New York Almanack

History, Natural History & the Arts

Boston

The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley: A Poet’s Journey

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The Odyssey of Phillis WheatleyAdmired by George Washington, ridiculed by Thomas Jefferson, published, and read far and wide, Phillis Wheatley led an extraordinary life. Seized in West Africa and forced into slavery as a child, she was sold to a merchant family in Boston, where she became a noted poet at a young age.

Mastering the Bible, Latin translations, and literary works, she celebrated political events, praised warriors, and used her verse to variously lampoon, question, and assert the injustice of her enslaved condition. [Read more…] about The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley: A Poet’s Journey

Allegiance: The Life and Times of William Eustis

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Allegiance The Life and Times of William EustisThe book Allegiance: The Life and Times of William Eustis (Riverhaven Books, 2021) by Tamsen Evans George creates the vivid portrait of William Eustis, a patriot witness to and participant in many of the major events that shaped American history from the Revolution to the country’s fiftieth anniversary. [Read more…] about Allegiance: The Life and Times of William Eustis

The Revolutionary Samuel Adams

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ben franklins world podcastIn this episode of Ben Franklin’s World, Stacy Schiff, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, joins us to explore and investigate the life, deeds, and contributions of Samuel Adams using details from her book, The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams (Little Brown, 2022).

During this episode, Schiff reveals what we know about Samuel Adams’ life and education; How Adams made politics his career and his successes and failures in politics; And some of the work Adams did transform protests and debates over imperial taxation into a revolution for social and political change. [Read more…] about The Revolutionary Samuel Adams

Boston’s Black Workers in the Civil War Era

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The Struggles of Boston's Black Workers in the Civil War EraIn her book No Right to an Honest Living (Basic Books, 2023), Jacqueline Jones reveals how Boston was the United States writ small: a place where the soaring rhetoric of egalitarianism was easy, but justice in the workplace was elusive.

Before, during, and after the Civil War, white abolitionists and Republicans refused to secure equal employment opportunity for Black Bostonians, condemning many of them to poverty. [Read more…] about Boston’s Black Workers in the Civil War Era

Henry Knox, Phillip Schuyler and Lake Champlain’s Cannon in Boston

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Knox Artillery Train courtesy National Archives CollectionOne of the iconic stories of the American Revolution is the laborious trek of a contingent of newly-minted patriots, led by Henry Knox, lugging cannon from the fort at Crown Point and Fort Ticonderoga to Dorchester Heights, forcing the British to abandon Boston, an important early victory is our long fight for freedom.

Few may realize that important decisions while the expedition was in Saratoga County were key to the success of the mission. [Read more…] about Henry Knox, Phillip Schuyler and Lake Champlain’s Cannon in Boston

The Grimkes: The Legacy of Slavery in an American Family

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the grimkesSarah and Angelina Grimke are revered figures in American history, famous for rejecting their privileged lives on a plantation in South Carolina to become firebrand activists in the North. Yet retellings of their epic story have long obscured their Black relatives. [Read more…] about The Grimkes: The Legacy of Slavery in an American Family

The Great Boston Fire of 1872

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the great boston fireFor two days in November, 1872, a massive fire swept through Boston, leaving the downtown in ruins and the population traumatized. Coming barely a year after the infamous Chicago Fire, Boston’s inferno turned out to be one of the most expensive fires per acre in US history.

Yet today few are aware of how close Boston came to total destruction. [Read more…] about The Great Boston Fire of 1872

The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams

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The Revolutionary: Samuel AdamsThomas Jefferson asserted that if there was any leader of the American Revolution, “Samuel Adams was the man.” With high-minded ideals and bare-knuckle tactics, Adams led what could be called the greatest campaign of civil resistance in American history.  Adams amplified the Boston Massacre and helped to mastermind the Boston Tea Party.

He employed every tool available to rally a town, a colony, and eventually a band of colonies behind him, creating the cause that created a country. For his efforts he became the most wanted man in America: When Paul Revere rode to Lexington in 1775, it was to warn Samuel Adams that he was about to be arrested for treason. Despite his celebrated status among America’s founding fathers as a revolutionary leader however, Samuel Adams’ life and achievements have been largely overshadowed in history books. [Read more…] about The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams

Cazenovia, The Origins of Soccer & The National “Football” Hall of Fame

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Gerrit Smith Miller at 78In 1947 the citizens of Cazenovia in Madison County mounted a campaign to have the proposed hall of fame or shrine honoring American players of “football” located in their community.

Supporters at the village, town, county, and state levels joined in the effort to bring the hall of fame to Cazenovia. Assemblyman Wheeler Milmoe who represented Madison County introduced Resolution No. 154 in Albany in support of Cazenovia’s claim to fame. Gov. Thomas Dewey also voiced strong support for the idea. There were other places in the nation politicking for having the “football” hall of fame located in their communities. [Read more…] about Cazenovia, The Origins of Soccer & The National “Football” Hall of Fame

The Late Horrid Massacre in King-Street (A Boston Massacre Poem)

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Boston Massacre Poem“The 29th Regimt on Duty. A Quarrell between the soldiers & Inhabitants—The Bells—Rung—A Great Number Assembled in Kingstreet A Party of the 29th under the Command of Capt Preston fird on the People they killed five—wounded Several Others—particularly Mr. Edw Payne in his Right Arm—Capt Preston Bears a good Character—he was taken in the night & Committed also Seven more of the 29th—the Inhabitants are greatly enraged and not without Reason.” – Diary of John Rowe, 5 March 1770

Unlike the quote above, penned by an eventual Loyalist, stating the facts, the poem “A Verse Occasioned by the Late Horrid Massacre in King-Street” propagandizes the events of March 5th, 1770 in Boston when soldiers fired into a crowd of rioting Bostonians. The event is now known as the Boston Massacre. [Read more…] about The Late Horrid Massacre in King-Street (A Boston Massacre Poem)