Lecture: "Maurice Hinchey and the New Consciousness"

"Maurice Hinchey & New Consciousness in Environmental Thinking in New York"

Wednesday, May 22, 2019 | 7:00 PM | Wooden Boat School Classroom

$5/person | HRMM members FREE

Author and historian Vernon Benjamin got to know then-Assemblyman Maurice D. Hinchey by serving as a legislative aide in his office from 1982-92. The final chapter of Benjamin’s book, The History of the Hudson River Valley: From the Civil War to Modern Times, “The New Consciousness,” places Maurice Hinchey’s 18-year tenure as a New York State Assemblyman as a seminal part in the rise of environmentalism in New York. Hinchey would go on to become the Congressional Representative for District 19 for another 20 years. Governor Andrew Cuomo once hailed him as the “environmental conscience of New York State.” Hinchey was a major sponsor of environmental legislation including the State Environmental Quality Review Act and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Although Hinchey passed away in 2017, his environmental legacy lives on. Book signing to follow.

Speaker Bio:

Vernon Benjamin has a long history of work in historic preservation and environmental conservation in Ulster County and the Mid-Hudson Valley. He is the author of The History of the Hudson River Valley: From Wilderness to the Civil War and The History of the Hudson River Valley: From the Civil War to Modern Times. This enormous two-part history was published in 2015/16 by Overlook Press and has sold over 8,000 copies.

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