The new book The Majestic Nature of the North: Thomas Kelah Wharton’s Journeys in Antebellum America through the Hudson River Valley and New England (SUNY Press, 2019), edited by Steven A. Walton and Michael J. Armstrong, features the travel diaries of nineteenth-century artist, educator, and architect Thomas Kelah Wharton, documenting his trips in the lower Hudson River Valley and New Orleans to Boston and back. [Read more…] about 19th Century Hudson River, New England Travel Diaries Published
Book Notices
Sing Sing’s Mysterious Inmate Author Number 1500 Revealed
In 1904, one year after his release from prison, a felon who used only the pen name Number 1500 wrote the book Life in Sing Sing, a rare look at what it was like to serve time inside the legendary penitentiary. The author also presents his thoughts on effective methods of rehabilitation. He comments, “The attitude…toward convicts that belong to the recidivist class is to punish them severely and, having failed with hard measures, to try harder ones.”
[Read more…] about Sing Sing’s Mysterious Inmate Author Number 1500 Revealed
Madison Square Garden: Art, Scandal, and Architecture
Suzanne Hinman’s new book The Grandest Madison Square Garden: Art, Scandal, and Architecture in Gilded Age New York (Syracuse University Press, 2019) looks back to November 1891, the heart of Gilded Age Manhattan.
Thousands filled the streets surrounding Madison Square, when after countless struggles, Stanford White – the country’s most celebrated architect was about to dedicate America’s tallest tower, the final cap set atop his Madison Square Garden, the country’s grandest new palace of pleasure. Amid a flood of electric light and fireworks, the gilded figure topping the tower was suddenly revealed – an eighteen-foot nude sculpture of Diana, the Roman Virgin Goddess of the Hunt, created by Augustus Saint-Gaudens, White’s pal. [Read more…] about Madison Square Garden: Art, Scandal, and Architecture
Forest and Crag, Major Northeastern Hiking History, Republished
Thirty years after its initial publication, Forest and Crag: A History of Hiking, Trail Blazing, and Adventure in the Northeast Mountains has been republished in an anniversary edition (SUNY Press, 2019).
Laura and Guy Waterman’s book is a history of the love affair with the mountains of the northern forests from the Catskills and the Adirondacks of New York to the Green Mountains of Vermont, the White Mountains of New Hampshire, and the mountains of Maine. [Read more…] about Forest and Crag, Major Northeastern Hiking History, Republished
Adirondack Iroquoian and Algonquian History Published
Melissa Otis’ new book Rural Indigenousness, A History of Iroquoian and Algonquian Peoples of the Adirondacks (Syracuse University Press, 2019) takes a fresh look at the rich history of Algonquian and Iroquoian people, offering a study of the relationship between Native Americans and the Adirondacks.
The Adirondacks have been an Indigenous homeland for millennia, and the presence of Native people in the region was obvious but not well documented by Europeans, who did not venture into the interior between the seventeenth and early nineteenth centuries. Yet, by the late nineteenth century, historians had scarcely any record of their long-lasting and vibrant existence in the area. [Read more…] about Adirondack Iroquoian and Algonquian History Published
All the Nations Under Heaven Revised
First published in 1996, All the Nations Under Heaven: Immigrants, Migrants, and the Making of New York (Revised, Columbia University Press, 2019), written by Frederick M. Binder, David M. Reimers, and Rovert W. Snyder, chronicles the role of immigrants and migrants in shaping the history and culture of New York City.
This updated edition of a classic text brings the story of the immigrant experience in New York City up to the present with new material on the city’s revival as a global metropolis with deeply rooted racial and economic inequalities. [Read more…] about All the Nations Under Heaven Revised
Historian Alan Brinkley: A Life in History
The new book Alan Brinkley: A Life in History (Columbia University Press, 2019), edited by David Greenberg, Moshik Temkin and Mason B. Williams, brings together essays on Brinkley’s major works and ideas, as well as personal reminiscences from leading historians and thinkers beyond the academy whom Brinkley collaborated with, befriended, and influenced.
The volume includes essays by critic Frank Rich, journalists Jonathan Alter and Nicholas Lemann, biographer A. Scott Berg, and historians Eric Foner and Lizabeth Cohen. Together, the seventeen essays that form the book chronicle the life and thought of a working historian, the development of historical scholarship in our time, and the role that history plays in our public life. [Read more…] about Historian Alan Brinkley: A Life in History
Widow Maker, A Maritime Tale of Lake Ontario
Susan Peterson Gateley’s novel The Widow Maker, A Maritime Tale of Lake Ontario (Whiskey Hill Press, 2019) looks at the story of a female Lake Ontario sailor’s political enlightenment in the time of Rochester’s Susan B. Anthony, Oswego’s Dr. Mary Walker and Auburn’s Harriet Tubman.
The novel’s publication coincided with the centennial of the passage in Congress of the 19th amendment allowing the vote for women by the U. S. Congress (subsequently ratified in 1920). Much of the plot is based on actual historic events and takes place on Oswego’s waterfront in 1880 and on the open waters of Lake Ontario. [Read more…] about Widow Maker, A Maritime Tale of Lake Ontario
Book Launch: The Writing Irish of New York
The American Irish Historical Society has announced a book launch for The Writing Irish Of New York, a collection of original essays and remembrances by Colum McCann, Billy Collins, Luanne Rice, Malachy McCourt and many others who provide personal accounts of how generations of Irish authors found their voice in the Big Apple, has been set for Tuesday, February 12th at 7 pm. [Read more…] about Book Launch: The Writing Irish of New York
The Indian World of George Washington Lecture in NYC
Fraunces Tavern Museum in Manhattan, will present a lecture by Colin G. Calloway, author of The Indian World of George Washington (Oxford Univ. Press, 2018) about Native American land, power, people that shaped George Washington’s life at key moments, and also shaped the early history of the nation.
Calloway is John Kimball Jr. 1943 Professor of History and Native American Studies at Dartmouth College. His previous books include A Scratch of the Pen and The Victory with No Name. [Read more…] about The Indian World of George Washington Lecture in NYC
The Cats of Gotham: Tales of Feline Friendship in Old New York
Peggy Gavin’s new book The Cat Men of Gotham: Tales of Feline Friendship in Old New York (Rutgers University Press, 2019) looks back to the nineteenth century in New York City, when humans dealt with feline overpopulation by gassing unwanted cats or tossing them in rivers, and the people who rescued them from the streets and welcomed them into their homes and hearts. [Read more…] about The Cats of Gotham: Tales of Feline Friendship in Old New York
New School 100th Anniversary Marked With New History
Judith Friedlander’s new book A Light in Dark Times: The New School for Social Research and Its University in Exile (Columbia University Press, 2019) takes a look at the history of the New School for Social Research in New York City.
Founded in 1919 in the name of academic freedom, the New School for Social Research quickly became a pioneer in adult education — what its first president, Alvin Johnson, called “the continuing education of the educated.” [Read more…] about New School 100th Anniversary Marked With New History
Shaping A City: New Book on Ithaca
A new book by Mack Travis, Shaping A City: Ithaca, New York, A Developer’s Perspective (Cornell University Press, 2018) is a look at one developer’s involvement, from first buying and renovating small houses, gradually expanding his thinking and projects to include a recognition of the interdependence of the entire city of Ithaca — jobs, infrastructure, retail, housing, industry, taxation, banking and City Planning. It is the story of how he, along with other local developers transformed a quiet, economically challenged upstate New York town into one that is recognized nationally as among the best small cities in the country. [Read more…] about Shaping A City: New Book on Ithaca
New Book Highlights African American Civil War Service
A new book by independent researcher and author Marjory Allen Perez, Freedom, A Shared Sacrifice! tells the stories of Western New York’s African American Civil War soldiers and their families.
Freedom, A Shared Sacrifice! focuses on soldiers from Western New York who joined black regiments between 1863 and 1865. Beginning with the men who traveled from New York in the spring of 1863 to enlist in the 54th Massachusetts, subjects of the movie Glory, the author documents the history of black regiments raised in the North, as well the soldiers who took part in the epic battle to save the Union and end slavery. [Read more…] about New Book Highlights African American Civil War Service
A Street by Street History of Albany Published
Erik Schlimmer’s new book Cradle of the Union: A Street by Street History of New York’s Capital City (Beechwood Books, 2019) offers help in decoding the names of the 785 streets within the city limits of Albany.
During his four-year-long research project Schlimmer examined nearly 1,000 print and online sources and interviewed historians, residents, and fellow researchers. The resulting 510-page reference includes 130 images, a bibliography and index, and a foreword by former Albany County Historian and Assemblyman John J. McEneny. [Read more…] about A Street by Street History of Albany Published
New Book On Adirondack Photographer J.S. Wooley
A new book edited by Richard Timberlake and Philip Terrie, J.S. Wooley: Adirondack Photographer (Syracuse University Press, 2018) tells the story of Jesse Sumner Wooley, a gifted and prolific Adirondack photographer at the turn of the twentieth century.
In 1880, Jesse Sumner Wooley, an energetic and entrepreneurial thirteen-year-old farm boy from Saratoga County, took a job as an errand boy for a pair of town photographers. The summer job led to a career that would define Wooley’s life. From that early start, he went on to become a prominent businessman and inventive photographer in Upstate New York. [Read more…] about New Book On Adirondack Photographer J.S. Wooley
New Book On Lake George Speedboat “El Lagarto”
A new book by Jon Bowers, Legend of Lake George “El Lagarto” and the Men That Made Her Great, is set to be published in the next few weeks, and is now available for pre-order.
Bowers says the book “sets record straight” on the story of the famous wooden Lake George speedboat owned by George Reis. Bower’s grandfather, Anderson “Dick” Bowers, was the mechanic who worked with and for Reis over the lifetime of El Lagarto. [Read more…] about New Book On Lake George Speedboat “El Lagarto”
Battling Editor: Harry Rosenfeld’s Albany Years
A new book by Harry Rosenfeld, with foreword by William Kennedy, Battling Editor: The Albany Years (Excelsior Editions, 2019) recounts the transformation of two daily newspapers in the face of economic downturns and sweeping technological change.
In 1978, Harry Rosenfeld left the Washington Post, where he oversaw the paper’s standard-setting coverage of Watergate, to take charge of two daily papers under co-ownership in Albany, New York: the morning Times Union and the evening Knickerbocker News. [Read more…] about Battling Editor: Harry Rosenfeld’s Albany Years
New Book Celebrates the Literary Legacy of William Kennedy
Until now, Pulitzer Prize-winning author William Kennedy’s literary legacy has never been celebrated in one book. From novels such as Ironweed, Legs, and Billy Phelan’s Greatest Game (the Albany Cycle) to Bootlegger of the Soul screenplays like The Cotton Club, as well as his many years of investigative journalistic work, Suzanne Lance and Paul Grondahl, have compiled reviews, essays, and interviews about Kennedy’s contributions to the literary landscape in the new book from SUNY Press, Bootlegger of the Soul. Also included is original writing by the author himself – a play and a short story. [Read more…] about New Book Celebrates the Literary Legacy of William Kennedy
Adrift: An 1856 Tragedy on the Atlantic
Brian Murphy’s new book Adrift: A True Story of Tragedy on the Icy Atlantic and the One Who Lived to Tell about It , with contributions from Toula Vlahou (Da Capo Press, 2018), tells the story of thirteen victims and a tragedy on the Atlantic Ocean.
The small ship making the Liverpool-to-New York trip in the early months of 1856 carried mail, crates of dry goods, and more than one hundred passengers, mostly Irish emigrants. Suddenly an iceberg tore the ship asunder and five lifeboats were lowered. As four lifeboats drifted into the fog and icy water, the last boat wrenched away from the sinking ship with a few blankets, some water and biscuits, and thirteen passengers. Only one would survive. This is his story. [Read more…] about Adrift: An 1856 Tragedy on the Atlantic