Kate's Love of Historical Stories

Kate Dudding is drawn to stories which bring history to life. She has been commissioned to create stories set in history several times:

• The New-York Historical Society asked Kate to create stories for families about John Chapman (1774-1845), the real Johnny Appleseed, and Carlotta, a lady balloonist and inventor who set many flying records in 1880-1891. Stacy Gilinson, Supervisor of Family Programs at the Historical Society, later wrote:

  "The mix of music and storytelling truly brought historical information to life. We had an extremely positive audience response and I especially appreciated the connection you formed with our youngest participants."

• The Schuyler Mansion State Historic Site, in Albany, NY, had Kate tell both historical stories and legends about New York state historic sites. Some of the true stories sounded unreal, and some of the legends sounded real, so Kate had her listeners vote after hearing each tale. Some of the people were fooled all of the time, but a good time was had by all :-)

• The Empire State Aerosciences Museum, in Schenectady, NY, commissioned Kate to create a story about Harriet Quimby, a New Yorker and the first woman to fly across the English Channel in 1912. While not many people know about Harriet today, she was well known in her own day and a hero to teenaged Amelia Earhart.

• The Easton Library, in Easton, NY, commissioned storytellers Kate Dudding and Nancy Marie Payne to create a story about the Easton Political Equality Club, a grassroot woman suffrage organization in this farming community at the end of the 1800s and the beginning of the 1900s.

Kate's first solo CD, Lighting the Way Home: Stories of Lighthouses and Their Keepers, is a Parents' Choice Approved Award Winner of 2007, one of six storytelling CDs to get an award this year. Click hear to read the Parents' Choice review.

Other programs of Kate's historical stories include:

• Broadway's Music Men: Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, and Cole Porter

• Stories of New Yorkers

• Remember When: Stories and Songs from World War II

  
  

• Up, Up, and Away! Stories of Pioneer Women Aviators

• Leaving the Old Country: Immigration Stories

In addition, each of Kate's e-newsletters contains an historical story.