Upstate New York Totally Explained

Everything about Upstate New York totally explained

Upstate New York is the region of New York State north of the core of the New York metropolitan area. It has a population of 7,121,911 out of New York State's total 18,976,457. Were it an independent state, it would be ranked 13th by population.

Definition

   There is no clear or official boundary between Upstate New York and Downstate New York, but the term "Upstate" is sometimes used to refer to the whole of the state besides New York City, Long Island and the lower Hudson Valley (Westchester County and Rockland County).
   Another common perception of the Upstate/Downstate boundary locates it at the point at which New York's suburbs segue into its exurbs. This line would place most, but not all, of Westchester and Rockland counties south of the boundary, putting the northwestern edge of Rockland as well as the northernmost quarter of Westchester (such as Peekskill) in Upstate New York. This definition of Upstate New York corresponds to the orange, yellow, and green areas on the map above.
   A more nuanced view would suggest the boundary lies further north. Because most New York City bedroom communities in Dutchess and Orange counties are situated in the southern part of those counties and the city's suburban public transportation system extends some distance north, the Upstate/Downstate boundary can be defined roughly by a border extended from Wassaic (where Metro-North's Harlem Line ends) across to Poughkeepsie, down to Newburgh and then across to Middletown and Port Jervis. This definition of Upstate New York corresponds to the yellow and green areas on the map above and roughly corresponds with the area north of Interstate 84. This imaginary line also demarcates the northernmost reach of high housing prices associated with the Downstate region in contrast to the relatively low housing costs found further Upstate.
   One factor complicating this issue is the fact that many communities clearly beyond the New York City commuter orbit are part of the City's media market, which includes Dutchess, Ulster and Sullivan counties, and thus don't get local television (via cable) from Albany or Binghamton TV stations. (External Link

) For some, the term Upstate evokes sentiments of rural lifestyles and traditional values contrary to those of New York City. In the New York metropolitan area, usage of the term "Upstate New York" typically implies unfamiliarity with (and often condescension towards) the area that the speaker is denoting as such. It denotes areas that are both somewhat north of and considerably more rural than the home location of the speaker. Usage of the term is often taken to be an insulting manifestation of the famous New Yorker magazine's view of the world.
New York City is dependent on upstate for a variety of services; it's the source of the city's water supply via the Delaware Aqueduct and the Catskill Aqueduct; much of the city's electric power supply comes from state owned hydroelectric plants at Niagara Falls and the St. Lawrence River such as the Robert Moses power station; and most of the state's prisons are upstate; hence the popular term "being sent up the river" (however, the term originally referred to Sing Sing, which is "up the Hudson River" from New York City, but being in Ossining in Westchester County is still in the "downstate" region). Conversely, the operation of state facilities providing these services is an important part of the upstate economy.

Culture

The region is culturally and economically distinct from the New York City area, though the Hudson Valley counties of Putnam, Orange, Dutchess, Ulster, and even Albany are increasingly peripheral sections of the New York City metro area. The northern upstate area consists of a handful of small and medium-sized cities, with surrounding suburbs, amidst vast rural areas. Western New York has many cultural and economic ties to the other Great Lakes states as well as Southern Ontario, while the Capital District, the Hudson Valley, the Mohawk Valley and the Plattsburgh area have ties to New England (In fact, cultural leanings in the extreme northeastern portion of the state also cross the border so-to-speak with the presence of prominent French and Anglo Canadian ties - cultural, economic, and familial. Plattsburgh, for example, is an historically French town with closer ties to its neighbors in the Montreal and Vermont areas than to the rest of the state.). Some literary and cinematic depictions of upstate present a sense of small town, Midwestern lifetyles, such as It's a Wonderful Life, set in a small upstate town in the 1940s.
During the 1990s and the 2000s this area has suffered slow job growth (External Link

) and a rapid loss of young adults. (External Link

) It has been argued, however, that Upstate doesn't suffer from "brain drain" as much as it suffers from lack of "brain gain" (for example other areas of the country attract more educated persons than does Upstate.)
A common misconception is that the predominant ethnic group in upstate are WASPs. Actually residents of English ancestry are dominant in only a handful of rural counties. but still have a strong presence in the remaining counties.The Hudson Valley, the Capital District and the Syracuse region are heavily Irish American, while the North Country is heavily French Canadian. Italian Americans are the largest ethnic group in Oneida County, Broome County, Utica and Schenectady, while German ancestry is most common across western New York. Persons of Polish ancestry are predominant in Buffalo and its close suburbs. There is also a significant presence of indigenous Iroquois Native Americans in the area, who mostly congregate on several reservations: the Seneca nation and Tonawanda Band of Seneca Indians in Western New York, the Onondaga nation south of Syracuse, the Oneida nation of Oneida, and the Mohawk nation in St. Lawrence County.
   The only two major league professional sports teams in Upstate New York are the Buffalo Bills of the National Football League (NFL) and the Buffalo Sabres of the National Hockey League (NHL). As a result, the collegiate sports program at Syracuse University (Syracuse Orange) attracts significant regional attention, as do minor league baseball and hockey teams. Professional sports teams from New York City, northern New Jersey, and Boston all have followings in the Capital District, while some Western New York sports fans follow teams from Toronto. In Rochester several minor league teams play.
   Other Upstate New York minor league professional sports teams include the Syracuse Sky Chiefs of the Triple-A baseball International League, the Albany Patroons of the Continental Basketball Association; and the Auburn Doubledays, Oneonta Tigers, the Jamestown Jammers, the Tri-City ValleyCats and the Batavia Muckdogs of the Class A baseball New York - Penn League.
   In auto racing, Watkins Glen International Speedway is the only major race track in the area and hosts annual races in the Indy Racing League and NASCAR Sprint Cup. Holland Speedway in Holland hosts races in the Whelen All-American Series. In addition, numerous smaller speedways and dirt tracks exist in Little Valley, Freedom, Humphrey, Granby (serving the city of Fulton), Oswego, Lancaster, Ransomville and numerous other cities and towns.
   Two of the most important rock festivals of the 20th century were held in Upstate New York. In 1969 the Woodstock Festival was held in Bethel, New York, while in 1973 another multiday festival was held at the Watkins Glen International Raceway.
   Linguistically, from Western New York to as far east as Utica is part of the Inland North region of American English dialectology, a region which includes Midwestern cities as far west as Chicago and Milwaukee. The Hudson and lower Mohawk Valley has more in common dialectologically with western New England and New York City.(External Link

) The dialect of the St. Lawrence Valley has much in common with Canadian speech.
The boundary between the use of the words pop and soda to refer to soft drinks, however, falls further west than the edge of the Inland North, running just to the east of the city of Rochester: Buffalo and Rochester use pop, like the rest of the Inland North to the west, whereas Syracuse uses soda, like New England and New York City.
Foodways indigenous to regions of Upstate New York include Plattsburgh's "Michigan" hot dog, a variety of Coney Island hot dog; the white hot dog of central and western New York that's known variously as the "White Hot" or "Coney" (pronounced "cooney"); the "Spiedie" of the Binghamton area, and perhaps most famously, Buffalo wings. Calvin Trillin chronicled the origin of Buffalo wings in the August 25, 1980 issue of The New Yorker.

Politics

Often attributed to the region's semi-rural character, there's more conservatism in culture and politics than found in the more urban downstate area, and is the power base of the state's Republican Party, especially now that Long Island, a former Republican stronghold, has developed strong Democratic leans.
   There are several exceptions to this rule, including Erie County (Buffalo), Monroe County (Rochester), Onondaga County (Syracuse), Tompkins County (Ithaca), Albany County (Albany), Niagara County (Niagara Falls), Broome County (Binghamton), Clinton (Plattsburgh), Franklin, and St. Lawrence counties (influence of Canada). Ulster County, while having no urban centers, is the home of SUNY New Paltz. The large student population has consistently voted Democratic in presidential elections.
   As a whole, Upstate New York is roughly equally divided in Federal elections between Democrats and Republicans. In 2004, John Kerry defeated George W. Bush by less than 1,500 votes (1,553,246 votes to 1,551,971) in the Upstate Region.
   The conservatism of the upstate region more closely resembles the libertarian, socially liberal "Live and let live" conservatism of Vermont, New Hampshire and many of the western states instead of the social conservatism of the southern states and the Religious Right. Some of the Religious Right's harshest critics within the Republican Party, in fact, have been upstate New York Republicans such as Amo Houghton and Jack Quinn. The misunderstanding of the regional differences in upstate's conservative nature has led to significant political difficulties by both major political parties in the area. Since 2001, the Republican Party's efforts to reach out to the area using the religious rhetoric that had been so successful in the South has been met with rejection and ridicule, and was one of the leading causes of the Party's considerable loss of support in upstate since that time.
The influence of public service labor unions is also a factor in Democratic Party dominance. Hospitals and public schools are among the area's largest employers, and these agencies have unionized workers. Unionized workers as a whole make up 1 in 4 New York workers, the most in the nation. These unions, most notably the Service Employees International Union and New York State United Teachers, make large purchases of television air time on local television and radio stations during budget negotiations and prior to school budget votes to air commercials featuring scare tactics threatening the closure of hospitals or emergency rooms, larger class sizes, and reduced care if they don't receive more money. Organized rebuttals have been few and far between; Eliot Spitzer's use of his personal campaign funds to push through his 2007 reforms is the only recent attempt to answer the unions' dominance.
   Upstate politicians have, in fact, sometimes taken the leading role in the moves that give the state its liberal reputation. It was George Michael, an assemblyman from the Finger Lakes, who in 1970 stunned not only the state but the nation by asking that his vote of "no" on the bill to legalize abortion in New York be changed to "yes," causing the bill to pass by one vote. (He lost his seat at the next primary election, as he'd anticipated, but never regretted changing his vote). Nearly three decades later, voters in Plattsburgh elected Dan Stewart, the state's first openly gay mayor - a Republican, to boot. Another upstate mayor, Jason West of New Paltz, drew national attention in early 2004 when he officiated at the state's first gay weddings. However, such "liberal oases," which include New Paltz and Ithaca, tend to be the state's (and the country's) most liberal regions and unrepresentative of the region's politics as a whole.
   It should also be noted that the Democratic Party in upstate cities, particularly in Buffalo, also has traditionally leaned further to the right than downstate Democrats. Jack Quinn, a Republican, was elected from a district that was 57 percent Democratic. Similarly, leading Democrats in the area, including Dennis Gorski, Anthony Masiello and James Griffin, were noted for their fiscal and social conservatism and were often cross-endorsed by the Conservative Party of New York.
   Proponents of the 2008 presidential run by Sen. Hillary Clinton have pointed to her relative success upstate (she lost the region by less than 10 percent of the vote in 2000) as an argument that she could succeed as a candidate in red states. Skeptics of such a bid have responded that upstate is, in fact, not as conservative as widely believed, at least not conservative in the manner of what is now the leadership of the Republican Party. (External Link

).
   Most of New York State's most successful Republican politicians, however, such as Rockefeller, George Pataki, Thomas Dewey, Fiorello LaGuardia, Jacob Javits and Alfonse D'Amato, came from the downstate region, (although some definitions of the boundary would have Pataki being from upstate). Most upstate Republicans are politically unacceptable to even downstate Republican voters, and the party's financial backers are mostly based downstate (the corollary, of course, being that incumbent New York City politicians rarely win statewide elections, either). Democratic politicians upstate often tend to be (or at least run) more moderate than their downstate compatriots, and sometimes seek the endorsement of the state's Conservative Party to inoculate them against perceptions of extreme liberalism.
   Nevertheless, Republican attempts upstate to court votes by openly appealing to suspicion of the city have often backfired. In 1998 incumbent Republican Senator Al D'Amato's Senate campaign ran television ads in some upstate markets attempting to link his opponent, Charles Schumer, to a flock of hungry sharks released from the city to fleece upstate. Schumer went on to win the election and did surprisingly well upstate for a Democrat with deep roots in the city. In turn, he's probably lobbied for "upstate" interests both in and out of government more than any past "downstate" Democratic senator (for example, he lobbied for JetBlue to provide flights to Buffalo and Syracuse, producing more competition and lower fares at those airports).
   Downstate candidates seeking statewide office have often sealed their fate by displaying profound ignorance of upstate geography. One candidate at a forum in Buffalo once referred to "your airport in Albany" ... a city more than 200 miles (320 km) away. In the 2000 Senate race, Rudolph Giuliani confused the Orange County village of Monroe with Monroe County, and the ultimate Republican nominee, Rick Lazio, later released an itinerary confusing Owego and Oswego, two communities a considerable distance from each other. Hillary Clinton won the race, doing much better upstate than expected. Like Charles Schumer, she too has "given back" and lobbied for "upstate" interests more than most past "downstate" Democratic senators (for example, unsuccessfully lobbying for larger Homeland Security funding for the Buffalo area than its size would normally warrant on the basis of it being on the Canadian border, the finding of a putative sleeper cell in the nearby city of Lackawanna in 2002, and the presence of the Eastern United States' most vital electrical power generation facilities, the Robert Moses Niagara Power Plant and the Lewiston Pump Generating Plant).
   But while politicians based upstate rarely win elections for governor or U.S. Senator, some have been elected to other lesser statewide offices, such as lieutenant governor (Stan Lundine, Maryanne Krupsak and Mary Donohue, for instance), comptroller (Edward Regan) and attorney general (Dennis Vacco). The late Daniel Patrick Moynihan officially lived on a farm in Delaware County while serving in the Senate, but he grew up in New York City and spent much of his career there, making him a familiar face to downstate voters.
   The sharp differences in ideology have historically fueled many political struggles by upstate conservatives with largely downstate-based Democrats in the New York Legislature; however the feuds quite often tend to be more on regional lines than on party lines. The most recent major examples were the failed attempt by Syracuse-area assemblyman Michael Bragman, the majority leader of that body to seize control of the downstate-dominated state Democratic party in 2000, which was immediately followed by a strong retaliatory backlash against all upstate politicians in state government and the attempt by both Republicans and Democrats to cater to upstate voters by promising to disband the New York State Thruway, whose toll portions are entirely upstate. Both candidates in the 2006 gubernatorial election (Democrat Eliot Spitzer and Republican John Faso) pledged to eliminate the tolls however at the present time only an eight mile stretch of I-190 in downtown Buffalo, which had been collecting tolls to be used to keep I-84 downstate a free highway, has been made toll-free, and in fact the thruway authority has steadily increased tolls annually since 2006. Critics upstate feel that it's unlikely that either party would genuinely be willing to give up such a significant source of revenue, despite promises to the contrary, particularly one that doesn't draw its funding from the population core downstate.
   While Republicans have traditionally controlled the State Senate by virtue of holding most seats upstate, the leadership has often been split between senators from Long Island such as Ralph Marino and upstaters such as the present leader, Joe Bruno.
   In the midterm elections of 2006, many upstate Congressional seats historically held by Republicans came under serious challenge by Democratic contenders, and some (such as the 20th and 24th districts) were lost to Democrats. Slow population growth in the 1990s led legislators to eliminate two upstate House districts in the 2002 reapportionment and leave all downstate districts alone, hence, the influence of upstate in Congress has faded from the days in which Jack Kemp; Barber Conable, and Sam Stratton were prominent House leaders.

Upstate New York
Presidential elections results>

Year	Republican	Democrat
2004	49.19% 1,551,971	49.23% 1,553,246
2000	45.30% 1,348,93	49.33% 1,469,087
1996	36.76% 1,050,511	49.66% 1,419,077
1992	36.72% 1,159,280	39.31% 1,241,203
1988	52.49% 1,506,011	46.71% 1,340,248
1984	60.17% 1,765,919	34.49% 1,158,830
1980	47.93% 1,327,072	41.65% 1,153,234
1976	55.57% 1,555,430	44.06% 1,233,220
1972	63.45% 1,805,076	36.30% 1,032,633
1968	49.60% 1,330,622	44.12% 1,183,698
1964	31.73% 873,257	68.18% 1,876,429
1960	54.05% 1,552,646	45.87% 1,317,838

Downstate New York
Presidential elections results>

Year	Republican	Democrat
2004	33.39% 1,409,657	65.42% 2,761,973
2000	27.42% 1,054,391	68.64% 2,638,820
1996	25.53% 882,981	67.58% 2,337,100
1992	31.24% 1,187,369	57.97% 2,203,247
1988	43.57 1,575,860	55.51% 2,007,634
1984	49.04% 1,898,844	50.64% 1,960,779
1980	45.64% 1,566,759	45.88% 1,575,138
1976	41.47% 1,545,361	57.87% 2,156,338
1972	55.31% 2,387,702	44.44% 1,918,451
1968	40.84% 1,677,310	53.44% 2,194,772
1964	31.05% 1,370,302	68.80% 3,036,727
1960	42.86% 1,893,773	56.86% 2,512,247

Geography

   The headwaters of the Delaware, Susquehanna, Hudson, and Allegheny rivers are located in the region. The region is characterized by the major mountain ranges and large lakes.
   The Allegheny Plateau extends into west and central New York from the south. The Catskill Mountains lie in the southeastern part of the state, closer to New York City. The Catskills and the Allegheny Plateau are both part of the Appalachian Mountains. The northernmost part of the state contains the Adirondack Mountains, which are sometimes considered part of the Appalachians but are geologically separate, a southern extension of the Canadian Shield.
   In the more mountainous eastern part of Upstate New York, the valleys of the Hudson River and the Mohawk River were historically important travel corridors and remain so today. Western New York in the vicinity of Buffalo is very flat, as it was once the bottom of a glacial lake. The only "hills" in Niagara County are the Niagara Escarpment, which formed the Falls.
   Upstate has a long shared border with Canadian province of Ontario divided by water; including the Lake Erie, Niagara River, Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River. It shares a land border with the province of Quebec in the northernmost part of the state.
   The sizes of upstate counties and towns are generally larger in area and smaller in population, compared with the downstate region, although there are exceptions. The state's smallest county in population (Hamilton County) and largest county in area (St. Lawrence County on the state's northern border) are both in upstate New York, while the largest in population (Kings County) and smallest in area (New York County) are both part of New York City.
   Upstate New York is well known for its cold and snowy winters, particularly in comparison to the more temperate climate of downstate New York. The snowy reputation is especially true for the cities of Buffalo, Rochester, Oswego and Syracuse, and is largely due to lake-effect snow from Lake Ontario and Lake Erie. The village of Old Forge in the Adirondacks often vies on winter nights with places like International Falls, Minnesota and Fargo, North Dakota for the coldest spot in the nation.
   Many of the features of the upstate landscape, such as the Finger Lakes and the drumlins that dot the region, are the result of glaciers during the Ice Age.

History

   Before the arrival of European settlement, the area was inhabited by a mixture of Iroquois-speaking people (mainly west of the Hudson) and Algonquian-speaking people (mainly east of the Hudson). The conflict between the two peoples was an important historical force in the days of the early European colonization. The Haudenosaunee or Iroquois confederacy of the Five (later Six) Nations was a powerful force in its home territory that extended from the Mohawk River Valley to the western part of the state, and the Iroquois controlled large swaths of territory at various times throughout the northeastern U.S. from this home base. The Guswhenta (Two Row Wampum Treaty), made with the Dutch government in 1613, codified relations between the Haudenosaunee and European colonizers, and formed the basis of subsequent treaties.
   The region was important beginning in the very early days of both the French Colonization and Dutch colonization, where much of the fur trade of the New Netherland colony was located in the upper Hudson Valley. In the seventeenth century, the French established trading posts as far south as the shores of Onondaga Lake, although Samuel de Champlain had alienated the Haudenosaunee during military forays from Quebec. The area was the scene of much of the fighting in the French and Indian War, events which were depicted in the work of James Fenimore Cooper.
   The region was strategically important in the American Revolution, and was the scene of several important battles, including the Battle of Saratoga, which is considered to have been a significant turning point in the war. While New York City remained in the hands of the British during most of the war, the upstate region was firmly in the hands of the Colonial forces. In 1779, the Sullivan Expedition, a military campaign ordered by Gen. George Washington, drove thousands of Iroquois from their lands in the region.
   Following the American Revolution, the United States signed a federal treaty, the Treaty of Canandaigua, with the Six Nations of the Iroquois, affirming their land rights in what later became Central and Western New York. Nevertheless, extinguishing of Indian title to these lands via non-Federally-sanctioned treaties, such as the Treaty of Big Tree (External Link

), continued through the early 19th century.
   Many of the settlers of Central and Western New York came from the New England States. The Central New York Military Tract, where many of the townships were given the names of classical military and literary figures by Robert Harpur, was established to grant land to Revolutionary War veterans.
   Battles with British were fought during the war of 1812 (1812-1815), on land, including the Battle of Plattsburgh, and in the Great Lakes (Ontario and Erie) and St. Lawrence shorelines, including the Battle of Sackets Harbor.
   Both before and after the Revolution, boundary disputes with Massachusetts, Vermont and Great Britain, and subsequent surveying errors, complicated settlement. The Province of New York granted lands to settlers in what is now Vermont at the same time that New Hampshire made grants of the same lands. When Vermont declared independence in 1777, the new Republic of Vermont recognized the New Hampshire grants over those of New York. New Yorkers who lost land in Vermont came to be known as the "Vermont Sufferers" and were granted new lands in 1788 in the Town of Bainbridge, New York.
   The dispute with Massachusetts over lands to the west of Massachusetts was settled in the 1786 Treaty of Hartford by dividing the rights to the land. Sovereignty was granted to the State of New York, but the "pre-emptive" right to seek title to the land from the Haudenosaunee was granted to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The eastern boundary of the Massachusetts lands was thus known as the Preemption Line. This line runs from the Pennsylvania line due north to Lake Ontario, passing through Seneca Lake. The line was surveyed a second time due to initial errors.
   The border with Quebec was established as the 45th Parallel in the Treaty of Paris that ended the American Revolution. This line was surveyed and after the War of 1812, the US Government began to construct Fort Montgomery at Rouses Point on Lake Champlain. Subsequently it was discovered that at that point, the actual 45th parallel was three-quarters of a mile south of the surveyed line, putting the Fort, which became known as "Fort Blunder," in Canada. This wasn't resolved until 1842 with the Webster-Ashburton Treaty, in which it was decided to leave the border on the meandering line that had been surveyed. Slavery existed in New Netherland and the Province of New York, and New York was in the 1690's the largest importer of slaves among the American colonies. Slavery didn't end with the American Revolution, although John Jay introduced an emancipation bill in to the State Assembly as early as 1777. Sojourner Truth was held as a slave in the Hudson Valley from the time she was born in 1797 until she escaped in 1826. Through efforts of the New York Manumission Society and others, New York began to adopt a policy of gradual emancipation in 1799. The law passed in 1817 that would finally emancipate slaves didn't take effect for ten years, giving slaveowners an entire decade to sell their slaves away to other states. When the law finally took effect, the last 2,800 slaves in New York State were emancipated on July 4, 1827.
   By 1825, the Erie Canal opened, allowing the area to become an important component of the 19th century industrial expansion in the United States. This also promoted trade with British North America and settlement of newer states in western territories. Later in the century the New York Central Railroad followed the "water-level route" from New York City to the Great Lakes, contributing to the industrialization of cities along its route.
   Upstate New York served as a staging area and refuge for Canadian rebels against Great Britain, as well as Irish-American invaders of Canada, straining British-American relations. In 1837 and 1838, in the aftermath of the Lower Canada Rebellion, some Quebecois rebels escaped south to the the North Country, while on the Niagara Frontier, events of the Upper Canada Rebellion, also known as the Patriot War, took place. In the late 1860s, some of the Fenian Raids were launched across the Niagara Frontier; Fenians also assembled in Malone.
   Although now largely discredited, the report of the 1905-1907 Mills Commission, charged with investigating the origins of baseball, named Cooperstown as the place where baseball was invented in the 1830s or 1840s by Abner Doubleday. Cooperstown is the home of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.
   In the pre-Civil War era, upstate New York became a major center of radical abolitionist activity and was an important nexus of the Underground Railroad. Resistance to the Fugitive Slave Act was particularly heated in the region, punctuated by such events as the Jerry Rescue. The American women's rights movement was also born in upstate New York at this time; the first women's rights convention was held at Seneca Falls in 1848.
   Through the mid and late 19th century, Upstate New York became a hotbed of religious revivialism with myriads of sects establishing themselves during that time, such as the Oneida Community. Because of the comparative isolation of the region, many of the sects were non-conformist and had numerous difficulties with other local population as well as government authority because of their non-traditional tenets. This led to evangelist Charles Grandison Finney to coin the term the "Burned-Over District" for the region. The region is considered to be the cradle of Mormonism, as well as the Women's Suffrage movement. It was important historically in the Shaker movement. The Mormons, Seventh-day Adventists and Spiritualists are the only 21st century survivors of the hundreds of sects created during this time.
   In the 19th century, extractive industries changed the landscape. Potash was manufactured as the land was cleared for farming. Iron was mined in the Adirondacks and the North Country. By the 1870s, business leaders, concerned about the effect of deforestation on the water supply necessary to the Erie Canal, advocated for the creation of forest preserves in the Adirondacks and the Catskills. The Adirondack Park and Catskill Park were created and strengthened by a series of legislation between 1885 and 1894, when the "Forever Wild" provision of the New York State Constitution was added.
   During the era immediately following World War II Upstate reached what was probably its peak influence in the national economy. Major local corporations such as IBM, General Electric, Kodak, Xerox and Carrier produced cutting edge products for business, government and consumers. The opening of the New York State Thruway in the mid 1950s gave the region superior access to other eastern markets. This regional advantage faded as many local firms relocated operations to other states, or downsized in the face of foreign competition, similar to other areas in the American Rust Belt.
   In recent decades, with the decline of manufacturing, the area has generally suffered a net population loss. In contrast, many Amish and Mennonite families are recent arrivals to the area. Beginning in 1974, many Mennonite families moved to the Penn Yan area of Yates County from Lancaster County, PA, seeking cheaper farmland. Recently-established Amish communities are in St. Lawrence, Montgomery, Chautaugua and Cattaraugus couties.
   Five of the six Iroquois nations have filed land claims against New York State (or have sought settlement of pending claims), based on late 18th-century treaties with the State of New York and the United States.

Social, Political and Religious Movements

Religious and Spiritual Figures

Charles Grandison Finney

George Washington Gale

Handsome Lake

Mother Ann Lee

Oren Lyons

William Miller (preacher)

Mordecai Manuel Noah

John Humphrey Noyes

Joseph Smith

Kateri Tekakwitha

The Arts

Literary Figures and Places

Diana Abu-Jaber, memoirist of her Central New York childhood who has set two of her novels there.

Chinua Achebe, the Nigerian writer, is a resident of Annandale-on-Hudson and has taught at Bard College since 1990.

John Ashbery, poet laureate of New York state from 2001 to 2003. Born on a farm near Lake Ontario, he's a resident of Hudson

Russell Banks, several of whose novels are set in Northern New York, who has served as New York State Author

L. Frank Baum, author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz; resident of Chittenango

T. Coraghessan Boyle, who grew up in the Hudson Valley and who attended college in the North Country, which he describes as the "frozen skullcap of New York State"

Frederick Busch, who taught at Colgate University and whose characters are often Downstate New Yorkers transplanted upstate

Raymond Carver, who taught at Syracuse University

Lucille Clifton, poet, born in Depew. Though African-American, she grew up speaking Polish as well as English in the neighborhood.

James Fenimore Cooper

Robert White Creeley

, professor of poetry at the State University of New York at Buffalo, and New York State Poet from 1989 to 1991

Frederick Exley, from the Watertown area

Tess Gallagher, who taught at Syracuse University

John Gardner, Batavia native and SUNY Binghamton professor

Tim Green, who grew up in Liverpool and who was a student at Syracuse University of Raymond Carver and Tobias Wolff

Washington Irving

Mary Jemison, the "White Woman of the Genesee," whose story was told in J. E. Seaver's classic captivity narrative "Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison" (1824; latest ed. 1967)

William J. Kennedy, the Bard of Albany

James Howard Kunstler, resident of Saratoga Springs

Alison Lurie, resident of Ithaca

Bill McKibben, longtime resident of the Keene Valley in the Adirondacks

Herman Melville, resident of Albany and graduate of the Lansingburgh Academy, who began writing his first novels in Lansingburgh

Lorrie Moore, whose novel "Who Will Run The Frog Hospital?" is set in the Lake George area

Howard Frank Mosher, usually associated with the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, but who grew up in Cato and who has written about the North Country

William Henry Harrison Murray, known as "Adirondack Murray"

Vladimir Nabokov, resident of Ithaca

Joyce Carol Oates, born in Lockport

Camille Anna Paglia, born in Endicott

David Pietrusza of Amsterdam

Daniel Pinkwater, resident of the Hudson Valley

Richard Russo, from Johnstown and Gloversville, whose early novels are set in the Mohawk Valley

Edna St. Vincent Millay, resident of Austerlitz

Delmore Schwartz, poet, Syracuse University professor and mentor to Lou Reed

Julia Spencer-Fleming, native of Plattsburgh and resident of Argyle and Liverpool, whose books are set in the Adirondacks

Trevanian, born in Granville

Mark Twain, resident of Elmira and Buffalo

Kurt Vonnegut, who began his literary career in Schenectady while working for General Electric in the early 1950s, and who set some of his novels in "Ilium," a fictionalized Schenectady

Edmund Wilson, summer resident of Talcottville and author of "Upstate: Records and Recollections of Northern New York." New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1971; reprint, Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1990 and "Apologies to the Iroquois." New York: Farrar, Straus & Cudahy, 1960; reprint, paper, Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1992

Tobias Wolff, who taught at Syracuse University

Yaddo