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The IBM Years on view in Kingston

by Frances Marion Platt
April 1, 2016
in Art & Music, Local History
0
In 1952, IBM started working with the US Defense Department to design and build a supercomputer for the North American Defense System. SAGE, headquartered in Kingston, was one of the most important projects in IBM history and was later described by a University of Pennsylvania professor as one of “four monumental projects that changed the modern world.” (Collection of Friends of Historic Kingston)
In 1952, IBM started working with the US Defense Department to design and build a supercomputer for the North American Defense System. SAGE, headquartered in Kingston, was one of the most important projects in IBM history and was later described by a University of Pennsylvania professor as one of “four monumental projects that changed the modern world.” (Collection of Friends of Historic Kingston)

In his highly influential study of the corporate suburbanization of America in the 1950s, The Organization Man, sociologist William H. Whyte reported with amusement that IBM employees told him that the acronym really stood for “I’ve Been Moved.” Among the sprawl communities spawned by the construction of industrial parks to which “Beemers” might be relocated for the company’s convenience were, of course, the newer neighborhoods fringing Kingston, New York. When a company as massive as IBM hits its boom years, its impact on the shape of cities large and small has profound reverberations, persisting even long after its role in the world and national economy has significantly declined.

The Friends of Historic Kingston (FoHK) have put together an ambitious exhibit documenting Kingston: The IBM Years, currently on view in the organization’s Gallery at the corner of Wall and Main Streets in Uptown Kingston. The show spotlights some of IBM’s signature achievements during its 40-year stay in Ulster County, including the SAGE air defense system and System/360 mainframe, but with an equal focus on the people who worked for the computer giant and the lives and neighborhoods that they created for themselves locally. Under the direction of professor Roger Panetta of Fordham University, FoHK volunteers recorded more than 50 oral histories of people in the community, including IBMers themselves and others who did business with the company.

The exhibit will include one of the earliest electric typewriters produced in Kingston, and rare vintage photographs of the SAGE project, the testing floor for the System/360 mainframe and the typewriter assembly line. IBMers have lent their employee badges and scrapbooks filled with mementos. Also included in the exhibit will be new photographs, commissioned from Hudson Valley photographer Stephen Benson, of post-World War II residential, commercial, civic and religious structures, from Cape-style houses in Whittier in Ulster Landing to ranch houses in Rolling Meadows in Hurley, plus Kingston’s Temple Emanuel on Albany Avenue and the M. Clifford Miller Junior High School in Lake Katrine. An illustrated book, co-published with Black Dome Press and featuring an essay by novelist Gail Godwin, accompanies the exhibition.

Admission to Kingston: The IBM Years, which will run though October 31, is free. Check the FoHK website at www.fohk.org for hours and details of associated talks and programs.

Join the family! Grab a free month of HV1 from the folks who have brought you substantive local news since 1972. We made it 50 years thanks to support from readers like you. Help us keep real journalism alive.
- Geddy Sveikauskas, Publisher

Frances Marion Platt

Frances Marion Platt has been a feature writer (and copyeditor) for Ulster Publishing since 1994, under both her own name and the nom de plume Zhemyna Jurate. Her reporting beats include Gardiner and Rosendale, the arts and a bit of local history. In 2011 she took up Syd M’s mantle as film reviewer for Alm@nac Weekly, and she hopes to return to doing more of that as HV1 recovers from the shock of COVID-19. A Queens native, Platt moved to New Paltz in 1971 to earn a BA in English and minor in Linguistics at SUNY. Her first writing/editing gig was with the Ulster County Artist magazine. In the 1980s she was assistant editor of The Independent Film and Video Monthly for five years, attended Heartwood Owner/Builder School, designed and built a timberframe house in Gardiner. Her son Evan Pallor was born in 1995. Alternating with her journalism career, she spent many years doing development work – mainly grantwriting – for a variety of not-for-profit organizations, including six years at Scenic Hudson. She currently lives in Kingston.

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