>> From WXXI News.

This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Our connection this hour was made on college campuses across this country.

Today, only 18% of four year colleges require a foundational course in U.S.. history or government, and that could help explain why American students are not performing all that well on history and civics compared to previous generations.

So what should we know about our own history?

With the country turning 250 years old?

Geneseo history professor Michael Oberg has launched a new project, or really is extended a previous project pairing college students with historians to study both New York state history and, in some ways, their local history and the meaning of American independence.

Can it work?

More ominously, what are the costs of a poorly educated society that doesn't have this kind of knowledge?

Here's how Dr.

Oberg describes some of what has already happened with this kind of work.

Quote.

We place students in local historians offices to work on projects connected to the 250th anniversary of American independence.

It is truly a unique program.

We provided well-paying fellowships to students from Geneseo, but also Canisius, Albany, Brooklyn College, Potsdam, New Paltz, Cornell, and Stony Brook.

We paid 71 students to return to their hometowns and perform work that was important to their communities, and that was, for some of them, a life changing experience.

Two of the students wrote books, end quote.

So let's talk about that.

What has already happened and what is going to be happening later this year.

Our guests include Dr.

Michael Oberg, distinguished professor in the Department of History at Suny Geneseo.

Welcome back to the program, sir.

>> Thanks for having me.

Evan.

>> Across the table from Michael is Beth Thomas, historian for the Town of Bristol.

Welcome.

Thanks for being here.

Thank you.

And you've already participated with a student on this project?

Yes, yes.

I'm really eager to talk to you about that.

Another participant is Liam DeBono, who's an undergraduate at Suny Geneseo and was a recipient of the 2024 Robert Gardiner Fellowship to do this kind of work.

Thanks for being with us.

>> Very nice to be here.

>> And welcome on the line to Myah LaFave, who's a recipient of the 2026 Robert Gardiner Fellowship.

Maya, welcome.

Thanks for being with us.

>> Thank you so much for having me.

>> So, Dr.

Oberg, let's start with you here.

what's happening in 2026 is kind of an extension of what happened in 2024.

Describe it for our listeners.

>> Well, with with we've developed a partnership between Suny Geneseo, Stony Brook University and Suny Potsdam, where we will send 30 students out.

We've already selected them to work in local historians offices across the state.

They'll work from roughly the end of May through the end of July, 150 hours on projects connected to a critical reflection of the 250th anniversary of American independence.

I think it's a great program.

One part of the.

Grant Evans.

I have to drive around and visit all 30 of the students and it is.

It is the most fun I have had.

It's a big.

Michael.

It is a big state and I get to see a lot of great stuff.

It's the most fun I've had as a historian, as a long time.

Students do great work.

The historians do great work.

I think it's really impactful.

It's just it's just a wonderful program.

We're really grateful.

The whole program, you abbreviate it a little bit.

It's called the Robert David Lion Gardiner Semiquincentennial Summer fellowship, which is a mouthful, and we're really grateful to the Gardiner Foundation of Long Island to support supporting this kind of work.

I think it really matters.

>> So when you do this work, do engage with your local historian and to learn things you never knew before.

I mean, Liam was joking before the program in his hometown now, which is Port Jefferson.

Yes.

Long Island, he knows the street names, have Connections to people.

He's going, oh, I get it now.

These street names are not just randomly chosen, but.

But when you really do start to understand more about the town or the village you grew up in, its connection to what might have been going on at the time.

And then you're thinking bigger picture about 250 years of America.

Why does it connect you?

Or why does beyond knowing why the street names exist, why do you become sort of a better citizen or a more educated citizen in that way?

>> Well, I think, as you mentioned in your introduction, historical illiteracy is is at at record heights.

It's a significant social problem for the country.

And it seems to me that that, you know, one thing we share with the Gardiner Foundation is the Gardiner Foundation recognizes that history is important, and the best way to engage people with history is to get them to look at the ground underneath their feet.

And I think the exciting thing about that, Evan, is that young people doing this work and just people in their town learn that their story matters and that in a way, they are themselves forces in history.

And I think that's the great part of this project.

It invests them in a story that they walk past and live in every single day.

>> Now, to that point about historical illiteracy and what the risks of it are, I hate to do this in Professor Oberg is going to kill me for this, but I don't know anybody that I've talked to in academia who has, I think, more sanguine, more upbeat about kids these days than Michael Oberg.

When we talk about the real problems of civic and historical illiteracy, Dr.

Oberg has never downplayed that.

But at the same time, you meet a lot of great kids who are really engaged in the world, and I am speaking for you, but you you strike me as someone who does not appreciate older generations sort of ripping on these.

The younger generations and making fun of them, or poking at their illiteracy.

You see a lot of great things happening.

You see a lot of engagement.

Is that fair?

>> Yes, absolutely.

Okay.

This this work gives me optimism.

>> Yeah.

And so there was a viral video this week that the New York Post put out.

They sent a reporter to ask college students, what are the biggest concerns that you have in the world today with everything going on now, you can question the location.

It was the beaches of Florida for spring break, and their video went viral.

Let's listen to what the New York Post put out.

>> What issue facing America is the most important to you?

Well.

>> Bikini I'm going to wear next.

Obesity is terrible.

Ice.

not personally.

I'm legal.

Getting a tan on the beach.

That's the most important thing in my life right now.

I'm thinking about Starbucks.

To be honest, I'm thinking about Starbucks.

What am I gonna get for today?

The elevators don't work.

You got 43 floors.

The elevators don't work.

>> What have you heard that Donald Trump has been doing recently?

>> Gulf of America?

That's the last thing I kept up with.

>> We're going to war with Iraq.

That's been crazy.

>> What do you do in Colombia?

You got Maduro out.

>> You must be happy.

>> I'm very happy.

>> Yeah.

Your total is dead.

>> I'm.

What?

Who?

>> What?

What is that?

Who is Ayatollah?

I have never heard that word in my life.

Louis, what's Ayatollah?

I haven't heard?

I found out about Chuck Norris yesterday.

That was more devastating to me.

>> He was a supreme leader of Iran.

>> He's dead.

Oh.

>> We killed him.

>> Oh, you did.

You killed him.

>> And the New York Post is lampooning these college students.

And maybe that's cherry picking.

Dr.

Oberg.

That video goes viral, and everybody thinks kids these days.

You think what?

>> Yeah.

The depth of my contempt for Jesse Watters just grows deeper and deeper.

And there's a great clip of Jesse Watters from a couple of years back.

>> He's a Fox News host.

>> He used to be Bill, Bill O'Reilly's sidekick before Bill O'Reilly got, got, got cashiered out, and Jesse Watters went and ask one of these kids and this kid goes, you know, Jesse, here's the real story.

And gave him a lecture.

And they they immediately.

>> And he was like, on the money.

>> Immediately cut.

>> It didn't fit the narrative.

>> Didn't fit the narrative.

And look, a lot of the way that history's taught is ways that look, if students aren't learning, that's a failure of the teachers, not the students.

So don't blame these kids for not knowing.

Let's engage them, engage them properly, engage them in important ways.

And the work that we're doing, Liam's done and Beth does that engages people.

And I'll give you one.

I'll give you one concrete example.

We had a student in 2024, and her job was to do an exhibit, just a simple exhibit in in the town hall of Victor.

More people are going to walk by that, that that glass case and look at that.

Then we'll read any article I published in a scholarly journal.

We'll read any term paper that a student like Liam does.

Probably read more than 90% of the books that historians write.

It will have a significant impact.

So yeah, those students at the beach, they that's not what we're talking about here.

And why?

>> Why do people love to lampoon them?

Why does this become this hobby horse?

>> Every spring?

I think it's just kicking down.

And my experience and I've been doing this.

Oh my God, 32 years I've been a college professor.

Thanks.

Now I'm now I'm kind of depressed, but 32 years of doing this.

And look, I've been talking to young people for a long time, and that's not what you see in the classroom.

You see students who are engaged, who want to learn more and, and, and once, once they get the hook in their mouth about what's going on, they're voracious.

>> One more question for you before I turn it over to the people who participated, because they've got great stories to share.

When you talk about learning local history, which is what this program does, and plants the seeds of understanding your hometown and its history, there's going to be times where that street name that you were, your school was on, or that you grew up on all of a sudden comes into clear view.

And it's not a pleasant story.

It's a story that or it's got a history that's kind of hard to digest.

And one of the, the most, I think, powerful changes in the last decade at the state level, at the federal level, is this push to say, we don't teach that part, we're going to insulate kids from that part.

What what is both the cost of not allowing kids to understand?

And they're not kids.

They're students.

They're young adults.

They're Americans.

What is the cost of not letting them understand some of that history?

And what is the value in helping them see the full picture?

>> Yeah.

So if I had a dollar for every time a student said to me, I never, they never taught us that in high school.

>> Wow.

>> Yeah.

And once you teach a college student that they've been lied to throughout their high school education, you've created a historian and a critical consumer of historical evidence.

And they go out and look and they dig up.

Concealing the past does nothing to help you understand the past.

And history majors.

And I should let Liam speak to this, right.

But history majors understand that things are complicated, that they're good and they're bad, and they all mix together.

And if you just want a hey, geographic hero story, you're not interested in history.

>> So Liam, let's talk about not only your own work in Port Jefferson before we get there.

A little bit about yourself here.

what led you to Dr.

Oberg classroom in the first place?

>> I mean, I just heard great stuff about him.

I love history, I, really found his classes interesting.

the one I took with him first was on Native American.

like civil rights and law.

And I found that incredibly interesting and challenging.

I mean, I definitely learned about, you know, some of it in my high school, but, you know, to the extent and the the blatant you know, its badness, I guess, of a lot of the actors in American history is very visible when you look at that.

>> Does that does learning about that aspect of our history, does that change the way you think of the country?

Does that make you feel any sense of shame?

What do you think?

>> I mean, incredibly so.

I mean, in the exact in specific example of Native American history, you can see this, you know, this repeated just, I guess, evilness, this, this act of not respecting not regarding Native Americans and not acting in a legal or moral sense.

You can see that as the foundation of a lot of American history and American land grabs.

And that completely, I think, fundamentally changed how we look at American history and discussions right now.

I mean, we see a lot of people in the current day talking about how it's important to always respect the law, always that the law is inherently right.

And then you look at Native American history and you see the amount of times state and federal governments have gone against the law for their own interests.

>> So there is a a lesson about the use of power and the idea that those who lecture their fellow citizens about backing law enforcement, always supporting the law, implying that only a scofflaw or someone worse would not ignores the fact that the power holders have shaped the law to do whatever they want.

>> essentially, yeah.

>> And you don't see that has fully changed.

>> I really, I think might makes right has been a pretty consistent factor in American history.

>> How does that make you a better citizen, do you think?

>> I feel like anyone who learns this stuff, it teaches you to always question, I guess, never to look at something on the face value, always kind of be a a critical, if not pessimistic thinker when it comes to what people, you know, with the might are saying.

>> Pessimistic is an interesting word.

Realistic, maybe.

>> I think realistic is better, but yeah, I guess realistic.

>> Okay.

and again, I have no desire to make any of this overtly political.

It need not be the modern forces, of course, make everything pretty political.

And some in political spaces would say they, they're worried that you're being taught to just hate this country and that citizens, especially kids who grow into adults, should be taught to be patriots.

What do you think?

>> I feel like, you know, it's the teacher's job to present the facts and, you know, make the person a critical thinker, the student a critical thinker.

And if the facts, as you know, openly presented as they are, lead that person into thinking maybe America is a morally gray country, or that our foundations are not as you know, righteous and justified as we originally thought to believe, then those are their conclusions.

I feel like it.

A teacher presents the facts, the students interpret them in.

If the student interprets that as, you know, we have to fundamentally look at our country differently than, you know, so be it.

I think that's a critical thinker.

>> Yeah.

Frankly, it's a critical thinking is in a way, patriotic.

Yeah.

If you want this country to be as good as the ideals it claims, right.

I mean, that's I mean, not to get sort of gauzy about it, Dr.

Oberg, but isn't it an act of patriotism to try to pull back the onion and fully understand our story?

Because the the ideals really are high minded.

I mean, the language is there.

1776 it was not the start of history, but there weren't a ton of models in the world.

There were some, but we were attempting to do something pretty special and we didn't really stick the landing perfectly.

But isn't an act of patriotism to try to understand that, to try to help us today?

>> I think it's important to ask questions constantly.

That's a it's a basic requirement of citizenship.

>> Yeah.

And so let me ask the historian in the room here.

This is not the student you worked with because you're from different towns.

But Beth Thomas, historian for the town of Bristol.

what do you want students to be learning?

I mean, are you comfortable with students learning all the different layers of this country?

You know, the high minded ideals, the the hypocrisy at times, the injustices.

>> Absolutely.

And what we're talking about with the critical thinking is the most important skill that any of these students can get out of this internship.

Yeah.

And it helps us at the same time, speaking as a retired high school English teacher.

Historian, I fell in love with my hometown and wanted to know more.

So I thought, okay, town Historian sounds like a really fun retirement gig, but I really need their skills, especially in terms of their technological skills, which will help all of us out.

>> Yeah, a couple points to kind of stress, which we've talked about with Dr.

Oberg before, but towns have to have historians by law, right?

>> New York is one of two states in the country that has a law requiring every municipality to have a historian.

>> I forgot there's only one other state.

>> Connecticut copied our law.

So that's that's that's but that's 1500 historians across the state.

Plus what, 100 more small local historical sites?

We have this infrastructure for history across the state.

That's truly incomparable.

And so let's get our students out there working with folks like Beth and telling these stories.

>> Literally your colleagues in Ohio or Wyoming.

I mean, they wouldn't have this resource.

>> Not to the extent that we do.

>> Yeah.

I mean, I'm sure there are some local.

>> Historians, right?

>> But not mandated by law, not everywhere you look.

That's a, that's an amazing thing.

and then the other point is, I mean, something that you and I have discussed before, before, but as we talked to Liam, as we get ready to talk to Maya, you have said, I think in a way that kind of made an impression on me.

Of course, the goal isn't to get every one of your students walking out of class thinking that we must do exactly the same thing, or thinking all the same things.

You want to fire their minds to make their own decisions on who we are and where we go.

Right?

>> Historians ask questions and answer them right?

We ask a question.

Then we dig like terriers for answers.

That's what we do.

Beth.

Beth is one of the best examples of this.

We just look for answers.

We don't do heroes.

We don't really do commemorations in the same way we do is we ask and answer questions.

And that's why it's a critical discipline.

We gather evidence, we read the evidence, and we follow that evidence to where, where, where it where it ends.

>> What is the what's the problem with heroes?

>> They're going to disappoint you, right?

It's our job to look at the bigger problem.

Heroes are a product of, of a huge social complex, right?

They rise up based on other people.

So it's, that's not really our job.

I would say that the historian's job is not necessarily to make you feel good about your past.

It's to confront you with the past, to ask big questions and answer those questions.

>> When I was a middle school student, I went to Washington, D.C.

with a school trip for the first time, and there's a picture of me.

I still have it, of standing at attention, looking at a statue of Thomas Jefferson with my hat over my heart because I was, at the time, I had this hagiographic view of history.

Not to say that I don't appreciate a lot of Thomas Jefferson, but the eighth grade version of me saw him as a cartoon, and the high school senior of me saw him very differently as a as a person, as a human being, a flawed human being, at times a brilliant human being.

But I wasn't getting a, you know, I'm kind of embarrassed at the eighth grade picture.

But that's that's a good example of how we're taught for a while.

You mentioned hagiography or caricature, and I don't know that I was all that well served by that.

>> No, I don't feel that way at all.

>> Heroes.

>> And for me, it was literally hagiography because I grew up in California with Father Sarah.

Jumper Sarah, who's now been canonized.

So it was quite literally hagiography.

>> So in a moment, we're going to get Maya's story here, but let's let's make sure we get Liam and Beth are going to tell you what they've already done for this.

Maya's project is going to be coming up, right?

>> Yeah.

Okay.

Maya will start with Beth and end of May, beginning of June.

>> Oh, awesome.

So, Liam, for you, you go back to your hometown.

This is 2024.

Yeah.

And from, you know, for a couple of months, you're working with a local historian who I'm sure you got to know pretty well.

>> Yes.

>> We have how much leeway did you have to decide what you were going to study with this person?

>> I mean I think a lot I mean, there are some days when he was I'd get to the office and he was like, all right, figure out what's, what's to organize.

We should look into.

Okay, what do you feel is important?

You know, and I'd spend hours at a little fold up desk or organizing newspapers from the 50s, photo negatives of CVS from town, memorials, anything and everything.

And I felt like I had a real, , I had a real independent, you know, a collaborative way of viewing history and working with history that I feel like, you know, programs like this can really only afford you.

>> What did you learn about where you grew up that surprised you?

>> I mean, a lot of stuff.

I feel like I mean, just how important Port Jefferson was.

I mean, I feel like every town, especially, you know, where we are located in the northeast.

I feel like that every town has a bit of local history that you never think about some important role.

It played 100, 200 years ago.

I mean, I remember working at the Culper Spy ring.

That's some spy ring during the Revolutionary War through Port Jeff.

And I remember like, whoa, never heard of this.

I never knew that, you, Port Jeff, had any specific historical role.

And it does.

I feel like every little town has that.

And I'm, you know, I'm thankful that New York and Connecticut have those laws in place for local historians.

>> do you feel differently when you go home now?

And you you have knowledge that you didn't have before?

Has that affected you?

>> I, you know, I think it does.

I mean, you know, I mentioned before the show, the.

>> The street names.

>> Street names.

Yeah, the street names and stuff.

But no, I mean, I see local history everywhere.

Like, I know, like every time you're driving down the road, you see one of those like copper signs.

Like I'm talking about some historical landmark.

I make sure to pull over and read those.

Now I feel like, you know we're living in history, like the place that you live.

The geographical place is full of history.

And I feel like the only way to really be engaged, you know, to open your eyes is local history.

Is people going in there and making those exhibits, having those parades, having those ways that normal people can just view and grasp history and then they become a critical thinker.

>> How many times over the course of that work in 2024, did you find yourself going?

I can't believe I didn't know this.

>> I think at least once a day.

It was crazy.

One day I was reading this newspaper from the 30s where, you know, cleaning and whatever, and it's a picture talking about P.T.

Barnum driving an elephant through Port Jeff.

And poor Jeff is a small, little a small little town right on the water.

It's streets like two way streets, and there's an elephant and a whole parade and everything.

And there's a, you know, a street name called Barnum on for now.

Yeah.

So.

And I'm like, it's crazy.

I know P.T.

Barnum and elephants through Port Jeff or their spy rings from the Revolutionary War or, you know, trading across the northeast from Port Jeff.

I mean, you know, my eyes are open now to that local history.

>> Are you more of a nerd about history in general, not just in your hometown now?

>> I mean, I think so, yeah.

>> I mean, I use nerd in the affectionate way.

Of course.

>> I took in the affectionate way.

I feel like.

Yeah, I mean, I, you know, those primary sources, those get your hands on, get your hands on the newspaper.

Get your hands on the diary on a crumpled, on parchment.

I feel like I've gained a new love for history.

Like a new, very practical and physical way of, you know, interpreting history.

>> So there's a limited our limited hours in any day or year for teachers in K through 12.

And a lot of American teachers are already busy teaching to the test.

Standardized tests have limited a lot of creativity and flexibility.

And then by the time you become a college student and you see Dr.

Oberg, you know, you've gone through a system where they certainly test you a lot.

>> Yeah.

>> But there's not as much room for teachers.

So I want to ask you this, knowing that right now there's a lot of constraints.

But in general, do you have ideas on what you'd like to see K through 12 do differently in terms of preparing students for the world or teaching history?

>> I think make it more hands on, more interactive.

I feel very lucky considering my very early history education.

I feel like if I had a worse history education in second grade, first grade, whatever, I would not be where I am today.

Just very hands on, very interesting.

I feel like history can be an interesting thing regardless if you're five, if you're 20, if you're 60, it should be a thing that people love.

And I feel like the only way that people become lifelong historians and interpreters is from at a very early age, getting a hands on history.

And that's what I feel like.

local history is the best way of getting it.

I feel like more people can relate to, you know, your local town and what it's done versus broad historical concepts.

>> How do you feel about that answer?

>> I think that's a fantastic answer.

I kind of got into this local thing.

My wife used to teach at 33, school 33, and there's that.

There used to be a baseball diamond there.

Babe Ruth hit a home run there a long time ago, and you tell folks that and the students first question is like, well, who the hell is Babe Ruth?

I hope not, but but then you've got this baseball stadium there.

And for this, this was the center of the sports world in the 19 for one day in 1920, what Babe Ruth was doing there.

I'm not quite clear on that, but he I've got the newspaper clipping right.

And it, it connects you to a place.

And I think that's, I think across the political divide, right, left people feel disconnected.

They feel that government is out of reach, that it doesn't serve their interests.

It doesn't understand what their lives are like.

It doesn't care about people like them.

it leaves lots of people feeling irrelevant and disconnected.

And when you start looking at your local community, your local store, all this interesting stuff about Bristol's history, right?

Or, or the, the, the fact that they're, they're running spies are crossing Long Island Sound from Port Jefferson to Connecticut during the revolution.

You learn your connection to these stories.

And you do realize that your story matters, your place matters.

And that in a sense, like like I said earlier, you are a force in history.

And I think that's an incredibly democratizing way to look at the past.

And it's a way that engages people in the past in ways that they're not often asked to be engaged.

>> One way I've been thinking about it lately is, so you take Port Jeff and you talk about the the spy history or so many towns, I think to Liam's really good point.

Have a connection to some really sort of turning point.

Key moments in American history.

Maybe it's the Revolutionary War, maybe it's other conflicts.

And just thinking about those moments is a good way to remind us that the, the relative notion of security and peace that we think we, we are sort of just do is not guaranteed that most of human history was pretty fraught.

And that if we are not careful, if we are not mindful that that could be the future and not just the past.

I mean, I don't mean to be sort of grandiose, grandiose about it, but it is so easy to get caught up in the day to day and just assume that this stasis is always going to be this the way of things.

And it wasn't that long ago that every town had a story connected to battles and loss and and I don't know, I mean, Dr.

Oberg, is this making any sense to you?

>> Yeah, absolutely.

I think that that those Connections to the past are important.

Right.

And I, I think everyone loves history, even if they don't know it yet.

even if they've been inoculated from history by their, by, by a bad teacher at an earlier point in their career, once they realize that they're connected to a story, then, then they're involved.

>> So when we come back here, we're going to talk to Beth and Maya about the work coming up here.

Beth Thomas, historian for the town of Bristol and Myah LaFave, is going to be doing the kind of work that Liam just talked about.

Liam DeBono did this work in 2024.

Myah LaFave is going to be doing it as a recipient of the 2026 Gardner Fellowship.

Dr.

Michael Oberg is with us this hour.

Distinguished professor in the Department of History at Suny Geneseo.

And a couple of years ago, this was an idea that he had needed some grant work and support to do it.

And he's been able to to build these partnerships around the state.

So now we've got dozens of students heading out and they're working with their local historians, studying their own past and history.

And we're talking about the impact of that, and we'll come right back and hear more of their stories.

>> I'm Racquel Stephen Friday on the next Connections.

We celebrate Women's History Month, and I'm highlighting two women in our community whose contributions may have gone unnoticed, but who I believe are making history as we speak.

Hani Ali and Brittany Rumph.

We will talk with both ladies about their historical achievements this Friday on Connections from WXXI.

>> Support for your public radio station comes from our members and from Bob Johnson Auto Group.

Believing an informed public makes for a stronger community.

Proud supporter of Connections with Evan Dawson focused on the news, issues and trends that shape the lives of listeners in the Rochester and Finger Lakes regions.

Bobjohnsonautogroup.com.

>> This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Hey Hal and Geneseo has been waiting to jump into the conversation.

Hello, Hal.

Go ahead.

>> Thank you, thank you.

I love your program, Mr.

Dawson.

>> And Mr.

Dawson, my dad.

But thank you.

>> Yeah, well, I'm trying to show respect.

As as I really appreciate your range of topics and your lively and thoughtful discussion.

So why am I calling?

Well, when I moved here three decades ago.

I had no idea that someone rather critical in early American history, early U.S.. history, was buried.

Just south of Kinesis Lake.

where, where I settled.

And then on 256, I discovered the grave of Captain Daniel Shea.

And then learning a little bit more that he had defended Bunker Hill near Boston during the American Revolution, amongst other battles.

In other words, he was quite the revolutionary patriot.

And then he moved on to Massachusetts, I guess where he resisted what was it?

tariffs.

heaven forbid that that we run our country on tariffs and and that was somewhat related to the so-called whiskey rebellion and that may have leveraged a premature constitutional movement to somehow incorporate slavery.

And I never knew this until I moved here.

Of course, Jefferson and Washington were famous slave owners then, but I think something like 14 American presidents owned slaves.

So this led to the biggest cataclysm yet.

and hopefully singular the American Civil War in part because the so in other words, his local connection to history he, I would be curious if the Geneseo historian or any of those students had looked into such a key figure that really may have precipitated a premature constitutional convention.

>> Captain Daniel Shea yep.

>> Daniel Shays.

>> Okay.

>> Shays rebellion in 1786 in Western Massachusetts, one of the major precursors that demonstrated that government under the Articles of Confederation was struggling, right?

That the states were struggling to provide orderly government when when farmers in Western Massachusetts decided, we're not going to pay the taxes and they start shutting down the courts to prevent bankruptcies.

And Daniel Shays, like a lot of Massachusetts settlers and a lot of veterans of the revolution, ended up in our part of the state and even moving farther west.

Lots of veterans were paid with land, and that allowed them.

And for that reason, we have Revolutionary War dead buried in cemeteries across central and Western New York.

>> Land that we may or may not have had to give to them.

>> It was it was a way to look New York largely funded its government on sale of Indian land, which had acquired cheap.

It paid its debts to soldiers.

That way.

It allowed New York, in a way to become the Empire State.

So Daniel Shays story, how's how's points?

A great one is an incredibly important story, tying into this bigger story about how New York was settled, that this guy from Massachusetts ends up in Danville or South Danville.

That's really important.

I had.

>> I had no idea the local connection, Shays Rebellion, sure.

But when I saw, oh, he wants to talk about Captain Daniel Shea, I'm going, no, I don't know that name.

I did know that name.

Thank you for reminding me of the local tie there.

So good stuff, I appreciate that.

I want to talk to Maya LaFave.

who's going to be part of the group of 30 students.

Is that right?

Dr.?

>> 30.

Yep.

30 a year.

>> 30 students who are going to be heading out.

And if you're just joining us here doctor Oberg at Suny Geneseo is working with students not just from Suny Geneseo, from a number of places across the state.

>> 15 from Stony Brook, ten from Geneseo, five from Potsdam.

>> Okay.

And they head out from roughly May to July.

They work with a local historian, and they come back, hopefully with a chance to to maybe tell the world a little bit more about their work and maybe a better, stronger citizen themselves.

And Myah LaFave.

tell us a little about yourself.

Where are you from?

>> Yeah.

Hi.

I'm Maya, I'm from Stockbridge Valley, which is in Central New York, near Utica.

I'm a junior here at Suny Geneseo, and my major is history adolescent education.

So I get kind of the best of both worlds.

I do the education classes and I do the history classes.

>> And what is your plan for this particular work?

>> Yeah, well, I'm since I'm not from the Bristol Geneseo area originally, I'm really going to be learning right there live as I'm working with Beth.

we're still fleshing out kind of the specific projects that I'll be working on and the different options I'll have to pursue.

but I know now I'll be helping with some different, like interactive community based festivals, some online cataloging work.

but really, since I'm not from the area and I don't know much about the history as much as I would from where I'm from, I'm really excited just to like learn from the artifacts, right themselves.

>> So Beth, how are you going to work with Maya and what do you hope she gains from this?

>> We've only met virtually, so I can't wait to meet her.

>> In person.

>> First thing I'm going to do is give her a big hug so she doesn't have any idea what she's getting into, because our collection is in the attic of the Bristol Town Hall, which is a former Grange building.

And when we're talking dusty old records, that's exactly what they are.

So Michael told me that Maya is an excellent writer, and I'm hoping to put those skills to work so that we can make this more accessible, specifically at our upcoming what we're naming the 250th Freedom Festival on June 13th and 14th in our town park.

And it's a consortium of five different towns that are all getting together on the Saturday the 13th, we're going to have a bunch of colonial activities.

Our headline speaker is Native American Speaker Perry Ground.

Who's going to talk about how the Haudenosaunee constitution affected ours.

we have a member of the Naples Historical Society going to lead a program with the children making corn husk dolls.

We have another woman who's going to be doing colonial games.

We have some Revolutionary War re-enactors camping out for the whole weekend.

We're going to have a blacksmith shoeing a horse.

We're going to have sheep and oxen, and it'll be a really interesting long weekend.

>> June 13th and 14th.

>> Yes.

And Maya is going to be involved with our Bristol Hills Historical Society booth.

We're going to set up a couple of different displays so she will be able to decide exactly what portion of that she wants to work on.

>> Maya, what is it about?

thinking about your past in this country?

This country's past?

What interests you the most?

What's most fascinating or something that you want to dig more on?

>> Yeah, well, my mom is actually a history teacher as well.

So I was raised with history all around me all the time from when I was very little up until now.

It's always been a huge part of my life.

And I think what she really ingrained in me is just my love for people within the history, not necessarily just like the valiant stories of heroes or like the really sad stories of tragedies.

I think I really enjoy learning about the people involved and the individual stories involved, and the characters that you might not hear about a lot that kind of fall into the background or kind of their narratives are kind of lost, but they really did play such an essential role in shaping what we have today.

Even though we may not think of their role as being that big.

>> And so Beth Thomas as a historian for the town of Bristol, you were an English teacher.

You know, Maya comes from a history teacher's family for you.

How do we get more people who want to become historians, who want to end up doing what you're doing?

Because every town in the States got one.

>> That's right.

come visit, join a historical society would be my very first recommendation and attend some of our programs.

It's very accessible.

I think it's extremely special that we have this in New York State.

We even have two public historian programs to help us learn more about our job.

So I'm part of the program Association of Public Historians of New York State.

And a greater Western New York historians program.

So they have conferences where we learn more about our job, but you go to your town hall, ask to meet with your historian, and they would be thrilled to show you what they have, help get you involved, teach you whatever you want to learn.

>> You know, Beth, I was tempted to make a snide remark about these historical societies.

Like what?

Do you have some rocking parties?

But it turns out.

Liam, what.

>> Is.

>> So Liam goes back to Port Jefferson in 2024, and you're just days into this.

What's the story?

>> I'm day three.

we were having the very fun Long Island historical soiree in an old costume shop from the 20s in Port Jefferson and the entire day, me and my the town historian, Christopher Ryan were going to stop and shop.

We're picking up bags of ice and salami and cheese and little crackers and stuff, and I mean, we're having, you know, some academic conference on the specific Port Jefferson history.

I think focus on graves, whatever.

>> And yeah, they had me playing the piano.

So it's me.

>> You're a piano player?

>> Yeah, I am, it's a it's always a fun time.

And.

Yeah, it's me and the piano.

Then 30 Long Island historians from Stony Brook and from the surrounding areas, just having a community.

I guess.

>> That's what an awesome story.

All right.

Now Maya knows what she's in for.

Now let me ask a couple other points here, though, before I get back to Michael.

There's something that Beth brought up here that I want to hit.

Dr.

Oberg on before the hour is over.

But generally speaking, I would like to hear from our guests about something that I think about a lot, which is that when you think about the physically tangible nature of our history and how brittle it is, the value of historical societies, just to preserve it, to be a place where, whether it's epistolary collections or whether it's physical objects sometimes people find, you know, an old Susan B Anthony letter or a Seward letter and, you know, in their attic, but they've got to go somewhere.

And we are not, you know, we are a society now where we are not thinking often about how do we preserve things?

Mostly.

We're like, hey, are my Facebook pictures going to stay there forever?

It's very different.

And I can't imagine states that don't have historians, Beth, because we've got to have a place for our history.

And every year that passes, some of the more, you know, brittle nature of these things, we're more at risk of losing them.

So can you just describe, you know, do you have some cool stuff?

Yeah.

>> Yeah.

>> Yes we do.

Yeah.

And boy, this is a perfectly.

>> There's a lot of weight on the historian's office to preserve.

>> Yes.

And the Rochester Regional Library Council is helping us.

We have a program right now where we are digitizing these precious old documents, specifically focusing on the women of Bristol.

So I'm hoping that Maya can help me on that, too.

And we've spent since last October digitizing these records, which will then be uploaded to their site.

And then, of course, storing them afterwards is a huge concern.

We were talking about this before we came upstairs.

That moment when you hold on to one of those early letters is magical, and I hope that everybody can have that experience.

At the same time, we need to make sure that they're preserved in archival boxes and everything else, which are expensive.

But.

>> Micah, do you want to add to that?

I mean, just the challenge and the importance.

>> I would I would want to emphasize that most town historians in the state of New York are volunteers, or they operate on very small stipends with very small budgets.

So this work is being done by people who are in it for the love of the game.

And I think the one thing about our program is thanks to the Gardiner Foundation, thanks to our partners at Stony Brook University, we're able to pay the students, right.

There's there's unpaid internships are a dime a dozen.

But to actually pay students in history to do history work is really rare.

It's so important to preserve this stuff.

The Rochester Historical Society, where I'm a volunteer, I'm a vice vice president.

We have we have Susan B Anthony clothing.

We have we have a lock of Frederick Douglass's hair.

We have these incredibly these things that get you incredibly close to history and not to mention all sorts of documents.

And I think that these records are so precious.

They're so valuable and they're so fragile and so efforts.

We've had many students over the years of this program do work on digitizing documents or preserving things.

And I think that it's it's going to be the challenge of our time is, is preserving the past, not only the old stuff, but the new stuff too, right?

What about all the emails you send in this building here?

Where do they go?

>> I don't know where they go.

>> Yeah, and not to mention the president's emails or things like that.

Right.

That's a whole other that's a whole other kettle of fish.

But but how do we preserve those documents?

And I think that that's that's these are immensely important questions.

>> let me grab another phone call.

This is Ingrid in Penfield.

Hi, Ingrid.

Go ahead.

>> Hi.

I'm sorry that I missed most of the program, so I'm sorry if this isn't out of line comment.

I came in right at the end where you were talking about Civil War reenactors.

I wanted to say my mom was a she was a part of a pilot program back in the 60s teaching social studies and English.

And we were always taken on educational vacations in the summer.

And they were always to battle sites.

And I never enjoyed that.

And it took me a long time to realize that I'm not really interested in history from the viewpoint of war, and especially now, as I've had plenty of time to think about it.

I really wish we would stop the glorification of war.

It is a bizarre practice when you really dig down deep, and it's also patriarchy driven.

And I just want to say, let's learn.

I understand that you were talking about Susan B Anthony and other things that we can learn about history.

But I think the glorification of war in all its forms should.

It's high time that we got over that.

Thanks.

>> Yeah.

Ingrid.

Thank you.

So a couple things.

I'm coming up on April 2nd.

We're going to have a conversation on Connections about the nonviolence movement in a very violent time in this world.

But in general, I mean, I certainly take the point.

And Dr.

Oberg, my sense is that you can teach battles, you can teach war and history without glorifying it.

Or, or you can absolutely glorify it and make it a video game.

>> Yeah.

We don't glorify the war.

And I think where, where, where.

Liam.

Liam was working on the north shore of Long Island, right?

What the revolution was, was a thing where every single person got a knock on the door.

Whose side are you on?

Or are you.

Are you a Tory or a rebel?

And to get to the point Maya raised earlier about these individual stories, that's what makes the revolution compelling and how these people are brought into these conflicts.

Now, no one, no one, no one serious in history is glorifying war.

But they do have to understand the effects of it and the consequences of it.

And without without war, look, man, the Declaration of Independence would have just been a just a document.

It wouldn't have mattered.

And it was the military struggle on Long Island or through the Finger Lakes in 1779 that made that revolution what it was.

>> So to the the point about the knock on the door PBS of course, aired the Revolutionary War series from Ken Burns and Ken Burns wanted to impress upon American viewers that this was also a civil war.

And this really split communities.

He also took some heat.

And this is what I wanted to ask you about.

He took some heat from mostly conservative critics because he talked about the Haudenosaunee form of government and what we learned from comments from people like Ben Franklin and others.

and the conservative critics were like, oh, just another, another woke documentary that won't that has to praise natives and can't give credit to the Europeans when if you actually watch the many part series, I mean, this was a very small part of it.

Right at the beginning.

It did acknowledge, though, that part of history.

So why do we still get hung up in this?

Like what's, what's the dynamic that you see there?

>> You know, we have a president who's issued executive orders that make it that have proscribed the teaching of anything that makes a white student feel uncomfortable.

And it's just a fact that if you own land in this state downstream a ways, you are the beneficiary of a systematic program of indigenous dispossession that at times in places violated the laws of the United States.

That's just black and white.

It's in the documents.

It doesn't reflect on you poorly, but it does ask it does force you to answer some uncomfortable questions like, what are we going to do about it?

Right?

What are we going to do about the fact this country didn't follow its own rules for taking indigenous land?

And that's a whole other show in a sense.

But it's I think that that there is a lot of.

White supremacy when it comes to the teaching.

People who are Non-historians feel that history should preserve white supremacy.

And we see a lot of that today.

Unfortunately, especially coming out of the executive orders with the White House.

And it's not what we do as historians.

I think I again, I'd come back to Maya's answer.

We're interested in human beings.

We're interested in people and how people react.

We're interested in the study of continuity and change across time and space.

That's what we look at.

>> Maya, as a student, have you ever felt like the historical education you got at any level threatened your sense of what it meant to be an American or was, you know, sort of a had a negative imprint on you as an American.

>> That's a very very good, very complex question.

I would have to say I've always thought of the American identity as in the context of America as the melting pot of the rest of the world.

And that in essence, the American identity is just a mix of everything else.

And that is that it's in itself is the beauty of America is that you can have so many identities and so many cultures from so many different places come together.

And that's what makes it American.

I'm like I said, I was raised in a very passionate household about history and I never really thought of any lessons I was taught as going against what I thought of my idea as what it was to be an American, because I think all history from all parts of the world is important when it comes to learning about the context of the world we live in now.

and I, I have not ever felt that anything that I believed to be like very importantly, this is what it means to be an American.

This is what it means for me to be an American.

I don't think anything like that was challenged because to me, America is just a conglomeration of everything.

And that's how we should think of it.

>> Okay.

Well, before we close here, let me just get Charlie's email.

He's a retired teacher.

He says, Evan William King beat Jackie Robinson by a year, integrating the NBL right here in Rochester.

Then Earl Lloyd was the first African American in the NBA playing for the Royals in 1950.

My Rochester students would go wild learning this as it happened right at Jefferson Park.

You got to make history come alive.

That's from Charlie.

Good stuff there.

>> Right on Charlie.

>> That is that is on the money.

and Carolyn Pittsford got to keep it tight.

Go ahead.

Carol.

>> No, I just wanted to tell people if they are interested in this.

Many of the towns have groups of citizens, groups of residents who are researching local events like we just described.

they do walking tours of the area.

In the case of historic Brighton, they have a website with all kinds of articles and photographs and so on.

And best of all, the board of Historic Brighton has a high school student as a member of the board, and she came to us because of a history teacher that inspired her.

So for people interested in this, there's a lot that they can participate in.

>> So thank you Carol.

anything you want to add, Michael, about getting people to participate, getting people more involved?

>> No, I think Carol's point is a great one.

Your town has a historian and there's probably a local historical society as well.

What Beth has in Bristol is amazing to look at.

I mean, it's just such cool stuff.

I have learned so much from from these local historians.

It's just amazing what people have across these towns.

It's just a wonderful way to study the past.

Go visit your local historian's office or your local historical society.

>> Beth, thank you for what you do.

I'm so glad there are people doing what you are doing in towns across the state.

we are all better for it.

I'm sure it's not easy work.

It's not making you rich.

You said it's fun.

>> It's just fun.

>> I'm glad it's still fun.

I'll close Charles rights to different.

We had Charlie.

This is Charles.

He says he's with the Rochester the Flower City Warriors veterans hockey team.

He says we're ordering third jerseys and the inside of the collar will feature the words Rochester Racehorses, the nickname of the 140th New York Infantry during the Civil War took a lot of searching to find something like that, but it was worth it.

Bits of history everywhere.

And.

But you gotta you gotta be willing to go down and dig and find it here.

Liam DeBono.

What are you doing next with your life?

How are things going, man?

>> It's going pretty well.

doing a lot of, you know, history stuff.

Going to Greece next semester for research.

>> But not Greece, New York.

>> Not Greece.

No.

Oh, the Greece, Greece.

Yeah.

That that'd be the two local history.

>> Yes it would.

Well, good luck to you.

Thanks for sharing your insight.

And I really, really, really appreciate the stories from Port Jeff and everything you've been sharing with us here.

Thanks for coming in.

>> Of course.

Fun time.

>> And I want to thank student Myah LaFave.

Good luck to you this spring and summer, Maya, and sometime come back.

Tell us about your experience.

We appreciate having you.

>> Thank you.

I'd love to.

>> And Beth Thomas historian for the town of Bristol, speaking for a lot of historians across the state, you got a lot of great colleagues.

Thanks for doing what you do.

Thank you.

And Dr.

Michael Oberg, distinguished professor in the Department of History at Suny Geneseo, keep us abreast of this.

I know you always do.

We love talking about it.

Thanks for being here.

>> Yep.

You got it.

>> and from all of us at Connections, thanks for finding us on whatever platform you're finding us on YouTube, radio, terrestrial radio, podcast, whatever form.

We're glad to be with you.

And we're back with you tomorrow on member supported public media.

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