New York State Historical Association

The New York State Historical Association was a private, non-governmental educational organization founded in 1899 to encourage research, educate general audiences, and start a library and museum of manuscripts, artwork, and other objects associated with the history of New York State, US

The association’s first official meeting was held on March 21, 1899, in the village of Lake George, New York. In 1926, Horace Moses donated a building in Ticonderoga, New York, which was a facsimile of John Hancock's house in Boston to be the organization's headquarters.

In 1939 Stephen Carlton Clark offered the association facilities in Cooperstown, and in 1944 presented them with the neo-Georgian Fenimore House which Clark’s family had owned on the site of James Fenimore Cooper’s country home on Otsego Lake. This building held the library, offices and galleries until 1968 when a separate library was built on the grounds. In 1995 a new wing was added to the Fenimore House to hold the Eugene and Clare Thaw Collection of American Indian Art. In 1999, Fenimore House Museum was renamed the Fenimore Art Museum.

In 1919 the society started quarterly publication of New York History, devoted to scholarly research papers on the history of New York State. In 1984 a popular history magazine, Heritage, was introduced to reach a broader audience.

NYSHA reported assets of $53.237 million on June 30, 2005 and took in revenues of $6.216 million in its fiscal year ending on that day.

In partnership with the State University of New York College at Oneonta, NYSHA hosted students of the Cooperstown Graduate Program from 1964 to 2017.

The Association was renamed the Fenimore Art Museum by action of the New York State Board of Regents in March 2017, following a request by NYSHA's governing board. The purposes of their incorporation were also changed.

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