USA, APR 04 - SEP 27, 2009
This exhibition will explore the world from which Henry Hudson came, the world that he discovered and the world he helped create.
Museum of the City of New York
1220 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10029
Tel: 212.534.1672
Amsterdam/New Amsterdam: The Worlds of Henry Hudson, presented in collaboration with the New Netherland Project in Albany and the National Maritime Museum Amsterdam/Nederlands Scheepvaartmuseum in Amsterdam, will employ rare 16th- and 17th-century objects, images, and documents from major American and Dutch collections to bring the transatlantic world to life and reveal how Henry Hudson's epic third voyage of exploration planted the seeds of a modern society that took root and flourished in the New World.
Focusing on the economic, cultural, and ideological connections that ultimately linked two global cities, Amsterdam and New York, Amsterdam/New Amsterdam will illuminate not only the global significance of Hudson's voyage, but also the creative context out of which the exploration and settlement of New York itself arose, highlighting the Dutch role in creating the very character of New York as a place of opportunity, tolerance, and perpetual transformation.
In 1609, Henry Hudson, an Englishman sailing for the Dutch East India Company, made the first exploration of what is now New York Harbor and of the majestic river that today bears his name, laying the foundation for the Dutch claim on the area. His voyage of discovery led to the creation of the Dutch West India Company and ultimately to the founding of New Netherland, including its trading post at the mouth of the river - New Amsterdam.
The exhibition will invite visitors to consider the voyages of Hudson in the context of the Dutch role in the Age of Exploration, and as the first link between the Dutch civilization and culture of the Old World and that of the colony that they would soon build in the New. The multicultural, dynamic colony that grew up there was profoundly shaped by its Dutch origins, which continued to influence its development even after the Dutch ceded the young colony to the British in 1664.
USA, APR 11, 2009
Charles T. Gehring and Jaap Jacobs about myths, memories and discoveries of New York's origins.
Charles Th. Gehring, Ph.D., Director of the New Netherland Project in Albany, has spent 30 years translating 17th-century documents to uncover the Dutch origins of New York. Jaap Jacobs, Ph.D., co-curator of Amsterdam/New Amsterdam: The Worlds of Henry Hudson, is one of the scholars who has built on Gehring's work to rewrite the history of New Netherland.
Making New Netherland History: A Conversation with Charles Gehring and Jaap Jacobs. Join these two experts in New York history for a conversation about myths, memories, and discoveries of New York's origins, what made New Netherland unique, and why knowledge of these origins is important for New York and New Yorkers today.
For more information please call 212.534.1672, ext. 3395.
Museum of the City of New York
Amsterdam/New Amsterdam: The Worlds of Henry Hudson
Apr 4 through Sep 27
Amsterdam/New Amsterdam: The Worlds of Henry Hudson, presented in collaboration with the New Netherland Project, Albany, and the National Maritime Museum Amsterdam/Nederlands Scheepvaartmuseum Amsterdam, will employ rare 16th– and 17th–century objects, images, and documents from major American and Dutch collections to bring the transatlantic world to life and reveal how Henry Hudson’s epic third voyage of exploration planted the seeds of a modern society that took root and flourished in the New World.
Focusing on the economic, cultural, and ideological connections that ultimately linked two global cities, Amsterdam and New York, Amsterdam/New Amsterdamwill illuminate not only the global significance of Hudson’s voyage, but also the creative context out of which the exploration and settlement of New York itself arose, highlighting the Dutch role in creating the very character of New York as a place of opportunity, tolerance, and perpetual transformation.
In 1609, Henry Hudson, an Englishman sailing for the Dutch East India Company, made the first exploration of what is now New York Harbor and of the majestic river that today bears his name, laying the foundation for the Dutch claim on the area. His voyage of discovery led to the creation of the Dutch West India Company and ultimately to the founding of New Netherland, including its trading post at the mouth of the river — New Amsterdam.
The exhibition will invite visitors to consider the voyages of Hudson in the context of the Dutch role in the Age of Exploration, and as the first link between the Dutch civilization and culture of the Old World and that of the colony that they would soon build in the New. The multicultural, dynamic colony that grew up there was profoundly shaped by its Dutch origins, which continued to influence its development even after the Dutch ceded the young colony to the British in 1664.
Visitors will discover:
- how scientific advances in the 13th and 14th centuries laid the groundwork for exploration and trade that characterized the 15th and 16th centuries, and how the political events in Europe led to the emergence of the Dutch Republic and its rise to empire;
- the forces that made the Dutch Republic a source of liberal attitudes toward diversity at a time when religious and ideological differences were tearing apart much of Europe;
- the important role of Dutch enterprise and commercial growth in stimulating discovery and invention in this dynamic age, focusing on joint–stock trading companies like the Dutch East India Company and Dutch West India Company, which played a key role in Amsterdam’s rise to power;
- how New Amsterdam drew its physical, cultural, and political character from its mother city;
- the struggles of the new colony and the complex relationship between the Company and the people of New Amsterdam, including Native Americans, African slaves and freed people, and Europeans of many national and religious origins;
- the process by which the settlers in New Amsterdam transformed the politics, culture, and economy of the colony to re–invent their lives in the New World;
- the struggle for toleration by religious minorities such as Quakers and Jews, and the ultimate triumph of the Dutch model of inclusion;
- the many Dutch influences, from the built environment to religious and cultural tolerance, that continue to distinguish New York City today.
Amsterdam/New Amsterdam: The Worlds of Henry Hudson is made possible in part with support from the Consulate-General of the Netherlands in New York as part of its NY400 Celebrations (www.ny400.org).
Mannahatta/Manhattan
All images courtesy Wildlife Conservation Society
Click to see the full image
Mannahatta/Manhattan: A Natural History of New York City
May 20 through Oct 13
When Henry Hudson and a small crew of Dutch and English sailors rode the flood tide up a great estuarine river on the North American continent on September 12, 1609, they were looking for a passage to Oriental riches. Instead, they found something much more valuable. Mannahatta's natural wealth—the old growth forests, stately wetlands, rolling hills, abundant wildlife, people who lived in tune with nature—was prodigious and deep. The local people called the island "Mannahatta," which may have meant "island of many hills." It would later be known as Manhattan and would become as densely filled with people and avenues as it once teemed with trees and streams.
Mannahatta/Manhattan: A Natural History of New York City will reveal the island of Mannahatta at the time of Henry Hudson's arrival—a fresh, green new world at the moment of discovery. Through cutting edge multi-media and historical artifacts and maps, Mannahatta/Manhattan will re-imagine the quiet, wooded island at the mouth of a great river that was destined to become one of the greatest cities on Earth. Moreover, Mannahatta/Manhattan will challenge visitors to view the city of today as a place where the relationship between nature and people is at its most important and to understand that the principles of diversity, interdependence, and interrelativity operate in a modern mega-city much as they do in nature. In doing so, the exhibition will contribute something new to the history of New York—a view of its ecological origin—and in that contribution, shape the future as well.
Mannahatta/Manhattan: A Natural History of New York City is presented in collaboration with the Wildlife Conservation Society. For more information about the Mannahatta Project, visit www.wcs.org/mannahatta.
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The Mannahatta Project
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Background
On a hot, fair day, the 12th of September, 1609, Henry Hudson and a small crew of Dutch and English sailors rode the flood tide up a great estuarine river past a long, wooded island at 40° 48’ latitude on the North American continent. At the time, Hudson noted the land was “as pleasant as one need tread upon,” and his first mate, Robert Juet, wrote that the land was “as pleasant with Grasse and Flowers, and goodly Trees, as ever they had seene, and very sweet smells came from them.” Subsequent European visitors over the next decade found the island “a convenient place abounding with grass” and “a land excellent and agreeable, full of noble forest trees and grape vines.” This island was called Mannahatta by the Lenni Lenape people who lived there, or “land of many hills.” It would later become known as Manhattan Island and would become as densely filled with people and avenues as it was once with trees and streams.
The aim of the Mannahatta Project is to reconstruct the ecology of Manhattan when Henry Hudson first sailed by in 1609 and compare it to what we know of the island today. The Mannahatta Project will help us to understand, down to the level of one city block, where in Manhattan streams once flowed or where American Chestnuts may have grown, where black bears once marked territories, and where the Lenape fished and hunted. Most history books dispense of the pre-European history of New York in only a few pages. However, with new methods in geographic analysis and the help of a remarkable 18th-century map, we will discover a new aspect of New York culture, the environmental foundation of the city.
The Human Aspect
Understanding what Mannahatta must have been like requires an understanding not only of the geological and ecological processes that occurred here, but also the way that humans used the land. At the time of Hudson’s arrival, the Lenape people cultivated squash, sunflowers, beans, and maize; hunted deer, wild turkey, fish, and shellfish; and gathered wild plants, nuts, and berries. They used controlled burning to prepare plots of land for cultivation in Harlem and Greenwich Village. Today’s New Yorkers use the landscape in a much different way, but have the same fundamental needs; finding ways to meet our needs while sustaining the natural processes on which we depend is the most important question of the 21st century.
