Columbia University

Edgar Allan Poe’s European Legacy

September 26, 2022 by Jaap Harskamp 2 Comments

A hundred years ago the Edgar Allan Poe Museum was founded in Richmond, Virginia. To celebrate the anniversary author and preeminent Poe collector Susan Jaffe Tane donated the pocket watch that Poe carried on him whilst writing his short story The Tell-Tale Heart shortly before he moved to the city of New York where he spent his last years.

In this tale the murderous narrator compares the thumping of his victim’s heart to the ticking of a clock. [Read more…] about Edgar Allan Poe’s European Legacy

The Architecture of Joseph Urban: Mar-a-Lago & The New School

June 21, 2022 by Jaap Harskamp Leave a Comment

Joseph Urban may be a somewhat forgotten figure in America’s annals of culture, but during his lifetime he enjoyed an almost legendary reputation. An all-round creative talent, Urban was a prolific Gilded Age illustrator, set designer, and architect of private dwellings, theaters, and a university building in the city of New York. His Gingerbread Castle was built for a fairy tale themed amusement park in Hamburg, New Jersey.

His feeling for color and choice of materials did much to revitalize American stage design and architecture. The contrast between two of Urban’s extant buildings shows the range of his talent as an architect. It goes beyond that: the marked stylistic difference seemed to foreshadow the divisiveness of contemporary society. [Read more…] about The Architecture of Joseph Urban: Mar-a-Lago & The New School

Harry James Carman: Farm Boy to Columbia University Dean

December 16, 2021 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

“Here is a good dirt farmer gone wrong” is how Harry James Carman described himself.

He started out as a farm-raised country boy in Saratoga County, NY and rose to the position of Dean of Columbia University in New York City. [Read more…] about Harry James Carman: Farm Boy to Columbia University Dean

A Lively New History of Barnard College Published

October 19, 2020 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Book purchases made through this link support New York Almanack’s mission to report new publications relevant to New York State.

The new book A College of Her Own: The History of Barnard (Columbia University Press, 2020) by Robert McCaughey offers a comprehensive and lively narrative of Barnard College from its beginnings to the present day. [Read more…] about A Lively New History of Barnard College Published

Grad Students Study Jay Heritage Preservation Issues

September 29, 2020 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation (GSAPP) is offering a studio course this fall semester titled “Radical Re-construction: Materializing Social Justice at the Country Estate of John Jay, a Founder of American Democracy.”

The studio is being led by Jorge Otero-Pailos, the school’s head of historic preservation and a member of JHC’s board of trustees, and Mark Rakatansky, an adjunct associate professor at the school and principal of Mark Rakatansky Studio. [Read more…] about Grad Students Study Jay Heritage Preservation Issues

New Book On 1968 Columbia Student Protests

April 15, 2018 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Paul Cronin’s new book, A Time to Stir: Columbia ’68, (Columbia University Press, 2018) reflects upon the 50th anniversary of the Columbia University student uprising and the legacies of the 1960s.

For seven days in April 1968, students occupied five buildings on the campus of Columbia University to protest a planned gymnasium in a nearby Harlem park, links between the university and the Vietnam War, and what they saw as the university’s unresponsive attitude toward their concerns. [Read more…] about New Book On 1968 Columbia Student Protests

Peter Feinman On Culture Wars At Columbia University

April 12, 2018 by Peter Feinman Leave a Comment

On April 5, while doing research, I took a lunch-break and picked up a copy of the Columbia Daily Spectator, the Columbia University undergraduate newspaper. In reading the paper, I came across several articles directly related to history and the current culture wars.

Since I have a sample of only one newspaper, I can’t determine if the contents were typical of the campus news coverage, if it was just a chance day, or some combination of both. In any event, my lunch time reading turned into a fascinating glimpse into the front-lines of the culture war. Read about it here: History at Columbia University: Report from a Battle Front in the Culture Wars

American Eden: Botany, Medicine In The Early Republic

April 11, 2018 by Editorial Staff 1 Comment

Victoria Johnson’s new book American Eden: David Hosack, Botany, and Medicine in the Garen of the Early Republic (Liveright, 2018) is the untold story of Alexander Hamilton’s ― and Aaron Burr’s ― personal physician, whose dream to build America’s first botanical garden inspired the young Republic.

When Dr. David Hosack tilled what is believed to one of the country’s first botanical gardens in the Manhattan soil more than two hundred years ago, he didn’t just dramatically alter the New York landscape; he left a legacy of advocacy for public health and wide-ranging support for the sciences. [Read more…] about American Eden: Botany, Medicine In The Early Republic

Columbia Students Discover the Power of Protest

November 15, 2017 by Lawrence Wittner Leave a Comment

The reckless threats of nuclear war flung back and forth between the North Korean and U.S. governments remind me of an event in which I participated back in the fall of 1961, when I was a senior at Columbia College.

At the end of August 1961, the Soviet government had announced that it was withdrawing from the U.S.-Soviet-British moratorium on nuclear weapons testing that had halted such tests for the previous three years while the three governments tried to agree on a test ban treaty. The resumption of Soviet government’s nuclear weapons testing that followed was topped off that October by its explosion in the atmosphere of a 50-megaton hydrogen bomb, the most powerful nuclear weapon ever detonated. Meanwhile, the Kennedy administration, determined not to be outdone in a display of national “strength,” quickly resumed U.S. nuclear testing underground and began to discuss the U.S. resumption of nuclear testing in the atmosphere. [Read more…] about Columbia Students Discover the Power of Protest

Grave Robbing And The Doctors Riot of 1788

December 20, 2016 by Miguel Hernandez 3 Comments

The origins of this civil disturbance began in early February of 1788 and broke out in mid April of that year. Actually the City’s doctors did not riot as the name implies. However, it had its origins in the illegal procurement of corpses of free blacks and slaves and poor whites by doctors and medical students at an unaccredited surgical training school in lower Manhattan led by Richard Bailey, a Connecticut-born doctor who had studied in London.

Apparently it was expensive and almost impossible for the school to provide corpses for its teaching purposes and the professors and students resorted to stealing them from nearby Trinity Church yard and other local cemeteries including the one for people of color then known the “Negro Burying Ground” [Read more…] about Grave Robbing And The Doctors Riot of 1788