Al Smith

1925’s Lighter Side of Political History

August 20, 2026 by Maury Thompson Leave a Comment

This stunt, certainly, would have been harder to pull off in the era before Photoshop and artificial intelligence:

“Amherst College students perpetuated a practical joke this afternoon when they sent out news stories and photographs showing United States Senator Frederick H. Gillett (1851-1935) minus his celebrated beard,” The Glens Falls Times reported on June 17, 1925. “Senator Gillett, found by newspaper correspondents, was still wearing the beard.” [Read more…] about 1925’s Lighter Side of Political History

Reluctant Warriors of 1936: William Bleakley & Herbert Lehman

July 2, 2026 by Randall Whitestone 2 Comments

On a warm, clear afternoon in June 1926, 600 Westchester County Republican delegates gathered in the art deco casino at Playland Amusement Park on Long Island Sound to endorse their neighbor, state Supreme Court Justice William F. Bleakley (1883–1969), for New York Governor. [Read more…] about Reluctant Warriors of 1936: William Bleakley & Herbert Lehman

New York and the United States 1926 Sesquicentennial

January 2, 2026 by Dr. Bruce W. Dearstyne 1 Comment

We are beginning the commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. It may be interesting to recall how New York celebrated in the past, including the Bicentennial (reviewed in a previous post) and the Sesquicentennial a century ago. [Read more…] about New York and the United States 1926 Sesquicentennial

NYC Mayor John Hylan and the Fight to Create the Port Authority

December 28, 2025 by Randall Whitestone 2 Comments

As Rick Cotton retires as the latest in a long line of executive directors of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, it’s worth thinking about the original, lurching journey to create the agency a century ago.

The Port Authority, which last year recorded gross operating revenues of almost $7 billion on assets of more than $63 billion, oversees many of New York City’s bridges, tunnels, marine terminals, and airports and a 1,500-square-mile port district. It was created in 1921 via a two-state compact ratified by Congress. That launch had not been assured, nor was getting there smooth. [Read more…] about NYC Mayor John Hylan and the Fight to Create the Port Authority

New York State Deportation Raids & The First Red Scare

December 12, 2025 by John Warren 2 Comments

The Palmer Raids are generally understood by professional historians to have been unconstitutional, aggressive and abusive mass arrests and deportations of political enemies in 1919 and 1920. The raids and deportations in 36 cities, but especially in New York State, provoked a national reaction focused on protecting the human rights and civil liberties won during the American Revolution.

The Palmer Raids, in conjunction with raids conducted by New York State’s Lusk Committee, were some of the most egregious constitutional violations in the era now known disreputably as “The First Red Scare.” At the time the American understanding of the social contract was being intensely debated as part of a great international war between the haves and the have-nots. [Read more…] about New York State Deportation Raids & The First Red Scare

A History of Education in New York: Twentieth-Century Trends

April 8, 2025 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

A major educational development of the early twentieth century was the rise of high schools. Public high schools gradually replaced the academies in the late 1800s. This change arose partly from the changing notion of “public,” with independent schools no longer seen as completely fulfilling public education responsibilities.

The rising cost of first-rate secondary education and the emerging urban middle class that desired it, also contributed to the move toward high schools. In city after city, academies were transformed into public secondary schools and architecturally impressive public high schools opened. [Read more…] about A History of Education in New York: Twentieth-Century Trends

Light-Hearted Political News from Historic Northern NY Newspapers

March 4, 2025 by Maury Thompson Leave a Comment

You’ve heard about hard cider. How about hard sauerkraut? During Prohibition State Assemblyman Louis A. Cuvillier (D-Manhattan) mockingly introduced legislation to allow police authorities to search the basements of homes for “intoxicating” sauerkraut, The Glens Falls Times reported on Feb. 18, 1925.

“Some dries have contended sauerkraut is intoxicating and if that is true than the houses of people should be searched for this terrible stuff,” Cuvillier said. [Read more…] about Light-Hearted Political News from Historic Northern NY Newspapers

Americanism in the Classroom: New York’s Teacher Witch-Hunt

February 17, 2025 by Bill Greer 1 Comment

Long before the recent calls for “Patriotic Education,” New York State undertook its own program to promote “Americanism” in the classroom.

The effort kicked off in Brooklyn’s Commercial High School. On January 14, 1919, teacher Benjamin Glassberg opened a discussion about Bolshevism in his history class. [Read more…] about Americanism in the Classroom: New York’s Teacher Witch-Hunt

Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

December 5, 2023 by John Warren 1 Comment

During Prohibition – which ended on December 5, 1933 – my grandfather’s brother Denis Warren, a veteran of some of the bloodiest American battles of the First World War, was left for dead on the side of Route 9N south of Port Henry on Lake Champlain. He was in the second of two cars of friends returning from Montreal, both “heavily loaded with Canadian ale” according to a newspaper account.

Going through Port Henry, Essex County, local customs agents gave chase and the car he was in hit a rock cut and he was badly injured in the accident. Figuring his was dead, or nearly so, and worried he would go to prison, one of Denis’s best friends rolled him under the guardrail, climbed into the other car, and sped off. [Read more…] about Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

Redeeming Al Smith: New York’s Four-Time Governor

May 1, 2023 by Chris Kretz Leave a Comment

Al Smith was many things during his political career: reform champion after the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, four-time governor of New York State, the first Catholic presidential candidate. But he was always a New York City boy at heart. [Read more…] about Redeeming Al Smith: New York’s Four-Time Governor

Smugglers & The Law: Prohibition In Northern New York

January 19, 2023 by John Warren 9 Comments

Dennis Warren left his job as a coal shoveler on the New York Central Railroad in Albany to ship out to the First World War. His transport ship had a close call with a German submarine on the way over, but got there in time to take part in what one of the bloodiest military campaigns in American history.

For Americans after the war, the Argonne would mean what Normandy meant just 25 years later – sacrifice. Sadly, that sacrifice in the Argonne Forest was never repaid to Dennis Warren, who met the death of a smuggler – running from an officious and invasive law on a treacherous mountain road near Port Henry on Lake Champlain.

According to the newsman who reported his death at the age of 29, “Canadian Ale was spread across the road.” [Read more…] about Smugglers & The Law: Prohibition In Northern New York

Babe Ruth, Sports and 1920s Identity Politics

November 14, 2022 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

The Roaring Twenties saw the collision of an emerging culture of celebrity with the established popularity of sports, creating one of the twentieth century’s most enduring personalities — baseball hero Babe Ruth.

In 1928, Ruth not only led the New York Yankees to their third World Series victory, he also threw himself into politics, campaigning enthusiastically for New York State governor and Democratic presidential nominee Al Smith. Smith’s liberal and progressive platform appealed to diverse, working-class Americans, often marginalized by the policies of other politicians. [Read more…] about Babe Ruth, Sports and 1920s Identity Politics

The Creation of the Saratoga Battlefield Park: A Short History

October 9, 2022 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

Saturday, October 8th, 1927, was a great day for a burglar in Ballston Spa, NY. The Saratogian newspaper announced that “Ballston Spa closed down shop this noon and went to the Saratoga Battlefield celebration. Scores of Ballstonians, many of them taking part in the pageant, went to the historic battlefield this morning, but the great exodus did not take place until early this afternoon. Stores, mills, offices and shops closed at noon and throughout the forenoon there was a hustle and bustle of people getting ready to go to the celebration.” [Read more…] about The Creation of the Saratoga Battlefield Park: A Short History

The First Great Reset: Wall St, the Great Depression & the Pecora Commission

March 9, 2022 by James S. Kaplan 4 Comments

Initially many thought the severe Wall Street crash of October 1929 was a temporary phenomenon and like many subsequent crashes (i.e. 1987, 2008) the stock market would recover in a few months or years.

Unfortunately, this did not prove to be the case. After some upward spurts, stocks on the New York Stock Exchange continued to fall for the next three years and economic conditions throughout the country continued to worsen, so that by 1932 the market closed at 41, a drop of 89% over its 1929 high of 381. Employment in Wall Street firms plummeted, as the once heady activity evaporated and the Great Depression took hold.

The response would require a great reset between Wall Street and working Americans. [Read more…] about The First Great Reset: Wall St, the Great Depression & the Pecora Commission

Wall Street History: Individual Investors & The Crash of 1929

February 28, 2022 by James S. Kaplan 1 Comment

The break-up of Standard Oil and other monopolies during the Trust-busting Era, created somewhat greater competition, but did not significantly impact Wall Street, or its major players. For example, after the success of the Justice Department in the 1911 Supreme Court Case United States v. Standard Oil (in which the Court ruled that Standard Oil of New Jersey violated the Sherman Antitrust Act), the company was ordered broken into 34 ostensibly independent companies. *

The stock in each of these companies was distributed to Standard Oil Company shareholders (principally the Rockefeller family) and each company had separate boards of directors and separate management, but by and large they continued to operate on separate floors of the same building — 26 Broadway in Manhattan. [Read more…] about Wall Street History: Individual Investors & The Crash of 1929

Tammany’s Last Stand: The McManus Club & The McGovern Campaign

October 28, 2021 by James S. Kaplan 2 Comments

James R. McManus was born in Hell’s Kitchen in 1936 and recently died in 2019. For 54 years (from 1962 to 2016) he was the Democratic Party District Leader from the Hell’s Kitchen area. This was a position that his father Eugene E. McManus had held for 20 years before him.

Previously Eugene McManus’s great grand uncle, Thomas J. McManus, had held the position, since the formation of the McManus Democratic Club in 1892, when he defeated the prior District Leader George Washington Plunkitt, author of Plunkitt of Tammany Hall: A Series of Very Plain Talks on Very Practical Politics (1905). [Read more…] about Tammany’s Last Stand: The McManus Club & The McGovern Campaign

Lighthearted Political Anecdotes From NNY Newspapers

September 30, 2021 by Maury Thompson Leave a Comment

Trivia clue: This New York governor showed up too late to play in a November 12th golf game promoted as a friendly match between “is” and “to be.”

Correct response: Gov. Nathan Miller, the Republican incumbent who just weeks before had lost re-election to Democrat Al Smith, who Miller had un-seated two years earlier. [Read more…] about Lighthearted Political Anecdotes From NNY Newspapers

NY Newspaper Anecdotes From Political History

August 17, 2021 by Maury Thompson Leave a Comment

Trivia clue: The piano company that First Lady Caroline Harrison, a music teacher, selected for the White House piano in 1889 after an extensive scrutiny of domestic and foreign brands.

Correct response: Who is J & C Fischer of New York City? [Read more…] about NY Newspaper Anecdotes From Political History

Al Smith, John Apperson, FDR & The Fight That Expanded NYS Forests

November 5, 2020 by David Gibson 1 Comment

A young wildlands advocate Paul Schaefer was enamored of activist John Apperson from the day he first met him.

It was about 1931. Apperson was an General Electric engineer fighting to protect Lake George and other wild places. As Schaefer said, it was the pure sense of joy that Apperson exuded about conservation in the Adirondacks which galvanized young people looking for a cause.

These were very important years for the Adirondacks, as for the nation. The 1932 national election loomed, as the Great Depression sucked hope and savings from so many. One can imagine the anxiety that gripped the country and the opportunity for hucksters, demagogues, as well as statesmen. [Read more…] about Al Smith, John Apperson, FDR & The Fight That Expanded NYS Forests

Frances Perkins, One of America’s Most Influential Women, Remains Unrecognized

September 23, 2020 by James S. Kaplan 3 Comments

Frances Perkins, who served as President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Secretary of Labor in all four terms of his administration, is often credited with designing many of the New Deal’s social welfare programs, including Social Security. As such, she ranks among the most influential women of the 20th Century.

Few however, know that Perkins began her career in the Hell’s Kitchen area of the city of New York, work that as inspired inn part by a chance meeting an Irish Tammany Hall District Leader Tom McManus. [Read more…] about Frances Perkins, One of America’s Most Influential Women, Remains Unrecognized

Al Smith

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