History, Natural History & the Arts
From the very beginning it was agreed the Statue of Liberty would be a joint venture: France would create the actual copper sculpture; America would provide the stone pedestal on which it was to be mounted.
Strange as it may seem, however, neither government was involved. And neither government paid either a sou or a penny toward the monument’s funding. [Read more…] about Who Paid for the Statue of Liberty?
Today the state of Minnesota is engaged in the first General Strike in nearly 80 years. There have been thousands of strikes in American history, but only about a dozen General Strikes. One of the first strikes took place in the city of New York in 1677. Afterward a dozen cart-men (one-horse cart operators) were criminally prosecuted “for not obeying the Command and Doing their Dutyes as becomes them in their Places” and fined.
About 80 strikes in the U.S. have involved over 100,000 workers. Here are 13 strikes every New Yorker should know about: [Read more…] about Strike! 13 Strikes Every New Yorker Should Know About
Although Thomas Coman (1836-1909) served as Acting Mayor of New York for several weeks at the end of 1868 and early 1869, Irish-born William Russell Grace (1832-1904) was New York City’s first elected Roman Catholic Mayor.
Elected in 1880 as the City’s 54th holder of the office, he had made a splendid career as an entrepreneur, but his candidacy was criticized in the editorials of the New York Times and lambasted by opponents who claimed that the new Mayor would hand the metropolis to the “Holy Father of Rome.” But attitudes towards “Popery” were changing as the number of Catholic Americans grew and their influence increased. [Read more…] about The Statue of Liberty: Chemistry, Psychology & Democracy
The “Man with the Muck Rake” appears in John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress as a person who only looks down gathering filth. His vision is fixed on carnal, not on spiritual matters. By seeking out what is disagreeable, he is blind to divine grace.
In a speech on April 15th, 1906 President Theodore Roosevelt referred to this passage when he acknowledged that men with ‘muck rakes’ may be indispensable to social well-being, but that applies only if they know “when to stop raking the muck.” There is a rich Anglo-American tradition of muckraking that has been instrumental in exposing injustice and corruption. Today, investigative journalism is under threat. [Read more…] about Slum Tours and Muckrakers in London and New York
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