A private, non-profit educational institution dedicated to collecting, preserving, and interpreting objects significant to New York history and American culture. Chartered in 1899, the New York State Historical Association moved to Cooperstown in 1938 and opened Fenimore Art Museum in 1945 ... In addition to Fenimore Art Museum, the Association operates a non-circulating Research Library and offers a membership program for those who share an appreciation of American culture and New York State's illustrious past. Furthermore the association functions as publisher of two magazines and gives prizes to the authors of a manuscript and a publication in New York history.