Kingston--The IBM Years

IBM was Ulster County’s most powerful economic engine of the 20^th century. Thousands of people took jobs at IBM. Some had grown up in the Kingston area and many came from all over the country to work there.

Kingston–The IBM Years looks at some of IBM’s great achievements during its 40-year stay in Kingston. But just as important, it focuses on the people who worked there and the lives that they made for themselves.

Kingston–The IBM Years also examines IBM’s impact on the built environment of the city and surrounding towns–forty years of new houses, schools, other civic and religious buildings, as well as commercial structures like the shopping centers that came to dominate the region.

This website is based on an exhibition that was mounted by the Friends of Historic Kingston in its gallery at Wall and Main Streets in Kingston from May to October 2014. The Kingston–The IBM Years website is produced in conjunction with Southeastern NY Library Resources Council (SENYLRC).

A group of oral histories featuring memories of the IBM years from a range of individuals are available by clicking on Oral History Interviews on the left.

The Friends of Historic Kingston and Southeastern NY Library Resources Council hope the website will spark memories, engender curiosity, and inspire you and others to add to this rich history. Please share your memories and reactions on our Facebook page for Kingston–The IBM Years.

In addition to the Kingston–The IBM Years website, the Friends has co-published, with Black Dome Press, a book with eight essays and 150 illustrations. Books are available online (http://shop.blackdomepress.com) or by contacting the Friends of Historic Kingston (845-339-0720).

Friends of Historic Kingston and Southeastern NY Library Resources Council are fortunate to have benefited from the enthusiasm, support and hard work of scores of people who helped with this project. We thank them all.

Kingston–The IBM Years was made possible with support from the following: the Architecture + Design Program of the New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature; the County of Ulster’s Ulster County Cultural Services & Promotion Fund administered by Arts Mid-Hudson; and three anonymous donors. This project was also supported by grants from the New York Council for the Humanities and the Mid-Hudson Valley Federal Credit Union. The associated publication received funding from Furthermore: a program of the J. M. Kaplan Fund.