New York State Museum
DURHAM PROJECT

Announcement from Philip Lord, Jr.:

  We are offering six unpaid internships in the Durham project this summer. The Durham Project is a database development initiative that has been underway at the New York State Museum, at very low levels of staff time and resources, for a decade. It is a project that examines, in an interdisciplinary approach, the subject of inland navigation in New York in the Early Republic [1790 - 1820].

  The major westward transportation corridor serving the Northeast before the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825 was an inland navigation route that followed a network of natural waterways stretching from Albany to Oswego.

 This international passageway is the most historic transportation route in the northeastern United States and one which saw the ebb and flow of most of the major events of the Colonial and Early Republic periods - from exploration and war to settlement and commerce.

 This waterway corridor was the "Oregon Trail" of the 18th century, and the only international navigation system contained entirely within the boundaries of a single state. Along the margins of these waterways stand some of the most interesting historic sites in America, and some of the most outstanding intact natural and cultural environments remaining in New York State.

 The Durham Project was designed as a decade-long interdisciplinary research and education effort taking a bicentennial look back to the 1790s and this little known era of inland navigation in Upstate New York. It gathers documentary data and identifies surviving environmental features relevant to inland navigation 200 years ago, locates and interprets the archeological remains of the works of the Western Inland Lock Navigation Company (1792-1820), and disseminates this information through publications and public programs.

 It is a goal of this project to promote more widespread awareness of the significance of this era, during its bicentennial period, and to foster interest in the preservation of archeological remains and historic environments that are the surviving legacy of this unique age of Upstate transportation.

 The data developed as part of this project, particularly the historic and archeological areas identified by State Museum research on the inland navigation system, represents a cultural database for preservation and development planning on the one hand, and a resource for educational programs in historical geography relevant to classroom applications on the other.

 A major component of the data collection and development for this project has come from the dedicated efforts of university interns. We have openings this coming summer for as many as six. Interns can  work at the New York State Museum, Albany, New York, with direct access to the State Library and State Archives. They will develop skills in combining documentary evidence contained in texts and historic maps, with remote sensing data contained in collections of stereo air photographs dating from the 1930s, confirmed by field survey evidence. Fieldwork is optional, but field trips to sites relating to their work will be available. Funding is not provided.

 To obtain more information, contact: Philip Lord, Jr., New York State Museum, Room CEC 3097, Empire State Plaza, Albany, NY 12230 TEL: (518) 486-2037  FAX: (518) 473-8496   E-mail: [log in to unmask]