Every instrument tells a migration story. The Appalachian mountain dulcimer — sweet-voiced, lap-held, distinctly American — traces its roots across the Atlantic to the Scottish hummel, the Norwegian langeleik, the German scheitholt, and the French épinette des Vosges. The Scotch-Irish and German immigrants who carried these instruments to the New World in the eighteenth and […]

For generations, Ulster County's cement industry drew workers and families from across the country and around the world, transforming the Mid-Hudson Valley through migration, labor, and community-building. The ruins it left behind aren't just industrial archaeology — they are the physical residue of lives lived, communities formed, and an economy that boomed, busted, and disappeared. […]

For roughly forty years, IBM shaped the rhythm of life in Ulster County — drawing people in from across the country and around the world, and eventually sending them away again. But the IBM story isn't just an economic one. Every person who arrived brought with them their own perspectives, interests, and cultural lives, and […]