New York Almanack

History, Natural History & the Arts

Alexander Hamilton

US, NYS Continues To Honor Slavers, Racists, Traitors and Scoundrels

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Robert E Lee Portrait at West PointIn 2023, the United States Military Academy will remove 13 Confederate symbols on its West Point campus. They include a portrait of Robert E. Lee dressed in a Confederate uniform, a stone bust of Lee, who was superintendent of West Point before the Civil War, and a bronze plaque with an image of a hooded figure and the words “Ku Klux Klan.”

Art displayed in the United States Capitol building in Washington, DC, still includes images of 141 enslavers and 13 Confederates who went to war against the country. A study by the Washington Post found that more than one-third of the statues and portraits in the Capitol building honor enslavers or Confederates and at least six more honor possible enslavers where evidence is disputed. [Read more…] about US, NYS Continues To Honor Slavers, Racists, Traitors and Scoundrels

August 23, 1775: The British Bombard the City of New York

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cast iron cannonball from the Fraunces Tavern Museum CollectionOn the night of August 23, 1775, during what is now remembered as the Raid on the Battery, the HMS Asia, a 64-gun British battleship, bombarded the city of New York’s shoreline with cannonballs and grapeshot.

The melee was started by Captain John Lamb’s company of Patriots, who attempted to steal British cannons from The Battery, at the tip of Manhattan Island. [Read more…] about August 23, 1775: The British Bombard the City of New York

Scandalous Hamiltons: A Gilded Age Grift

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Scandalous HamiltonsThe new book The Scandalous Hamiltons: A Gilded Age Grifter, a Founding Fathers Disgraced Descendant, and a Trial at the Dawn of Tabloid Journalism (Citadel Press, 2022) by Bill Shaffer takes a look one of the greatest scandals of the Gilded Age, and the story that helped give rise to the sensational tabloid journalism still driving so much of the news cycle in the 21st century. [Read more…] about Scandalous Hamiltons: A Gilded Age Grift

The Jewish World of Alexander Hamilton

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ben franklins world podcastIn this episode of Ben Franklin’s World, Andrew Porwancher, the Wick Cary Associate Professor of History at the University of Oklahoma and the Ernest May Fellow at Harvard University’s Belfer Center, joins Liz Covart to investigate the Jewish world and upbringing of Alexander Hamilton using details from his book, The Jewish World of Alexander Hamilton (Princeton, 2021). [Read more…] about The Jewish World of Alexander Hamilton

The Sewing Girl’s Tale: The 1793 Rape of Lanah Sawyer

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The Historians LogoThis week on The Historians Podcast, John Sweet is author of The Sewing Girl’s Tale, the story of the first published rape trial in American history. In 1793, Lanah Sawyer, a 17-year-old seamstress, charged she had been raped. The defendant was “a very great rake,” the scion of two wealthy Dutch families who lied about his identity and took her to a brothel and sexually assaulted her. Alexander Hamilton was among the many well-connected lawyers who represented the defendant in various aspects of the case.

Sweet researched Sawyer’s decision to charge Henry Bedlow with rape, leading to a raw courtroom drama in the city of New York, riots in the streets, and public debate over class privilege and double standards. [Read more…] about The Sewing Girl’s Tale: The 1793 Rape of Lanah Sawyer

Wall Street History: The Politics of New York’s First Banks

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Colonial currency from the Province of New York (1775)Prior to the American Revolution, there were virtually no banks in the United States. However, Alexander Hamilton, who was George Washington’s key advisor on financial matters, was familiar with the central banks of England and the Netherlands which had been key factors in the growth of the economy of those countries.

Unlike some agrarian Virginian politicians such as Thomas Jefferson, Hamilton believed that banking and credit was the key to the nation’s future. In 1781 he encouraged Robert Morris, the recently appointed Superintendent of Finance for the Continental government, to form the Bank of North America in Philadelphia. For a time up, until the British surrender of New York, this was the only Bank in the colonies. [Read more…] about Wall Street History: The Politics of New York’s First Banks

Trump Impeachment Recalls Aaron Burr’s Treason

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Donald Trump’s recent impeachment trial in which the President was accused of incitement of insurrection against the United States recalls to mind a case from more than 200 years ago.

In that case another New York politician, former Vice President Aaron Burr, whose personality was arguably not dissimilar from Donald Trump, was tried and acquitted of treason in 1807. [Read more…] about Trump Impeachment Recalls Aaron Burr’s Treason

Reconsidering the Legacy of Alexander Hamilton

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Watercolor drawing of the Schuyler Mansion made by Philip Hooker in 1818A new study by Jessie Serfilippi, a historical interpreter at the Schuyler Mansion State Historic Site in Albany, New York, details Alexander Hamilton’s “Hidden History as an Enslaver.”

Philip Schuyler was the father of Eliza Hamilton, Hamilton’s wife, and one of the largest slaveholders in New York State when the new nation was founded. [Read more…] about Reconsidering the Legacy of Alexander Hamilton

The Hamilton Musical And History’s Unsung

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Jack Peterson Memorial at Croton Point Park by Kim CrichlowLike millions this past 4th of July weekend, my family tuned in to Disney’s streaming of Lin Manuel-Miranda’s epic Hamilton.

The performances indeed blew us all away. Our toes tapped under our tray tables to Daveed Diggs’ electric portrayal of Thomas Jefferson and “What Did I Miss?” Our hearts pained over Phillipa Soo’s gorgeously rendered entreaties “Look Around” and “That Would Be Enough.”

But all these indelible lyrics underscored why we will never be satisfied. Despite the brilliance of the script and cast, in dramatizing the life and times of Alexander Hamilton, Miranda left us longing for narratives beyond those of the Founding Fathers and their rarefied circle. Now we want to know what will come next to fill the ever more obvious omissions in our nation’s history. [Read more…] about The Hamilton Musical And History’s Unsung

New Historical Novel: Hamilton’s Choice by Jack Casey

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hamiltons choiceSince 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