Interests

In 1899 Samuel Untermyer purchased Greystone, the former estate of Samuel Tilden. In the forty one years Untermyer owned Greystone, he transformed the gardens and greenhouses into some of the most celebrated gardens in America. After expanding the estate through property purchases to the north and east of the original estate, he hired Beaux Arts architect Welles Bosworth to design the gardens in 1916. These gardens sprawled over 150 acres overlooking the Hudson River and were maintained by 60 gardeners and supplied by 60 greenhouses. more »

Paleo-ecologist Pat Schroeder: "Dinosaurs have been a life-long passion. I was, and still very much am a 'dinosaur kid.' My interest in dinosaur diversity came about when I realized that no one was really looking at dinosaurs the way we look at modern mammals and birds," Schroeder said. "There's a ton to be gained from applying the methods of modern and paleo-ecology to dinosaurs. Fortunately, we're now in an age of dinosaur research where a lot of information is available digitally, so the big data-intensive questions of ecology are now becoming more plausible for dinosaur paleontology." more »

Jill Norgren writes: "This is an intriguing book about change and turning points. It will prod readers to argue with the authors who contend that the United States has done better in past decades and could/will do so again. Putnam and Garrett are particularly interested in climate change, which they describe as an ultimate “we” issue. They observe environmental activists pleading for a moral awakening to the costs of inaction and imagine that this might be the non-partisan movement on which the upswing might be built. We can only hope that the authors are correct and that a new generation of activists, in community, will re-imagine America and that they will not be the ones who charged the Capitol on January 6." more »

The more than thirty thousand baseball cards collected by Jefferson R. Burdick represent the most comprehensive collection outside of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. The cards also illustrate the history of the game — from the dead-ball era at the turn of the nineteenth century to the golden age and modern era of the sport. Baseball cards were first used as advertising inserts by tobacco companies beginning in the late 1800s. Through Burdick's collection, one can chart the careers of many of the silver screen's most notorious stars as well as learn about the lesser-known personalities that populated early films.   more »