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The Plume Boom: Feathers, Fans, Funerals, Fashion & Filth

April 1, 2026 by Jaap Harskamp Leave a Comment

Economic history is a tale of bubbles and booms in which assets such as commodities, land, or stocks, quickly inflate in price above their intrinsic value. Such sudden movements, driven by greedy investors and speculative hype, are invariably followed by a bust. Loss of confidence causes a collapse in prices, resulting in a crash of “panic selling.”

There are many such examples, most of them well-documented. Tulip-mania in the Dutch Republic during the 1630s was the first real financial bubble. Then there were the Mississippi and South Sea Bubbles (1720), both followed by a spectacular crash. More recently, we have seen the Dotcom Bubble, driven by mad speculation in internet-based stock.

While the assets may change over time, from tulips to technology, the factors of greed and fear are the ever-present psychological drivers of economic upheavals. Of all the bubbles known to historians, the “Plume Boom” is one of the more obscure tales. [Read more…] about The Plume Boom: Feathers, Fans, Funerals, Fashion & Filth

Forgotten Stories of People of Color in Northern New York

February 27, 2026 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

A new digital project is documenting the forgotten stories of people of color in Northern New York. Jacqueline Madison, President of the North Country Underground Railroad Historical Association has created a website to share stories she has uncovered of working-class people of color in the Adirondack and Lake Champlain regions.

The new website, jaqcalinfo.com, chronicles the history of individuals who lived, loved, and thrived in the North Country. [Read more…] about Forgotten Stories of People of Color in Northern New York

When Indians Were Barred From Citizenship by the Supreme Court

February 19, 2026 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

On February 19, 1923, the US Supreme Court issued a ruling legally barring all Indians from becoming U.S. citizens and revoking citizenship from many who had attained it.

Bhagat Singh Thind (1892-1967), an Indian Sikh man born in Punjab, migrated to the U.S. in 1913. After enlisting in the U.S. Army and serving in World War One, Thind applied and obtained approval for citizenship in 1920. [Read more…] about When Indians Were Barred From Citizenship by the Supreme Court

A Walk Up the Bowery, Circa 1872

October 24, 2025 by Bill Greer Leave a Comment

The Bowery is one of Manhattan’s oldest “streets,” dating back to the Dutch days of New Amsterdam. It runs along the path Director-General Peter Stuyvesant took from his home at the tip of the island to his farm, which the Dutch called his bouwerij.

In the 1870s, it ran about a mile from Printing House Square to 8th street. Printing House Square was the heart of the city’s newspaper business, where Park Row is today. [Read more…] about A Walk Up the Bowery, Circa 1872

Mabel Ping-Hua Lee, Thomas Nast & Chinese American History

September 25, 2025 by Jaap Harskamp Leave a Comment

Migration from Asia to the United States was minimal before the 1800s, but facing poverty and political instability large numbers of Chinese residents began looking a better life in the West from the 1840s onward.

Many would escape the Taiping Rebellion, a large-scale civil war that had started in 1850. Lasting for fourteen years, violence and persecution encompassed much of Southern China, pushing citizens away from their traditional homes. [Read more…] about Mabel Ping-Hua Lee, Thomas Nast & Chinese American History

‘Save Our Signs’ Effort Rushing to Save Banned National Park Service Signs

August 13, 2025 by Editorial Staff 1 Comment

“The National Park Service is the nation’s largest outdoor history classroom,” echoes a new effort by history advocates hoping to record educational signs being taken down by the Trump regime in the Nation’s national parks, historic sites and other public lands.

Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, whose first act was to instruct the Department to reduce regulations and expand natural resource extraction efforts, is now asking Americans to report signs in National Parks that “inappropriately disparage Americans past or living.” [Read more…] about ‘Save Our Signs’ Effort Rushing to Save Banned National Park Service Signs

Tales of Early American – Chinese Trade Relations

June 5, 2025 by Jaap Harskamp 1 Comment

The tradition of freak shows in Europe dates back to the sixteenth century. Medical “monstrosities” became standard components of traveling exhibitions. During the nineteenth century such shows caught the imagination of large viewing (and paying) audiences.

Human exhibits were presented for public entertainment and the parade of “freaks of nature” was a booming business. With the expansion of colonialism, the emphasis changed from physical to racial characteristics. Displays of exotic but “backward” populations (“human zoos”) became common in the 1870s in the midst of imperialist ambitions. [Read more…] about Tales of Early American – Chinese Trade Relations

1915: Women Who Marry A Non-Citizen Lose Their Citizenship

December 11, 2024 by Editorial Staff 2 Comments

On December 6, 1915, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision upholding the Expatriation Act of 1907, in which the Republican dominated Congress mandated that “any American woman who marries a foreigner shall take the nationality of her husband.”

Upon marriage, regardless of where the couple resided, the woman’s legal identity morphed into her husband’s and stripped American women of their citizenship when they married a non-citizen. [Read more…] about 1915: Women Who Marry A Non-Citizen Lose Their Citizenship

A History of Segregation in NYC Public Schools

November 24, 2024 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

The first schools in New York City were established in 1805 as the Free School Society, run by Quakers, and later by Baptist groups who renamed the school system, The Public School Society.

The Catholic Church dissuaded participation in The Public School Society believing it to be anti-Catholic, and with Irish Catholic immigration on the rise in the 1830s, the pressure to include their involvement in schools led to the establishment of the NYC Board of Education (BOE) in 1842. [Read more…] about A History of Segregation in NYC Public Schools

1927: Supreme Court Declares Asian Americans ‘Colored’ & Upholds Banning Them from White Schools

November 21, 2024 by Editorial Staff 1 Comment

On November 21, 1927, in Gong Lum v. Rice, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against the Chinese American Lum family and upheld Mississippi’s power to force nine-year-old Martha Lum to attend a “colored school” outside the district in which she lived.

Applying the “separate but equal” doctrine established in 1896’s Plessy v. Ferguson decision, the Court held that the maintenance of separate schools based on race was “within the constitutional power of the state legislature to settle, without intervention of the federal courts.” [Read more…] about 1927: Supreme Court Declares Asian Americans ‘Colored’ & Upholds Banning Them from White Schools

Research Underway to Document Millbrook’s Innisfree Garden

August 16, 2024 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Innisfree Garden in Millbrook, Dutchess County, NY, is the recipient of a 2024 Preserve New York Grant from the Preservation League of NYS in the amount of $15,800 for work toward a Cultural Landscape Report that will document its unique landscape architecture. [Read more…] about Research Underway to Document Millbrook’s Innisfree Garden

Interracial Marriage: Some History of Anti-Miscegenation Laws

July 30, 2024 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

The interracial marriage prohibition is deeply rooted in our Nation’s history and tradition. Statutes prohibiting interracial marriage were enforced in American colonies and states for more than three centuries.

The first anti-miscegenation law was enacted in Maryland in 1661. Virginia followed suit soon after. [Only Connecticut, New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey, Vermont, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Alaska, Hawaii, and Washington, D.C. never enacted anti-miscegenation laws.] [Read more…] about Interracial Marriage: Some History of Anti-Miscegenation Laws

Chinatown Community History

May 5, 2024 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

May is Asian American and Pacific Islanders Heritage Month and in celebration this episode of A New York Minute In History Podcast highlights the community history of Manhattan’s Chinatown, one of the oldest and largest Chinese and Chinese American communities in the United States. [Read more…] about Chinatown Community History

Chinatown’s Mosco Street: A Last Remnant of the Five Points

November 28, 2023 by Lawrence Venturato 7 Comments

Nestled within New York City’s sprawling Chinatown is a little, one block street named Mosco. It is the last remnant of Cross Street (later Park Street) which originally ran from Lafayette Street on the west to Mott Street on the east in the first half of the 19th century.

The telescoping of Cross Street into Park Street and finally, into Mosco Street would normally be considered a sad diminution of a once proud thoroughfare were it not for the little street that remains in its wake. [Read more…] about Chinatown’s Mosco Street: A Last Remnant of the Five Points

Expelling the Poor: The Nineteenth-Century Origins of American Immigration Policy

September 7, 2023 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Historians have long assumed that immigration to the United States was free from regulation until anti-Asian racism on the West Coast triggered the introduction of federal laws to restrict Chinese immigration in the 1880s. Studies of European immigration and government control on the East Coast have, meanwhile, focused on Ellis Island, which opened in 1892. [Read more…] about Expelling the Poor: The Nineteenth-Century Origins of American Immigration Policy

Chuck Connors & Slum Tourism in Chinatown

April 20, 2023 by Jaap Harskamp 2 Comments

Dating from 1785, Edward Mooney House at 18 Bowery, at the corner of Pell Street in Lower Manhattan’s Chinatown, is one of New York’s oldest surviving brick townhouses. Built shortly after the British evacuated New York and before George Washington became President, its architecture contains elements of both pre-Revolutionary (British) Georgian and the in-coming (American) Federal style. Designated in 1966 as a landmark sample of domestic architecture, Mooney House has three stories, an attic and full basement.

The property itself and the land on which it was built are manifestations of Manhattan’s socio-political emergence. The house harbors a history of various functions that involved a diverse mix of tenants and occupants, reflecting the chaotic rise of the metropolis. [Read more…] about Chuck Connors & Slum Tourism in Chinatown

Sadakichi Hartmann: A German-Asian-American Artist’s Struggle for Identity

February 9, 2023 by Jaap Harskamp 1 Comment

In response to the attack on Pearl Harbour in 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 authorizing the founding of a new federal agency, the War Relocation Authority (WRA), which began forcibly removing Japanese Americans from the West Coast and relocate them to isolated inland areas. Around 120,000 people were detained in remote camps for the remainder of the Second World War. [Read more…] about Sadakichi Hartmann: A German-Asian-American Artist’s Struggle for Identity

Chinese Restaurant History in New York City

February 2, 2023 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

The first known Chinese restaurant in America, Canton Restaurant, is believed to have opened in San Francisco in 1849. Today, according to the Chinese American Restaurant Association, more than 45,000 Chinese restaurants operate across the United States, more than all the McDonald’s, KFCs, Pizza Huts, Taco Bells and Wendy’s combined.

Their story begins with Chinese immigrants to California in the mid-nineteenth century — mostly from Canton province — drawn by the Gold Rush of 1849 and fleeing economic problems and famine in China. Though some headed to the gold fields, most Chinese immigrants to the San Francisco Bay area provided services for the miners as traders, grocers, merchants and restaurant owners. [Read more…] about Chinese Restaurant History in New York City

Islands of Punishment and Exclusion

August 9, 2022 by Jaap Harskamp Leave a Comment

The exclusion of “undesirables” to remote lands has a long history. The shameful attempts by contemporary governments to “solve” the refugee problem in that manner has had precedents.

During the mid-1930s Mussolini dumped socialists and anti-fascists in the inaccessible and malaria-ridden southern areas of the country.

The use of islands as off-shore detention centers has a parallel history. The government of Charles I locked up its opponents at Jersey, Guernsey, or the Isles of Scilly. Having lost the English Civil War, Charles I himself was incarcerated in Carisbrooke Castle on the Isle of Wight. Faced with continuing sedition and agitation, Charles II sent several former leaders of the Interregnum into island isolation. [Read more…] about Islands of Punishment and Exclusion

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