Chasing the Moon, Part II Henry Draper in Civil War uniform. He served as an army surgeon in 1862. In the last post we described how John William Draper took the first photographs of the moon. His son, Henry, was also a physician and an avid amateur photographer. In 1857 […]

Chasing the Moon, Part I 2009 is the 400th anniversary of Galileo’s use of the telescope to study the stars, and it has been declared an “International Year of Astronomy” by the International Astronomical Union and UNESCO. In honor of this initiative, we have dedicated part of our new exhibition […]

2009 is a year of anniversaries, and we want to celebrate every one of them. It is the 400th anniversary of Galileo’s use of a telescope to study the stars, and in honor of this event we are putting the finishing touches on a display entitled “Milestones in Astronomy: The […]

Souvenir button from the Hudson-Fulton Celebration of 1909 To kick off the 2009 Hudson-Fulton-Champlain Quadricentennial celebration, the Historical Society and the Hastings Public Library recently co-sponsored a concert of 17th century lute music and a slide lecture by Roger Panetta. Roger is a professor of history at Fordham University, as […]

Yes, we’ve had to take down our latest exhibition “School Days, School Days: A Historic View.” But now we get to do what all graduates do – reminisce. One of the highlights of this history of the Hastings public school system was Julius R. Chemka’s letter sweater. Julie, class of […]