What makes women property owners unusual at this time is that once they married, they could not buy, hold, or sell property under their own names. On their wedding day, by law, husbands automatically acquired all right and title to whatever land or fortunes women brought to the marriage.
Category Archives: local history
Use These Five Simple Tricks to Get Research Assistance
What we want to do here is help you, the person with local history, family, or house history questions, get help from libraries, archives, museums, historical organizations, government record offices, and genealogical societies.
Remembering City’s Martyr in Fight Against Klan
The Buffalo Klan members were not rural, undereducated whites with poor economic prospects. Here, the Klan’s 4,000 members were drawn mostly from the Protestant, educated, professional and merchant middle class.
Was the Michigan Street Baptist Church a Secret Hiding Place?
The professional historians who compiled the 2013 Historic Structures Report of the Michigan Street Baptist Church were unable to find any period evidence that the church served as a hiding place during Underground Railroad days.
How Come No One Has an Old Picture of My House?
Illustration of woman with camera courtesy of Pixabay Or maybe you’re looking for an old picture of your playground, corner tavern, or favorite neighborhood delicatessen. The first place to check is with your local library, museum, or historical society. Maybe it turns out that they have thousands of old pictures but they don’t have yourContinue reading “How Come No One Has an Old Picture of My House?”
Buffalo Takes on the Ku Klux Klan
On the evening on August 31, 1924, shots rang out in front of 128 Durham Street, near Delavan and Grider in Buffalo. Moments later, Special Officer Edward C. Obertean lay mortally wounded; Klansman Thomas Austin was dead; and a Ku Klux Klan recruiter, or Kleagle, had a gunshot wound in the groin. Armed warfare hadContinue reading “Buffalo Takes on the Ku Klux Klan”
Back Cover Blurb for City on the Edge
It is easy to dismiss Buffalo as the poster child of urban decrepitude and dysfunction. It is also wrong.
No, City Hall Has Not Lost Records in a Fire
Originally published at my LinkedIn page in December 2019, then reprinted by BuffaloRising.com with the title “Buffalo’s Newest Urban Legend” at both sites. Reproduced here with edits and updates. Image of Buffalo City Hall courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. The assertion first came to my attention in 2018 in the comment section at a popular BuffaloContinue reading “No, City Hall Has Not Lost Records in a Fire”
Build the Larkin Rowhouses
Originally published in Buffalo Spree, July-August 2006, p. 150 Most architecturally-aware Buffalonians know how the Darwin Martin-Frank Lloyd Wright friendship led to commissions for the now-demolished Larkin Administration building and homes for the top Larkin Company officers. Demolished portions of the Martin House complex are being rebuilt as the site undergoes a complete restoration. Martin alsoContinue reading “Build the Larkin Rowhouses”
Buffalo Hotels and the Niagara Movement: New Evidence Refutes an Old Legend
In 1905, W.E.B DuBois organized the first meeting of the Niagara Movement, a civil rights organization that eventually morphed into the NAACP. Instead of meeting in Buffalo, NY as originally intended, the group crossed the Niagara River and met in Fort Erie, Ontario, Canada.
