We know that Albany was in on some great technological breakthroughs – Joseph Henry’s discovery of electrical induction and creation of the first telegraph signal, John Wesley Hyatt’s invention of one of the earliest plastics. Turns out, we were on the map for one of the early experiments in what was then called the…

The wide-ranging autobiography of William Henry Johnson is filled with reminders of how much and how little has changed since its publication in 1900. In the “Finale,” John T. Chapman, manager of the Leonard Publishing Company’s publications, relates the story of two young men of color who stepped into Johnson’s well-respected Maiden Lane barber…

If someone from another culture were to come here today, on this President’s Day holiday, and try to guess what it is we’re celebrating, there’s no doubt he or she would probably guess that we’re honoring our two greatest mattress and auto salesmen of all time. Or perhaps furniture. But there is no chance,…

Yesterday we introduced the man who may have been Albany’s foremost citizen of the abolitionist era, Dr. William Henry Johnson, “an aggressive and intrepid advocate of the rights of his race and the maintenance of the supremacy of our glorious United States. The “Doctor” before his name was purely an honorific, though one that may…

Ages ago I promised to try to tell the story of William Henry Johnson, one of the most remarkable and yet neglected figures in all of Albany’s history, but it became one of those tasks that keeps getting put off because of its sheer enormity. Where do you begin with someone, the first chapter…

Again from the Albany Institute of History and Art collection, evidence of our city’s attempted redemption from its history of slavery. On January 5, 1863, a mass convention was held in celebration of the Emancipation Proclamation. Frederick Douglass, a frequent visitor to Albany, would be present. Could this be the Hamilton Street church that…