Years Ago
This column, contributed by Skaneateles Honors English students from the class of 2022, is written to connect the past to the present by revisiting articles from years ago. The students would like to thank the Skaneateles Historical Society for providing the archives and Eagle Newspapers for publishing their words.
20 Years Ago
…Crouse Hospital introduced the new Kienzle Family Maternity Center in an article published in the Skaneateles Press. The Kienzle Family Maternity Center is still around today and it has grown to be very successful. According to Crouse Hospital’s official website, more than half of all of the babies born in Onondaga County are born at the Kienzle Family Maternity Center. For more than a century, Crouse Hospital has been recognized in the Syracuse area as a quality place that takes care of those in need and the opening of the maternity center allowed the hospital to stay true to that sentiment. Furthermore, an ad was published in the same Skaneateles Press archive that promoted a nursing open house at Crouse Hospital. The hospital still has many open houses to this day, the most popular of which is their CHOICES program. The CHOICES program allows students between the ages of 14 and 18 to discuss different possible medical careers with professionals. For more information about CHOICES or other programs offered by Crouse Hospital visit their website at crouse.org.
40 Years Ago
…The Merchants Association published several advertisements in the Skaneateles Press showing sales that took place in the village after Thanksgiving. The stores were advertising lots of goods ranging from Cooney’s sweaters to jewelry and bakery goods. These ads stated that many stores were open on Friday until 9, Saturday until 6, and Sunday from noon to 5. Today, most stores call this a Black Friday sale. The term Black Friday is a reference to the month of the year where stores make most of their money, and it originated in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is often referred to as the start of Christmas shopping season in America. The tradition of having big sales after Thanksgiving started around 1952. Since then the tradition has only grown. Starting around 2005, Black Friday has been the busiest shopping day of the year in the United States. Many stores now open sooner and close later. Despite these longer hours there is still a strong demand for more deals. The Black Friday tradition has expanded and Cyber Monday was created. Consumers can now do their shopping online which has become very popular.
60 Years Ago
…The Skaneateles Press published an article explaining the importance of safety and protection during the Cold War. The constant fear of being attacked and communism spreading like fire provoked numerous people to take certain precautions if another atomic attack occurred. Knowing different emergency plans and warning signals, along with tuning radios to a channel from 640 to 1240 were essential elements of protection. Tuning the radios to certain channels was supposedly used to make it harder for Soviet Union bombers to target American cities. Today, the threat of nuclear attacks is still very much existent with nearly every major country having these weapons. Some smaller, more isolated countries are developing them now as well. This includes North Korea and possibly Iran, who recently obtained the chance to do so after the United States left the Iran Nuclear Deal. The deal limited the amount of uranium they could hold and the rate at which they can enrich the element; enriching uranium is a step in the process to make bombs. Currently, the United States is not too concerned about nuclear attacks because we are not in a major head to head confrontation with any country’s government, but the fact that nearly every government has nuclear bombs should keep us on our toes.
80 Years Ago
…An article was published about the earliest duck fossil being found in North America, a wing discovered by Dr. Glenn L. Pepsin of Princeton University. The fossil is suspected to be roughly 50 million years old during the late Epocene epoch, found in Utah. In 2016, the oldest evidence of a bird’s voice box was found among fossils of a duck-like animal that is suspected to have lived over 66 million years ago. This finding suggests that some birds were alive at the same time that dinosaurs roamed the earth. The voice box itself offers important clues about the evolution of birds and their vocal organs. According to Stephen Brusatte, a paleontologist at Edinburgh University, this is a groundbreaking discovery, suggesting that while birds flew across the sky with dinosaurs below, their calls and songs could be identical to their sounds today. Today, the geology program at Princeton works to find evidence of animal evolution, mass extinction, and fossils! For more information on the geology program at Princeton, visit: geosciences.princeton.edu/research/geology.
100 Years Ago
…Tuberculosis was a major epidemic in the 1900s; about 110,000 people died of this fatal disease every year. Without treatment, those infected were likely to succumb to tuberculosis within 2-5 years. Treatment options only included sunlight and rest, which did not improve the health of the sick. Eventually, treatment centers were set up to help the ill, the first being established in Virginia in 1908. According to the CDC, today there are ten FDA-approved medications. If treatment is administered adequately, tuberculosis patients can recover within 9 months. The disease has been on a steady decline in New York State since 1992 with only 809 reported cases in 2017. As of August 2019, a new treatment for the deadliest strain of tuberculosis is under development and already shows great promise. The fatal strain, XDR-TB, first appeared in small South African towns in 2006. This form of tuberculosis is drug-resistant, meaning it does not respond to most drugs. However, the results of the Nix trial offer hope to those affected. While it is not yet ready for commercial use, Dr. Francesca Conradie, the director of the trial, is hopeful about its future success.
