New York Almanack

History, Natural History & the Arts

Economic History

The First Slave Traders in New York

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West India Company warehouse in Amsterdam. Engraving, ca. 1663.The first direct shipment of enslaved Africans arrived in New Amsterdam (now New York City) in 1655. The voyage of the White Horse came in the wake of significant changes in the Dutch Atlantic.  In this eessay, American historian Dennis Maika outlines how family and business connections shaped the development of a slave-trading center in Manhattan.

New Amsterdam’s residents would have immediately noticed something different about the arrival of the Witte Paert (White Horse) in the early summer of 1655. The stench of human excrement and illness emanating from the newly arrived “scheepgen” (small ship), left little doubt that a slaver had arrived after a long voyage. [Read more…] about The First Slave Traders in New York

Early America’s Trade With China

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ben franklins world podcast

In this episode of Ben Franklin’s World, Dael Norwood, an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Delaware, joins Liz Covart to explore the lure of trade with China with details from his book, Trading Freedom: How Trade with China Defined Early America (Univ. of Chicago Press, 2022).

[Read more…] about Early America’s Trade With China

The Jewish World of Alexander Hamilton

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ben franklins world podcastIn 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

The 1950 Census Has Been Released – Here’s How To Get It

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a Farmer Supplies Answers to the 232 Questions on the Farm ScheduleAccording to the “72-Year Rule,” the National Archives releases census records to the general public 72 years after Census Day. As a result, the 1950 census records was released on April 1, 2022. The 1950 census was the first released in a digital, searchable form (name and place) from the outset. Previous censuses required time consuming and error introducing transcriptions and indexing.

Since the first census in 1790, the U.S. Census Bureau has collected data using a census “schedule,” also formally called a “questionnaire” or popularly called a “form.” Between 1790 and 1820, U.S. Marshals conducting the census were responsible for supplying paper and writing-in headings related to the questions asked (i.e., name, age, sex, race, etc.). In 1830, Congress authorized the printing of uniform schedules for use throughout the United States. [Read more…] about The 1950 Census Has Been Released – Here’s How To Get It

Wall Street History: The Great Depression & A New Deal For Working People

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out of work men during the Great Depression (retouched)In 1933, during Franklin D. Roosevelt‘s first year as President, the Democrats launched a number of New Deal social welfare and economic recovery efforts to combat the Great Depression.

Among the more popular and successful of these was the creation of the Public Works Administration (PWA) and the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), jobs programs which were modeled on similar programs in New York State. [Read more…] about Wall Street History: The Great Depression & A New Deal For Working People

The First Great Reset: Wall St, the Great Depression & the Pecora Commission

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Crowd at New York's American Union Bank during a bank run early in the Great Depression (ca 1931)Initially many thought the severe Wall Street crash of October 1929 was a temporary phenomenon and like many subsequent crashes (i.e. 1987, 2008) the stock market would recover in a few months or years.

Unfortunately, this did not prove to be the case. After some upward spurts, stocks on the New York Stock Exchange continued to fall for the next three years and economic conditions throughout the country continued to worsen, so that by 1932 the market closed at 41, a drop of 89% over its 1929 high of 381. Employment in Wall Street firms plummeted, as the once heady activity evaporated and the Great Depression took hold.

The response would require a great reset between Wall Street and working Americans. [Read more…] about The First Great Reset: Wall St, the Great Depression & the Pecora Commission

American Expansion and the Political Economy of Plunder

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Seeing RedIn this episode, Michael Witgen, a Professor of History and a Professor at the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race at Columbia University and a citizen of the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe, joins us to investigate the story of the Anishinaabeg and Anishinaabewaki, the homelands of the Anishinaabeg people, with details from his book, Seeing Red: Indigenous Land, American Expansion, and the Political Economy of Plunder in North America (Omohundro Institute & Univ. of No. Carolina Press, 2022). [Read more…] about American Expansion and the Political Economy of Plunder

Wall Street History: Individual Investors & The Crash of 1929

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Gasoline Marketing Territories of the Standard Oil companies in 1918The break-up of Standard Oil and other monopolies during the Trust-busting Era, created somewhat greater competition, but did not significantly impact Wall Street, or its major players. For example, after the success of the Justice Department in the 1911 Supreme Court Case United States v. Standard Oil (in which the Court ruled that Standard Oil of New Jersey violated the Sherman Antitrust Act), the company was ordered broken into 34 ostensibly independent companies. *

The stock in each of these companies was distributed to Standard Oil Company shareholders (principally the Rockefeller family) and each company had separate boards of directors and separate management, but by and large they continued to operate on separate floors of the same building — 26 Broadway in Manhattan. [Read more…] about Wall Street History: Individual Investors & The Crash of 1929

Trust Busting: William Jennings Bryan & Theodore Roosevelt

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Corner of Wall Street and Broad Street in New York City, ca 1900 (Library of Congress)As control of the American economy became increasingly centralized in trusts located on Wall Street after the Civil War, and the wealth of men like J.P. Morgan and John D. Rockefeller grew exponentially, there developed an increasing backlash against such concentrations of wealth. In the 1880s, through an investigation by a committee of the New York State Legislature, Americans became aware that Standard Oil secretly controlled a number of supposedly competing oil companies. By 1910 almost 90% of the world’s oil supply was controlled from the company’s headquarters at 26 Broadway in Manhattan. [Read more…] about Trust Busting: William Jennings Bryan & Theodore Roosevelt