Bethlehem Historical Association
Previous Programs
March 20, 2024, Michael Lucas: Life After Emancipation - Slavery to Freedom: Learn how Black families in the Bethlehem and Albany area transitioned from slavery to freedom following the Abolition of slavery in New York in 1827.
February 21, 2024, Mike Engle: History of Diners in New York: Through his research Mike Engle has become a diner historian and local eatery aficionado.
November 15, 2023 John Wexler: Land Between Waterfalls: Documenting Five Centuries of Indigenous Land Use in the Town of Bethlehem.
October 18, 2023 Jill Knapp: Upstate New York Tenant Farmers’ Rebellion. An over-view of the Anti-Rent war in Rensselaer and Albany counties, and the incident in which Deputy Sheriff Griggs of Rensselaer was killed in 1869.
Sept. 20, 2023 Stewart W. Lehman: The Stereoscope, a Gilded Age “Virtual Reality” Experience. In the 19th Century the new art of photography changed how people viewed the world.
2023 - 2024 Speaker Series
Presented in Partnership with the Bethlehem Public Library
BHA is now collaborating with the Bethlehem Public Library to sponsoring our Speaker Series Program. All take place on from 7:00 to 8:45 p.m. in the library’s large Community Room. Registration is recommended as there is a capacity limit.
Call the library at 518-439-9314 or register using this website Bethlehem.LibraryCalendar.com
The programs will also be announced in the library's Footnotes newsletter every 2 months.
The programs are open to the public.
Click here for pictures of previous programs
Upcoming Programs
April 17, 2024, Robb Haberman: Writing in the Service of His Country: The Revolutionary War Memoir of James Selkirk
Haberman will discuss the manuscript memoir alongside a local patriot association, a regimental orderly book, and Selkirk’s own discharge papers. In doing so, he will show how these varied primary sources illuminate the political affiliations, wartime duties and post-war hardships of Selkirk, and how they also shed light on the collective experiences of enlisted soldiers who served in the New York Line during the Revolutionary conflict.
Haberman is currently editing the Revolutionary War manuscript memoir of James Selkirk in collaboration with Susan Leath and the Selkirk family. A Scottish immigrant, Selkirk served six-and-a-half years as a sergeant in the Continental Army and settled in Bethlehem following the conflict. Seeking to produce a scholarly edition of Selkirk’s memoir, Haberman has received fellowships to research Selkirk’s life from the American Philosophical Society and the American Revolution Institute of the Society of the Cincinnati.
TIME: Presentation begins at 7 pm.
PLACE: Bethlehem Public Library, 451 Delaware Avenue, Delmar
Free and open to the public.
Registration is needed for seating purposes.
Click here to register
OR call
Call 518-439-9314