History, Natural History & the Arts
On 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
The 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
In 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
This 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
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
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
A 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
Like 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
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
Douglas Hamilton, a fifth great-grandson of Alexander Hamilton and Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton, has lent objects to be shown in The Schuyler Sisters & Their Circle exhibition at the Albany Institute of History & Art.
The objects, recently on view at the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia as part of their “Year of Hamilton” display, include a Society of the Cincinnati Eagle insignia owned by Alexander Hamilton and a gold mourning ring belonging to Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton. [Read more…] about Hamilton Descendant Lends Objects to Schuyler Sisters Exhibition