Early on in my career as a software developer I thought my primary contribution was writing code. After all, software engineers are paid to ship software and writing code is a key component of that. It took several years for me to realize that there are numerous other contributions that go into shipping software (if...

In time for its 95th anniversary, the Coney Island Boardwalk has become a New York City landmark! On May 15, 2018, the Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the wooden walkway a scenic landmark (read the designation report here). It joins others around the city like Ocean Parkway in Brooklyn and Morningside Park in Manhattan. The Boardwalk–officially called the Riegelmann Boardwalk...

The post Brooklyn’s Boardwalk Empire appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

It is the unofficial start of summer; beaches open, some of us think of auto racing, and we hope for suitable weather for a barbecue. Memorial Day is upon us, and its national observance is 150 years old this year, the holiday Americans once called Decoration Day. The veterans’ group known as the Grand Army...

The post Observing Memorial Day as “Decoration Day” appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

Modern library conservation was born in the aftermath of a catastrophic flood in Florence, Italy on November 4, 1966. Water from the Arno River devastated the collections of the National Central Library of Florence. An international team of bookbinders and restorers was assembled to save what they could; however in many cases the damage was irreversible. Many lessons were...

The post Lab Notes: The Florence Flood and the emergence of library conservation appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

Given its links to Massachusetts, it may come as a surprise to many that the earliest surviving text of “Christian Charitie. A Modell hereof” (more commonly called “A Model of Christian Charity”) resides in New York.  A lay sermon attributed to the Puritan John Winthrop, the once unheralded manuscript came to the New-York Historical Society from Francis...

The post John Winthrop’s “City upon a hill” Sermon and an “Erasure of Collective Memory” appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

A recent acquisition by the Patricia D. Klingenstein Library at N-YHS sheds light on the early history of African American freemasonry. The twelve-page, handwritten Proceedings of the Convention of the Grand Colored Lodge, dated 1845, outlines the intentions of the members of three African American masonic lodges to unite under the auspices of one “Grand Lodge.”...

The post African American Freemasonry and New York’s Grand Colored Lodge appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

Each era spawns its acronyms. (POTUS, FLOTUS, and SCOTUS, anyone?) Some World War II acronyms remain familiar, like WAC, for Women’s Army Corps, and its earlier incarnation, WAAC, Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps. Maybe you know of the WAVES—Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service–a branch of the U.S. Navy in which women could enlist. But chances are you’ve never heard of...

The post “Till Victory is History”: Remembering the W.I.V.E.S. of World War II appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

Sometimes people leave behind a little piece of history that is worth so much to modern day scholars. We do not know who William Worcester Dudley was, but between December 1785 and October 1786, he kept a food diary that tracked every meal he ate for breakfast, dinner, and supper. While it was not uncommon for people to...

The post Victuals, Mincemeat, Pudding, and Veal: William Worcester Dudley’s Food Diary appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

The entertainment and moral education of children through books has not always been intertwined. American Puritanism frowned upon the fantastical imaginations that children often have and appreciate. Many children’s books from the eighteenth century instead emphasize the importance of virtuous behavior and the devastating consequences of vice through cautionary tales. Not until the nineteenth century...

The post Now on View–A Tale for Youth: Amusement and Instruction in American Children’s Books appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

Prior to the construction of Robert Mills’ Washington Monument in 1833, proposals to erect a memorial in honor of George Washington began as early as 1783. The defeat of the British under his command and his consecutive time as the first President of the United States had thrust Washington into the public’s mind as an...

The post Benjamin West’s Memorial to Washington appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

The grim new numbers of the cases and deaths from COVID-19 reach us every day. As laypeople, we want to tune them out at times, but they are crucial to medical practice and public health. Certainly, we see that in history: Here is the sobering list of yellow fever deaths at Bellevue Hospital in 1795...

The post “Take No Medicine Without Advice”: New York Reacts to Pandemics Past appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

More than nine million active duty and retired military members and their families, including two million children, receive benefits from TRICARE, the military’s health care program. TRICARE offers health maintenance organization (HMO) and preferred provider organization (PPO) options.

Mathematica staff and their local community partners are vying for an opportunity to share insights from cutting-edge projects related to equity, early learning, the science of learning, and K–12 education.

Mathematica experts will showcase their expertise in providing business analytics and data quality development for the Medicaid and CHIP (Children’s Health Insurance Program) Business Information Solution (MACBIS) at this year’s Medicaid Enterprise Systems Conference in Chicago.

Mathematica’s Jonathan Morse and Clint Eisenhower will team up to share their thoughts on state impacts and expectations for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Medicaid program integrity strategy at this year’s NAMPI Annual Conference in Atlanta.

Join Mathematica at the 2019 ISM Annual Conference in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, as Elizabeth Weigensberg, Mathematica’s state and local child welfare lead, and Matthew Stagner, vice president and director of human services, team up to share their expertise on how being data driven can improve outcomes for state child welfare agencies.

Each October, National Principals Month recognizes the essential role principals play in making schools great.

Across the nation, Black students, economically disadvantaged students, and students with disabilities are disproportionately subjected to disciplinary removals, which are out-of-school suspensions and expulsions that compromise students’ opportunities to learn and increase their risk of dropping out.

A new, publicly available data file on physician group practices has been released by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s (AHRQ) Comparative Health System Performance Initiative.

From November 7 to 9, APPAM will host its annual Fall Research Conference in Denver, Colorado. As a proud partner of APPAM since its inception, Mathematica will participate in a number of conference activities.

Principals can play an important role in improving instruction and student achievement in their schools. Many professional development programs focus on strengthening principals’ leadership skills.

Mathematica disability policy expert Purvi Sevak joined a panel of experts at the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) to discuss how the agency is facilitating the collection and sharing of data that might help improve employment outcomes for people with disabilities.

Mathematica researchers partnered with key clients and contributed to a number of projects that will be presented at the American Public Health Association’s Annual Meeting and Expo in Philadelphia from November 2 to 6.

The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) seeks comments on performance measures used for the Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood (HMRF) grant program.

Mathematica will showcase state Medicaid services and support for CMS projects to modernize data analytics for Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program at the National Association of Medicaid Directors fall conference.

Mathematica is partnering with The Health Collaborative, the Patient Advocate Foundation, and MediaAgility on a solution leveraging artificial intelligence and other industry-leading methods to achieve a number of goals to drive primary care transformation.

Mathematica announced the appointment of LaVerne H. Council to serve as a member of the organization’s Board of Directors.

The National Organization of State Offices of Rural Health sets aside the third Thursday of every November—this year, it’s November 21—to celebrate National Rural Health Day.

The Compendium of U.S. Health Systems for 2018 has been released today by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s (AHRQ) Comparative Health System Performance Initiative.

Mathematica and Howard University have partnered to host the Summer Institute in Computational Social Science (SICSS), which will give social and data scientists opportunities to explore how they can use real-world data to address ethics and equity in artificial intelligence.

Mathematica received a score of 100 percent on the Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s recently released 2020 Corporate Equality Index (CEI), earning the designation as a Best Place to Work for LGBTQ Equality.

Waterton, Emma

Spencer, Andrew (Lecturer in tourism management), author

Schwaighofer, Verena, author

Ismail, Ahmad Fareed, author