News and Views from the Empire State
Authors and publishers of new books related to New York State can have their books noticed on the New York Almanack by following the submission guidelines HERE.
A great deal of confusion has developed regarding the historical identities of Fort Plain, Fort Plank and Fort Rensselaer.
To help dispel that confusion, the Fort Plain Museum has recently published an important new book, Fort Plain, Fork Plank, Fort Rensselaer: The Revolutionary War Forts of Canajohary by Wayne Lenig. [Read more…] about New Book On Revolutionary War Forts at Canajohary
Based on a true story, Craig Pennington’s new novel West of the Alleghenies: A Story of Survival during the Revolutionary War (Self-Published, 2020) is the epic tale of one man’s struggle to survive in a war-torn land and return to the woman he loves. [Read more…] about A New Novel of Survival During the Revolution
This week on The Historians Podcast, Richard Hamm discusses what really happened during Prohibition. Hamm is co-editor of Prohibition’s Greatest Myths: The Distilled Truth About America’s Anti-Alcohol Crusade (LSU Press, 2020). [Read more…] about Distilled Truth About Prohibition (Podcast)
How did Americans learn to establish philanthropic institutions?
In this episode of the Ben Franklin’s World: A Podcast About Early American History, Victoria Johnson, an Associate Professor of Urban Policy and Planning at Hunter College in New York City and author of American Eden: David Hosack, Botany, and Medicine in the Garden of the Early Republic (Liveright, 2018), leads us on an investigation of the life of Dr. David Hosack and the many organizations he founded, including the Elgin Botanical Garden.
[Read more…] about 19th Century Botany, Medicine, and Philanthropy (Podcast)
Since graduating from Yale Jack Casey has followed his love of American history to write historical novels with strong political themes.
In his new novel Hamilton’s Choice (Kindle Direct Publishing, 2020), author he offers a new answer to the 215-year-old question about why Alexander Hamilton met Aaron Burr in his fatal duel. [Read more…] about New Historical Novel: Hamilton’s Choice by Jack Casey
The New York State Writers Institute and WAMC are joining forces to aid Capital Region’s indie bookstores with a new initiative they’re calling #IndieBookstoreBoost.
Writers Institute director Paul Grondahl and WAMC “Book Show” host Joe Donahue are conducting virtual interviews with notable authors on their newly published books as part of the effort to encourage book sales at independent bookstores. [Read more…] about NYS Writers Institute, WAMC Launch #IndieBookstoreBoost
Bill Greer’s new book A Dirty Year: Sex, Suffrage, and Scandal in Gilded Age New York (Chicago Review Press, 2020) looks back to a time of rigged elections, everyday shootings, and attacks on the press, to sexual impropriety, reproductive rights, and the chasm between rich and poor.
As 1872 opened, the New York Times headlined four stories that seemed symptomatic of the decay in public morals that the editors so frequently decried: financier Jim Fisk was gunned down in a love triangle; suffragist and free-love advocate Victoria Woodhull was running for US President; anti-vice activist Anthony Comstock battled smut dealers; and abortionists were thriving. [Read more…] about Sex, Suffrage, Scandal in Gilded Age New York
Women played a crucial role in the American Revolution, but information about them can be hard to come by. HVA Press has recently discovered and republished Catherine Schuyler: A Woman of the Revolution by Mary Gay Humphreys, which was first published in 1897. [Read more…] about Catherine Schuyler: Not All Rev War Heroes Were Men
This week on The Historians Podcast, Kathryn Smith. a journalist from South Carolina, discusses her book Gertie: The Fabulous Life of Gertrude Sanford Legendre, Heiress, Explorer, Socialite, Spy.
Legendre was descended from the Amsterdam, New York, Sanfords who made a fortune in the carpet industry. [Read more…] about Gertrude Sanford Legendre: Heiress, Explorer, Socialite, Spy
Evelyn Nesbit, a chorus girl in the musical “Florodora,” dined alone with the architect Stanford White in his townhouse on 24th Street in New York in 1901. Nesbit was just sixteen years old and had recently moved to the city. White was forty-seven and a principal in the prominent architectural firm McKim, Mead & White.
As a foremost architect of his day, he had a measure of celebrity, and the responsibility for designing countless landmark buildings in Manhattan. That evening, after drinking champagne, Stanford White raped her Evelyn Nesbit. [Read more…] about New Book Explores A Notable NYC Murder Trail