inland North region of American English dialectology, a region which includes Midwestern cities as far west as Chicago and Milwaukee. The Hudson and lower Mohawk Valley has more in common dialectologically with western New England and New York City.[4] The dialect of the St. Lawrence Valley has much in common with Canadian speech.

The boundary between the use of the words pop and soda to refer to soft drinks, however, falls further west than the edge of the Inland North, running just to the east of the city of Rochester: Buffalo and Rochester use pop, like the rest of the Inland North to the west, whereas Syracuse uses soda, like New England and New York City.

Foodways indigenous to regions of Upstate New York include Plattsburgh's "Michigan" hot dog, a variety of Coney Island hot dog; the white hot dog of central and western New York that is known variously as the "White Hot" or "Coney" (pronounced "cooney"); the "Spiedie" of the Binghamton area, and perhaps most famously, Buffalo wings. Calvin Trillin chronicled the origin of Buffalo wings in the August 25, 1980 issue of The New Yorker.

[edit] Politics

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Often attributed to the region's semi-rural character, there is more conservatism in culture and politics than found in the more urban downstate area, and is the power base of the state's Republican Party, especially now that Long Island, a former Republican stronghold, has developed strong Democratic leans.

There are several exceptions to this rule, including Erie County (Buffalo), Monroe County (Rochester), Onondaga County (Syracuse), Tompkins County (Ithaca), Albany County (Albany), Niagara County (Niagara Falls), Broome County (Binghamton), Clinton (Plattsburgh), Franklin, and St. Lawrence counties (influence of Canada). Ulster County, while having no urban centers, is the home of SUNY New Paltz. The large student population has consistently voted Democratic in presidential elections.

As a whole, Upstate New York is roughly equally divided in Federal elections between Democrats and Republicans. In 2004, John Kerry defeated George W. Bush by less than 1,500 votes (1,553,246 votes to 1,551,971) in the Upstate Region.

The conservatism of the upstate region more closely resembles the libertarian, socially liberal "Live and let live" conservatism of Vermont, New Hampshire and many of the western states instead of the social conservatism of the southern states and the Religious Right. Some of the Religious Right's harshest critics within the Republican Party, in fact, have been upstate New York Republicans such as Amo Houghton and Jack Quinn. The misunderstanding of the regional differences in upstate's conservative nature has led to significant political difficulties by both major political parties in the area. Since 2001, the Republican Party's efforts to reach out to the area using the religious rhetoric that had been so successful in the South has been met with rejection and ridicule, and was one of the leading causes of the Party's considerable loss of support in upstate since that time.^{[dubious – discuss]}

The influence of public service labor unions is also a factor in Democratic Party dominance. Hospitals and public schools are among the area's largest employers, and these agencies have unionized workers. Unionized workers as a whole make up 1 in 4 New York workers, the most in the nation.^[1] These unions, most notably the Service Employees International Union and New York State United Teachers, make large purchases of television air time on local television and radio stations during budget negotiations and prior to school budget votes to air commercials featuring scare tactics threatening the closure of hospitals or emergency rooms, larger class sizes, and reduced care if they don't receive more money.^[2] Organized rebuttals have been few and far between; Eliot Spitzer's use of his personal campaign funds to push through his 2007 reforms is the only recent attempt to answer the unions' dominance.

Upstate politicians have, in fact, sometimes taken the leading role in the moves that give the state its liberal reputation. It was George Michael, an assemblyman from the Finger Lakes, who in 1970 stunned not only the state but the nation by asking that his vote of "no" on the bill to legalize abortion in New York be changed to "yes," causing the bill to pass by one vote. (He lost his seat at the next primary election, as he had anticipated, but never regretted changing his vote). Nearly three decades later, voters in Plattsburgh elected Dan Stewart, the state's first openly gay mayor - a Republican, to boot. Another upstate mayor, Jason West of New Paltz, drew national attention in early 2004 when he officiated at the state's first gay weddings. However, such "liberal oases," which include New Paltz and Ithaca, tend to be the state's (and the country's) most liberal regions and unrepresentative of the region's politics as a whole.

It should also be noted that the Democratic Party in upstate cities, particularly in Buffalo, also has traditionally leaned further to the right than downstate Democrats. Jack Quinn, a Republican, was elected from a district that was 57 percent Democratic. Similarly, leading Democrats in the area, including Dennis Gorski, Anthony Masiello and James Griffin, were noted for their fiscal and social conservatism and were often cross-endorsed by the Conservative Party of New York.

Proponents of the 2008 presidential run by Sen. Hillary Clinton have pointed to her relative success upstate (she lost the region by less than 10 percent of the vote in 2000) as an argument that she could succeed as a candidate in red states. Skeptics of such a bid have responded that upstate is, in fact, not as conservative as widely believed, at least not conservative in the manner of what is now the leadership of the Republican Party. [5].

Most of New York State's most successful Republican politicians, however, such as Rockefeller, George Pataki, Thomas Dewey, Fiorello La Guardia, Jacob Javits and Alfonse D'Amato, came from the downstate region, (although some definitions of the boundary would have Pataki being from upstate). Most upstate Republicans are politically unacceptable to even downstate Republican voters, and the party's financial backers are mostly based downstate (the corollary, of course, being that incumbent New York City politicians rarely win statewide elections, either). Democratic politicians upstate often tend to be (or at least run) more moderate than their downstate compatriots, and sometimes seek the endorsement of the state's Conservative Party to inoculate them against perceptions of extreme liberalism.

Nevertheless, Republican attempts upstate to court votes by openly appealing to suspicion of the city have often backfired. In 1998 incumbent Republican Senator Al D'Amato's Senate campaign ran television ads in some upstate markets attempting to link his opponent, Charles Schumer, to a flock of hungry sharks released from the city to fleece upstate. Schumer went on to win the election and did surprisingly well upstate for a Democrat with deep roots in the city. In turn, he has probably lobbied for "upstate" interests both in and out of government more than any past "downstate" Democratic senator (for example, he lobbied for JetBlue to provide flights to Buffalo and Syracuse, producing more competition and lower fares at those airports).

Downstate candidates seeking statewide office have often sealed their fate by displaying profound ignorance of upstate geography. One candidate at a forum in Buffalo once referred to "your airport in Albany" ... a city more than 200 miles (320 km) away. In the 2000 Senate race, Rudolph Giuliani confused the Orange County village of Monroe with Monroe County, and the ultimate Republican nominee, Rick Lazio, later released an itinerary confusing Owego and Oswego, two communities a considerable distance from each other. Hillary Clinton won the race, doing much better upstate than expected. Like Charles Schumer, she too has "given back" and lobbied for "upstate" interests more than most past "downstate" Democratic senators (for example, unsuccessfully lobbying for larger Homeland Security funding for the Buffalo area than its size would normally warrant on the basis of it being on the Canadian border, the finding of a putative sleeper cell in the nearby city of Lackawanna in 2002, and the presence of the Eastern United States' most vital electrical power generation facilities, the Robert Moses Niagara Power Plant and the Lewiston Pump Generating Plant).

But while politicians based upstate rarely win elections for governor or U.S. Senator, some have been elected to other lesser statewide offices, such as lieutenant governor (Stan Lundine, Maryanne Krupsak and Mary Donohue, for instance), comptroller (Edward Regan) and attorney general (Dennis Vacco). The late Daniel Patrick Moynihan officially lived on a farm in Delaware County while serving in the Senate, but he grew up in New York City and spent much of his career there, making him a familiar face to downstate voters.

The sharp differences in ideology have historically fueled many political struggles by upstate conservatives with largely downstate-based Democrats in the New York Legislature; however the feuds quite often tend to be more on regional lines than on party lines. The most recent major examples were the failed attempt by Syracuse-area assemblyman Michael Bragman, the majority leader of that body to seize control of the downstate-dominated state Democratic party in 2000, which was immediately followed by a strong retaliatory backlash against all upstate politicians in state government and the attempt by both Republicans and Democrats to cater to upstate voters by promising to disband the New York State Thruway, whose toll portions are entirely upstate. Both candidates in the 2006 gubernatorial election (Democrat Eliot Spitzer and Republican John Faso) pledged to eliminate the tolls however at the present time only an eight mile stretch of I-190 in downtown Buffalo, which had been collecting tolls to be used to keep I-84 downstate a free highway, has been made toll-free, and in fact the thruway authority has steadily increased tolls annually since 2006. Critics upstate feel that it is unlikely that either party would genuinely be willing to give up such a significant source of revenue, despite promises to the contrary, particularly one that does not draw its funding from the population core downstate.

While Republicans have traditionally controlled the State Senate by virtue of holding most seats upstate, the leadership has often been split between senators from Long Island such as Ralph Marino and upstaters such as the present leader, Joe Bruno.

In the midterm elections of 2006, many upstate Congressional seats historically held by Republicans came under serious challenge by Democratic contenders, and some (such as the 20th and 24th districts) were lost to Democrats. Slow population growth in the 1990s led legislators to eliminate two upstate House districts in the 2002 reapportionment and leave all downstate districts alone, hence, the influence of upstate in Congress has faded from the days in which Jack Kemp; Barber Conable, and Sam Stratton were prominent House leaders.

[edit] Geography

The headwaters of the Delaware, Susquehanna, Hudson, and Allegheny rivers are located in the region. The region is characterized by the major mountain ranges and large lakes.

The Allegheny Plateau extends into west and central New York from the south. The Catskill Mountains lie in the southeastern part of the state, closer to New York City. The Catskills and the Allegheny Plateau are both part of the Appalachian Mountains. The northernmost part of the state contains the Adirondack Mountains, which are sometimes considered part of the Appalachians but are geologically separate, a southern extension of the Canadian Shield.

In the more mountainous eastern part of Upstate New York, the valleys of the Hudson River and the Mohawk River were historically important travel corridors and remain so today. Western New York in the vicinity of Buffalo is very flat, as it was once the bottom of a glacial lake. The only "hills" in Niagara County are the Niagara Escarpment, which formed the Falls.

Upstate has a long shared border with Canadian province of Ontario divided by water; including the Lake Erie, Niagara River, Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River. It shares a land border with the province of Quebec in the northernmost part of the state.

The sizes of upstate counties and towns are generally larger in area and smaller in population, compared with the downstate region, although there are exceptions. The state's smallest county in population (Hamilton County) and largest county in area (St. Lawrence County on the state's northern border) are both in upstate New York, while the largest in population (Kings County) and smallest in area (New York County) are both part of New York City.

Upstate New York is well known for its cold and snowy winters, particularly in comparison to the more temperate climate of downstate New York. The snowy reputation is especially true for the cities of Buffalo, Rochester, Oswego and Syracuse, and is largely due to lake-effect snow from Lake Ontario and Lake Erie. The village of Old Forge in the Adirondacks often vies on winter nights with places like International Falls, Minnesota and Fargo, North Dakota for the coldest spot in the nation.

Many of the features of the upstate landscape, such as the Finger Lakes and the drumlins that dot the region, are the result of glaciers during the Ice Age.

[edit] History

Before the arrival of European settlement, the area was inhabited by a mixture of Iroquois-speaking people (mainly west of the Hudson) and Algonquian-speaking people (mainly east of the Hudson). The conflict between the two peoples was an important historical force in the days of the early European colonization. The Haudenosaunee or Iroquois confederacy of the Five (later Six) Nations was a powerful force in its home territory that extended from the Mohawk River Valley to the western part of the state, and the Iroquois controlled large swaths of territory at various times throughout the northeastern U.S. from this home base. The Guswhenta (Two Row Wampum Treaty), made with the Dutch government in 1613, codified relations between the Haudenosaunee and European colonizers, and formed the basis of subsequent treaties.

The region was important beginning in the very early days of both the French Colonization and Dutch colonization, where much of the fur trade of the New Netherland colony was located in the upper Hudson Valley. In the seventeenth century, the French established trading posts as far south as the shores of Onondaga Lake, although Samuel de Champlain had alienated the Haudenosaunee during military forays from Quebec. The area was the scene of much of the fighting in the French and Indian War, events which were depicted in the work of James Fenimore Cooper.

The region was strategically important in the American Revolution, and was the scene of several important battles, including the Battle of Saratoga, which is considered to have been a significant turning point in the war. While New York City remained in the hands of the British during most of the war, the upstate region was firmly in the hands of the Colonial forces. In 1779, the Sullivan Expedition, a military campaign ordered by Gen. George Washington, drove thousands of Iroquois from their lands in the region.

Following the American Revolution, the United States signed a federal treaty, the Treaty of Canandaigua, with the Six Nations of the Iroquois, affirming their land rights in what later became Central and Western New York. Nevertheless, extinguishing of Indian title to these lands via non-Federally-sanctioned treaties, such as the Treaty of Big Tree[6], continued through the early 19th century.

Many of the settlers of Central and Western New York came from the New England States. The Central New York Military Tract, where many of the townships were given the names of classical military and literary figures by Robert Harpur, was established to grant land to Revolutionary War veterans.

Battles with British were fought during the war of 1812 (1812-1815), on land, including the Battle of Plattsburgh, and in the Great Lakes (Ontario and Erie) and St. Lawrence shorelines, including the Battle of Sackets Harbor.

Both before and after the Revolution, boundary disputes with Massachusetts, Vermont and Great Britain, and subsequent surveying errors, complicated settlement. The Province of New York granted lands to settlers in what is now Vermont at the same time that New Hampshire made grants of the same lands. When Vermont declared independence in 1777, the new Republic of Vermont recognized the New Hampshire grants over those of New York. New Yorkers who lost land in Vermont came to be known as the "Vermont Sufferers" and were granted new lands in 1788 in the Town of Bainbridge, New York.

The dispute with Massachusetts over lands to the west of Massachusetts was settled in the 1786 Treaty of Hartford by dividing the rights to the land. Sovereignty was granted to the State of New York, but the "pre-emptive" right to seek title to the land from the Haudenosaunee was granted to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The eastern boundary of the Massachusetts lands was thus known as the Preemption Line. This line runs from the Pennsylvania line due north to Lake Ontario, passing through Seneca Lake. The line was surveyed a second time due to initial errors.

The border with Quebec was established as the 45th Parallel in the Treaty of Paris that ended the American Revolution. This line was surveyed and after the War of 1812, the US Government began to construct Fort Montgomery at Rouses Point on Lake Champlain. Subsequently it was discovered that at that point, the actual 45th parallel was three-quarters of a mile south of the surveyed line, putting the Fort, which became known as "Fort Blunder," in Canada. This was not resolved until 1842 with the Webster-Ashburton Treaty, in which it was decided to leave the border on the meandering line that had been surveyed.

Slavery existed in New Netherland and the Province of New York, and New York was in the 1690's the largest importer of slaves among the American colonies. Slavery did not end with the American Revolution, although John Jay introduced an emancipation bill in to the State Assembly as early as 1777. Sojourner Truth was held as a slave in the Hudson Valley from the time she was born in 1797 until she escaped in 1826. Through efforts of the New York Manumission Society and others, New York began to adopt a policy of gradual emancipation in 1799. The law passed in 1817 that would finally emancipate slaves did not take effect for ten years, giving slaveowners an entire decade to sell their slaves away to other states. When the law finally took effect, the last 2,800 slaves in New York State were emancipated on July 4, 1827.

By 1825, the Erie Canal opened, allowing the area to become an important component of the 19th century industrial expansion in the United States. This also promoted trade with British North America and settlement of newer states in western territories. Later in the century the New York Central Railroad followed the "water-level route" from New York City to the Great Lakes, contributing to the industrialization of cities along its route.

Upstate New York served as a staging area and refuge for Canadian rebels against Great Britain, as well as Irish-American invaders of Canada, straining British-American relations. In 1837 and 1838, in the aftermath of the Lower Canada Rebellion, some Quebecois rebels escaped south to the the North Country, while on the Niagara Frontier, events of the Upper Canada Rebellion, also known as the Patriot War, took place. In the late 1860s, some of the Fenian Raids were launched across the Niagara Frontier; Fenians also assembled in Malone.

Although now largely discredited, the report of the 1905-1907 Mills Commission, charged with investigating the origins of baseball, named Cooperstown as the place where baseball was invented in the 1830s or 1840s by Abner Doubleday. Cooperstown is the home of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.

In the pre-Civil War era, upstate New York became a major center of radical abolitionist activity and was an important nexus of the Underground Railroad. Resistance to the Fugitive Slave Act was particularly heated in the region, punctuated by such events as the Jerry Rescue. The American women's rights movement was also born in upstate New York at this time; the first women's rights convention was held at Seneca Falls in 1848.

Through the mid and late 19th century, Upstate New York became a hotbed of religious revivialism with myriads of sects establishing themselves during that time, such as the Oneida Community. Because of the comparative isolation of the region, many of the sects were non-conformist and had numerous difficulties with other local population as well as government authority because of their non-traditional tenets. This led to evangelist Charles Grandison Finney to coin the term the "Burned-Over District" for the region. The region is considered to be the cradle of Mormonism, as well as the Women's Suffrage movement. It was important historically in the Shaker movement. The Mormons, Seventh-day Adventists and Spiritualists are the only 21st century survivors of the hundreds of sects created during this time.

In the 19th century, extractive industries changed the landscape. Potash was manufactured as the land was cleared for farming. Iron was mined in the Adirondacks and the North Country. By the 1870s, business leaders, concerned about the effect of deforestation on the water supply necessary to the Erie Canal, advocated for the creation of forest preserves in the Adirondacks and the Catskills. The Adirondack Park and Catskill Park were created and strengthened by a series of legislation between 1885 and 1894, when the "Forever Wild" provision of the New York State Constitution was added.

During the era immediately following World War II Upstate reached what was probably its peak influence in the national economy. Major local corporations such as IBM, General Electric, Kodak, Xerox and Carrier produced cutting edge products for business, government and consumers. The opening of the New York State Thruway in the mid 1950s gave the region superior access to other eastern markets. This regional advantage faded as many local firms relocated operations to other states, or downsized in the face of foreign competition, similar to other areas in the American Rust Belt.

In recent decades, with the decline of manufacturing, the area has generally suffered a net population loss. In contrast, many Amish and Mennonite families are recent arrivals to the area. Beginning in 1974, many Mennonite families moved to the Penn Yan area of Yates County from Lancaster County, PA, seeking cheaper farmland. Recently-established Amish communities are in St. Lawrence, Montgomery, Chautaugua and Cattaraugus couties.

Five of the six Iroquois nations have filed land claims against New York State (or have sought settlement of pending claims), based on late 18th-century treaties with the State of New York and the United States.

[edit] Social, Political and Religious Movements

• Abolitionism
• Anti-Masonic Party
• Ararat, City of Refuge
• The Chautauqua Institution
• Kanatsiohareke[7]
• Ganienkeh Territory[8]
• Lily Dale
• The Millerites
• Modern Spiritualism
• The Oneida Community
• the Second Great Awakening
• The Shakers
• Women's Suffrage

[edit] Religious and Spiritual Figures

• Charles Grandison Finney
• George Washington Gale
• Handsome Lake
• Mother Ann Lee
• Oren Lyons
• William Miller (preacher)
• Mordecai Manuel Noah
• John Humphrey Noyes
• Joseph Smith
• Kateri Tekakwitha

[edit] The Arts

[edit] Literary Figures and Places

• Diana Abu-Jaber, memoirist of her Central New York childhood who has set two of her novels there.
• Chinua Achebe, the Nigerian writer, is a resident of Annandale-on-Hudson and has taught at Bard College since 1990.
• John Ashbery, poet laureate of New York state from 2001 to 2003. Born on a farm near Lake Ontario, he is a resident of Hudson
• Russell Banks, several of whose novels are set in Northern New York, who has served as New York State Author
• L. Frank Baum, author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz; resident of Chittenango
• T. Coraghessan Boyle, who grew up in the Hudson Valley and who attended college in the North Country, which he describes as the "frozen skullcap of New York State"
• Frederick Busch, who taught at Colgate University and whose characters are often Downstate New Yorkers transplanted upstate
• Raymond Carver, who taught at Syracuse University
• Lucille Clifton, poet, born in Depew. Though African-American, she grew up speaking Polish as well as English in the neighborhood.
• James Fenimore Cooper
• Robert White Creeley, professor of poetry at the State University of New York at Buffalo, and New York State Poet from 1989 to 1991
• Frederick Exley, from the Watertown area
• Tess Gallagher, who taught at Syracuse University
• John Gardner, Batavia native and SUNY Binghamton professor
• Tim Green, who grew up in Liverpool and who was a student at Syracuse University of Raymond Carver and Tobias Wolff
• Washington Irving
• Mary Jemison, the "White Woman of the Genesee," whose story was told in J. E. Seaver's classic captivity narrative "Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison" (1824; latest ed. 1967)
• William J. Kennedy, the Bard of Albany
• James Howard Kunstler, resident of Saratoga Springs
• Alison Lurie, resident of Ithaca
• Bill McKibben, longtime resident of the Keene Valley in the Adirondacks
• Herman Melville, resident of Albany and graduate of the Lansingburgh Academy, who began writing his first novels in Lansingburgh
• Lorrie Moore, whose novel "Who Will Run The Frog Hospital?" is set in the Lake George area
• Howard Frank Mosher, usually associated with the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, but who grew up in Cato and who has written about the North Country[[9]]
• William Henry Harrison Murray, known as "Adirondack Murray"
• Vladimir Nabokov, resident of Ithaca
• Joyce Carol Oates, born in Lockport
• Camille Anna Paglia, born in Endicott
• David Pietrusza of Amsterdam
• Daniel Pinkwater, resident of the Hudson Valley
• Richard Russo, from Johnstown and Gloversville, whose early novels are set in the Mohawk Valley
• Edna St. Vincent Millay, resident of Austerlitz
• Delmore Schwartz, poet, Syracuse University professor and mentor to Lou Reed
• Julia Spencer-Fleming, native of Plattsburgh and resident of Argyle and Liverpool, whose books are set in the Adirondacks
• Trevanian, born in Granville
• Mark Twain, resident of Elmira and Buffalo
• Kurt Vonnegut, who began his literary career in Schenectady while working for General Electric in the early 1950s, and who set some of his novels in "Ilium," a fictionalized Schenectady
• Edmund Wilson, summer resident of Talcottville and author of "Upstate: Records and Recollections of Northern New York." New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1971; reprint, Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1990 and "Apologies to the Iroquois." New York: Farrar, Straus & Cudahy, 1960; reprint, paper, Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1992
• Tobias Wolff, who taught at Syracuse University
• Yaddo

[edit] The Music Scene

• Harold Arlen, native of Buffalo, composer of popular song including "Over the Rainbow"
• Blotto, a New Wave band from Albany
• Joe Bonamassa, born in Utica
• Brand New Sin, a hard rock band from Syracuse
• The Burns Sisters of Ithaca
• Cannibal Corpse, a death metal band originally from Buffalo
• Elizabeth Cotten, resident of Syracuse
• Chuck Cuminale of Rochester, aka Colorblind James of The Colorblind James Experience
• Ani DiFranco of Buffalo
• Ronnie James Dio, raised in Cortland
• Donna The Buffalo of Trumansburg
• Ray Evans, songwriter and native of Salamanca
• Finger Lakes GrassRoots Festival of Music and Dance
• Renée Fleming, soprano, who grew up in Rochester, studied at the Crane School of Music at the State University of New York at Potsdam, the University of Rochester's Eastman School of Music and Juilliard.
• The Great Blue Heron Music Festival of Sherman
• The Horse Flies of Trumansburg
• Son House, resident of Rochester
• Rick James, born in Buffalo
• Caffe Lena of Saratoga Springs, the oldest continuously-operating coffee house in North America[10], founded by Lena Spencer
• the song "Low Bridge, Everybody Down", also known as "Fifteen Years on the Erie Canal" or "Fifteen Miles on the Erie Canal", by Thomas S. Allen
• Chuck Mangione of Rochester
• Gap Mangione of Rochester
• Natalie Merchant of Jamestown
• Mitch Miller, born in Rochester, a graduate of the Eastman School of Music
• Chancellor Olcott, songwriter of "My Wild Irish Rose" and "When Irish Eyes are Smiling"
• Old Crow Medicine Show, originally formed around Trumansburg and Ithaca
• Pete Seeger, protest singer and environmental activist. Longtime resident of Fishkill, he co-founded the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater organization
• Joanne Shenandoah of the Oneida Nation
• Kim Simmonds of the British blues band Savoy Brown, now a resident of Oswego
• Spyro Gyra of Buffalo
• 10,000 Maniacs of Jamestown
• Alice Tully, opera singer and philanthropist, born in Corning[11]
• Jimmy Van Heusen, songwriter, native of Syracuse, 1944 winner of an Academy Award for Best Original Song for "Swinging on a Star"
• Jerry Jeff Walker, born in Oneonta
• Alec Wilder, native of Rochester, composer
• Thomasina Winslow, born New Baltimore, resident of the Albany area
• Tom Winslow of New Baltimore
• Woodstock Music Festival
• See also the musicians of the Woodstock area

[edit] Artists and Artistic Movements

• Milton Avery, born in Altmar, buried in Woodstock
• Byrdcliffe Colony
• Frederic Church
• Thomas Cole
• Sanford Robinson Gifford
• The Hudson River School
• Diane Janowski, Elmira artist and filmmaker[12]
• Rockwell Kent
• Robert Mangold
• Grandma Moses
• Georgia O'Keeffe, resident of Lake George
• Frederick Remington
• Alfred Stieglitz, resident of Lake George
• William James Stillman
• Seneca Ray Stoddard

[edit] Cartoonists

• Brad Anderson of Marmaduke, lives in Chautauqua County
• Johnny Hart (of B.C. and The Wizard of Id), from Endicott
• Margaret Shulock of Six Chix, resides in Franklinville
• Tom Toles, Washington Post editorial cartoonist, from Buffalo
• Garry Trudeau of Doonesbury, raised in Saranac Lake

[edit] Architects and Architecture

• Adirondack Architecture, the Great Camp style
• Daniel Burnham, Chicago architect born in Henderson
• Cobblestone Masonry [13][14]
• William L. Coulter, Adirondack architect
• Andrew Jackson Downing
• William West Durant
• Harvey Ellis[15]
• Irving Gill, San Diego architect born in Tully
• Philip Hooker
• Octagon houses, a mid-nineteenth-century fad. Extant examples can be seen in Syracuse, Camillus, and Canandaigua
• Olana
• James Renwick, Jr., born in Bloomingdale in Essex County
• Joseph Lyman Silsbee, Syracuse architect who upon relocating to Chicago gave Frank Lloyd Wright his first drafting job
• Ward Wellington Ward

[edit] Artisans

• Benjamin A. Muncil, Adirondack master builder

[edit] Design

• the Adirondack Chair
• the Adirondack guideboat
• the American Arts and Crafts or American Craftsman Movement
• Elbert Hubbard, founder of the Roycroft Community
• Adelaide Alsop Robineau, potter and editor of the ceramics publication Keramic Studio[16]
• Shaker Furniture
• Steuben Glass Works
• Gustav Stickley, Arts and Crafts furniture designer, architect and editor of The Craftsman magazine
• L & J.G. Stickley, furniture designers and manufacturers[17]

[edit] Show Business Types with Upstate New York Roots

• George Abbott, theater producer and director, playwright, screenwriter, and film director and producer whose career spanned more than seven decades
• Lucille Ball
• Tom Cruise
• William Devane
• Kirk Douglas
• Annette Funicello, born in Utica
• Richard Gere
• George 'Gabby' Hayes
• Mary-Margaret Humes
• Grace Jones
• David Hyde Pierce
• Rachael Ray
• John Sayles
• Rod Serling
• the Shubert Brothers
• Maureen Stapleton, born in Troy

[edit] Major museums

• Adirondack Museum, Blue Mountain Lake
• Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo
• Albany Institute of History and Art, Albany
• Antique Boat Museum, Clayton
• Corning Museum of Glass, Corning
• Chapman Historical Museum, Glens Falls
• Cuba Cheese Museum, Cuba
• George Eastman House, Rochester
• Erie Canal Museum, Syracuse
• Erie Canal Village, Rome
• Everson Museum, Syracuse
• Farmers' Museum, Cooperstown
• Genesee Country Village and Museum, Wheatland
• International Boxing Hall of Fame, Canastota
• Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Ithaca
• Hyde Collection, Glens Falls
• Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester
• Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute, Utica
• Museum at Bethel Woods, Bethel, exhibiting the history and culture of the 1969 Woodstock Festival
• National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, Cooperstown
• National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame, Saratoga Springs
• National Museum of Dance, Saratoga Springs
• National Soaring Museum, Elmira
• National Soccer Hall of Fame, Oneonta
• National Women's Hall of Fame, Seneca Falls
• New York State Military Museum, Saratoga Springs
• New York State Museum, Albany
• New York State Museum of Cheese, Rome
• Frederic Remington Art Museum, Ogdensburg
• Salt Museum, Liverpool
• Strong - National Museum of Play, Rochester

See also List of museums in New York

[edit] Educators and Librarians

• Melvil Dewey, born in Adams Center. Inventor of the Dewey Decimal System, founder of the New York State Library School, director of the New York State Library, secretary of the University of the State of New York.
• Andrew Dickson White
• Emma Willard

[edit] Inventors and Business Leaders

• Willard Bundy, the inventor of the time clock for recording employee working hours
• Willis Carrier, the inventor of air conditioning
• Ezra Cornell
• Erastus Corning
• Glenn Curtiss
• Abner Doubleday
• Frederick W. Eames of Watertown, inventor of a vacuum brake for railroad cars. His company was reorganized as the New York Air Brake company, which continues to operate.[18][19]
• George Eastman
• Dr. Konstantin Frank, viticulturalist
• Carl Frink of Clayton, an innovator in the snow plow manufacturing industry [20][21]
• Robert Fulton, whose steamboat the Clermont (steamboat) served the Hudson River between New York City and Albany
• Stephen Gordon, Plattsburgh native and founder of Restoration Hardware
• William Henry Gunlocke, [22] [23] furniture manufacturer
• Wilson Greatbatch, who advanced the development of the pacemaker
• Herman Hollerith, born in Buffalo, a statistician who developed a mechanical tabulator based on punched cards. His company was eventually merged into others to form IBM.
• Birdsill Holly
• the Houghton family of the Corning Glass Works
• John B. Jervis
• John D. Larkin of the Larkin Soap Company, who commissioned the Larkin Administration Building from Frank Lloyd Wright
• Edwin Albert Link
• David Maydole, blacksmith and inventor of adz-eye hammer construction method. He founded the Maydole Hammer Factory, once the largest hammer factory in the nation, in Norwich.
• William Henry Miner, railroad equipment manufacturer, philanthropist, founder of the Miner Institute at Heart's Delight Farm in Chazy
• Robert Moog, who invented the music synthesizer while a graduate student at Cornell University]. He founded his company Moog Music in Trumansburg.
• Edward John Noble, born in Gouverneur, founder of the Life Savers Candy Company and the American Broadcasting Corporation
• Robert C. Pruyn
• Eliphalet Remington, firearms and typewriter manufacturer. The Remington typewriter, later manufactured by Remington Rand, was the first typewriter to use the QWERTY keyboard layout
• Ben Serotta, builder of custom racing bicycle
• Isaac Singer, founder of the Singer Sewing Machine Company
• L. C. Smith, typewriter innovator and founder of the company that became Smith-Corona
• Charles Proteus Steinmetz
• Walter S. Taylor, founder of Bully Hill Vineyards
• Spencer Trask, Saratoga Springs venture capitalist and philanthropist, who backed Thomas Edison, rescued the New York Times and founded the artists' colony Yaddo
• Webster Wagner, an inventor of the railroad sleeping car and the parlor car. Born in Palatine Bridge, he founded the Webster Palace Car Company in Buffalo[24].
• Henry Wells, founder of American Express, Wells Fargo, and Wells College
• Samuel Wilson, namesake of Uncle Sam
• Frank Winfield Woolworth
• Benjamin Wright

[edit] Upstate New York Companies That Have Moved Manufacturing Away

• Bigelow-Sanford Carpets[25]
• Carrier Corporation
• R. E. Dietz Company
• Endicott Johnson Corporation
• Fisher-Price Toys
• Marsellus Casket[26]
• Mohawk Mills Carpets[27]
• Porter-Cable; see "Porter-Cable History." Delta | Porter-Cable. 8 Jan 2008
• Smith Corona
• White Mop Wringer[www.co.montgomery.ny.us/economicdevelopment/data/riversidedrive.pdf][28]

[edit] Inventions

• the Adirondack Chair
• the Brannock Device
• CorningWare
• the Dewey Decimal System
• the Flight Simulator
• Jell-O
• Little Trees, the pine-tree-shaped air freshener for cars[29]
• the punch card and the key punch
• the roll of film
• the time recording clock and the time card

[edit] Manufactures

• Adirondack baseball bats, made in Dolgeville
• the Grumman aluminum canoe [30][31], built in Marathon, an innovative use of the material and an example of post-World War II conversion of aircraft-industry resources to peacetime use
• Carousels, built in North Tonawanda by the Allan Herschell Company and others in the same city[32]
• Locomotives, built in Schenectady by the American Locomotive Company
• the Penn Yan boat[33]
• Sailplanes, made by Schweizer Aircraft in Horseheads
• the Wurlitzer organ and jukebox, made in North Tonawanda

[edit] Scientists and Physicians

• William Martin Beauchamp, ethnologist and clergyman
• Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, abolitionist, women's rights activist, and the first female doctor in the United States, studied medicine at Geneva College.
• Dr. George Franklin Grant. Born in Oswego, he was the first African American professor at Harvard. He was also a Boston dentist, and the inventor of the golf tee.
• Prof. Joseph Henry, scientist who advanced the understanding of electricity, and who served as the first Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution.
• Lewis Henry Morgan of Aurora and Rochester, ethnologist, anthropologist, writer and attorney. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels relied on his accounts of the evolution of indigenous peoples to fill in their own account of the development of capitalist society.
• Roger Tory Peterson, naturalist, ornithologist, writer and educator, born in Jamestown.
• Prof. Carl Sagan
• Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, geographer, geologist, and ethnologist, born in Guilderland.
• Dr. Edward Livingston Trudeau, who established the Adirondack Cottage Sanitorium at Saranac Lake for treatment of tuberculosis.
• Charles Doolittle Walcott, paleontologist
• Dr. Mary Edwards Walker, feminist, abolitionist, prohibitionist, alleged spy, prisoner of war, surgeon, and the only woman to receive the Medal of Honor.

[edit] Legends and Hoaxes

• The Cardiff Giant
• Champ (legend), the Loch Ness Monster of Lake Champlain
• The Fox sisters

[edit] The Environment

[edit] Superfund Sites

(for a comprehensive list see [34])

• the Hudson River, contaminated with PCBs at Hudson Falls and Fort Edward
• Love Canal
• Onondaga Lake

[edit] Extinctions

• the Labrador Duck

[edit] Invasive Species

• The Lamprey
• The zebra mussel

[edit] Political Figures

• Susan B. Anthony
• Joseph Brant
• John Brown (abolitionist), Adirondack farmer
• Grover Cleveland
• Verplanck Colvin, advocate for the establishment of the Adirondack Forest Preserve
• Roscoe Conkling
• Cornplanter
• Deganawida
• Frederick Douglass
• Calvin Fairbank, an abolitionist minister who spent more than 17 years in prison for his anti-slavery activities.
• Millard Fillmore
• Barry Freed, aka Abbie Hoffman, of the Save the River environmental campaign to preserve the St. Lawrence River
• Matilda Electa Joslyn Gage of Fayetteville, suffragist, Native American activist, abolitionist, freethinker, prolific author, who was "born with a hatred of oppression" and who was the mother-in-law of L.Frank Baum.
• Henry Highland Garnet, abolitionist and orator
• B. Thomas Golisano
• John Hall, member of Congress representing the Catskills and the Hudson Valley, former member of the band Orleans
• Hiawatha
• Charles Evans Hughes
• Mary Jemison
• Guy Johnson
• Laurence A. Johnson, anti-communist
• Sir William Johnson
• Rev. Samuel Kirkland
• Robert Lansing
• Roger Allen LaPorte, Vietnam War protester
• Robert Livingston (1746-1813)
• Belva Ann Bennett Lockwood, attorney, politician, author, and feminist, the first female lawyer to argue a case before the U.S. Supreme Court.
• Gouverneur Morris, St. Lawrence County landowner
• Lucretia Mott
• General Ely S. Parker
• Red Jacket
• John G. Roberts
• Eleanor Roosevelt
• Franklin Roosevelt
• Elihu Root
• Margaret Sanger, birth control activist, native of Corning
• William Seward
• James Schoolcraft Sherman
• Gerrit Smith
• Elizabeth Cady Stanton
• Sojourner Truth
• Harriet Tubman, resident of Auburn
• Martin Van Buren
• Martha Coffin Wright

[edit] Downstate Political Figures with a profound influence on Upstate New York

• Governor DeWitt Clinton, largely responsible for the construction of the Erie Canal.
• Robert Moses, chairman of the New York State Power Commission, responsible for building hydro-electric dams on the Niagara River and St. Lawrence River.

[edit] Journalists

• Samuel Hopkins Adams, muckraker
• Amy Dickinson, Chicago Tribune advice columnist, who grew up on a dairy farm in Freeville
• Verlyn Klinkenborg, member of the New York Times editorial board; writer and farmer
• Dorothy Thompson
• John Zogby, pollster and blogger

[edit] Subregions

• Adirondack Mountains
• Capital District (Albany and the surrounding area)
• Catskill Mountains
• Central-Leatherstocking Region (Includes Binghamton and Cooperstown)
• Central New York (Syracuse and the surrounding area)
• Finger Lakes (between Rochester and Syracuse)
• The Holland Purchase
• Hudson Valley (except Rockland County and Westchester County, though in general increasingly part of the New York metro area culturally)
• Mohawk Valley (includes Utica and Schenectady)
• North Country (extreme Northern frontier of New York, north of the Adirondacks, often refers to itself as the "true" upstate)
• Shawangunk Ridge
• Ski country (the northern boundary of the Southern Tier, includes Cortland, Clymer and Ellicottville
• Southern Tier (just north of Pennsylvania, excluding the Catskills; includes Binghamton, Corning and Elmira)
• Western New York (the westernmost tip; includes Buffalo, Niagara Falls, Jamestown, and sometimes Rochester)

[edit] Major highways

• Interstate 81
• Interstate 84
• Interstate 86
• Interstate 87 (Adirondack Northway)
• Interstate 88
• Interstate 90

[edit] Major cities

• Albany (the state capital)
• Auburn
• Binghamton
• Buffalo (the most populous city in Upstate New York)
• Cortland
• Elmira
• Glens Falls
• Ithaca
• Jamestown
• Kingston
• Middletown
• Newburgh
• Niagara Falls
• Plattsburgh
• Poughkeepsie
• Rochester (The second most populous city in Upstate New York)
• Rome
• Saratoga Springs
• Schenectady
• Syracuse
• Troy
• Utica
• Watertown

[edit] Major universities and colleges

• Public
  • State University of New York (SUNY)
    • SUNY Alfred
    • SUNY Albany
    • SUNY Binghamton
    • SUNY Brockport
    • SUNY Buffalo
    • SUNY Cobleskill
    • SUNY Cortland
    • Empire State College
    • SUNY ESF
    • SUNY Fredonia
    • SUNY Geneseo
    • SUNY Institute of Technology in Utica/Rome
    • SUNY Maritime
    • SUNY New Paltz
    • SUNY Oneonta
    • SUNY Oswego
    • SUNY Plattsburgh
    • SUNY Potsdam
  • United States Military Academy at West Point
• Private
  • Alfred University
  • Canisius College
  • Clarkson University
  • The College of Saint Rose
  • Colgate University
  • Cornell University
  • Elmira College
  • Hamilton College
  • Hartwick College
  • Hobart and William Smith Colleges
  • Houghton College
  • Ithaca College
  • Keuka College
  • Le Moyne College
  • Marist College
  • Mount Saint Mary College
  • Nazareth College
  • Niagara University
  • Paul Smith's College
  • Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
  • Roberts Wesleyan College
  • University of Rochester
  • Rochester Institute of Technology
  • Russell Sage College
  • St. Bonaventure University
  • St John Fisher College
  • St. Lawrence University
  • Skidmore College
  • Siena College
  • Syracuse University
  • Union College
  • Utica College
  • Vassar College
  • Wells College

[edit] Major tourist attractions and destinations

• Adirondack Mountains
• Ausable Chasm
• Baseball Hall of Fame (in Cooperstown)
• Black River (in Watertown)
• Catskill Mountains
• Corning Museum of Glass
• Darien Lake
• Erie Canal
• Farmers' Museum (in Cooperstown)
• Finger Lakes
• Fort Niagara
• Fort Ontario
• Fort Ticonderoga
• Fort Stanwix
• The Great Escape & Splashwater Kingdom
• Howe Caverns
• Mid to Upper Hudson Valley
• International Boxing Hall of Fame (in Canastota)
• Lake Champlain
• Lake George
• Lake Placid, NY
• Letchworth State Park
• Niagara Falls
• Saratoga Race Course
• Seabreeze Amusement Park
• Soccer Hall of Fame (in Oneonta)
• Sylvan Beach
• Syracuse
• Thousand Islands
• Turning Stone Resort & Casino (in Verona)

[edit] Historic Events

• Hurricane Agnes
• the first execution via the electric chair, in Auburn Prison in 1890
• the Jerry Rescue
• the assassination of William McKinley (1843-1901), 25th President of the United States, followed by his Vice-President Teddy Roosevelt's return from an Adirondack hunting trip for his swearing-in as McKinley's successor. Anarchist Leon Czolgosz, McKinley's assassin, was subsequently electrocuted in Auburn Prison.
• the Northeast Blackout of 1965
• the Northeast Blackout of 2003
• The 1848 Seneca Falls Convention, the first women's rights convention held in the United States
• The Battle of Saratoga, turning point of the revolution.

[edit] Emigrants

• George T. Anthony
• Josiah Failing
• Bret Harte
• Grove L. Johnson
• Mabel Dodge Luhan
• Dr. Marcus Whitman
• Narcissa Whitman

[edit] Athletes and Athletic Events

• Billy Backus, boxer from Canastota
• Carmen Basilio, boxer from Canastota
• Funny Cide, the first New York-bred horse to win the Kentucky Derby
• Tim Green
• The "Miracle on Ice"
• The 1932 Winter Olympics and the 1980 Winter Olympics, both held at Lake Placid

[edit] Tragedies

• the Angola Horror train wreck, 1867[35]
• the B-47 crash in the Adirondacks, 1962[36]
• the Cherry Valley massacre, 1778
• the 1971 disappearance of eight-year-old Douglas Legg from the Santanoni Preserve, his family's camp in the Adirondacks[37]
• the Elmira Prison Camp, 1861-1865
• the Split Rock Explosion, 1918
• the Sullivan Campaign, 1779

[edit] Crimes and Criminals

• Attica Prison riots
• Robert Garrow
• Chester Gillette
• Timothy McVeigh
• Ralph "Bucky" Phillips

[edit] See also

• New York City secession

[edit] References

• Eisenstadt, Peter (Ed.) The Encyclopedia of New York State. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2005. ISBN 0-8156-0808-X
• Beauchamp, William M. Indian Names in New York. Fayetteville, NY: Recorder Office, 1893.

1. ^ Bureau of Labor Statistics data via Information Please
2. ^ A Better Choice For NY - A typical example of a union-backed organization that pushes for a more progressive tax scheme for funding health care and education spending.

[edit] External links

• A York State of Mind An essay by an Upstate site discussing the many conflicting definitions of the region.
• Jefferson County History with pictures and links Much info on the upstate NY Jefferson County and surrounding area.
• Old Abandoned Buildings of Northern NY The urban decay of upstate NY, in pictures from the area.
• THE12534 Blog about Hudson, NY 12534 and Columbia County, NY with many local links.
• Online Travel Guide to Upstate New York[38]
• New York History Net[39]