This morning, the American Historical Association (AHA) and American Oversight urged the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit to uphold a court order the groups secured requiring White House officials to comply with the Presidential Records Act (PRA). [Read more…] about Historians in Court Over Trump Presidential Records Act Evasion
New York State Legal History
All our stories about New York State's Legal history.
From Public Hanging to Electric Chair: Kemmler, Edison & Tesla
Italian jurist and criminologist Cesare Beccaria was a leading figure in Milan’s Enlightenment circles. In 1764 he published his treatise Dei delitti e delle pene which made an instant impact. Translated in many languages, an English version appeared in 1767 as On Crimes and Punishments.
Advocating proportionality of punishment, Beccaria was one of the first thinkers to make a case against the death penalty by claiming that it is “better to prevent crimes than to punish them.” [Read more…] about From Public Hanging to Electric Chair: Kemmler, Edison & Tesla
New York’s Historical Defenses of Freedom of the Press
With the ongoing conflict between Donald Trump and the news media, including the President blocking the access of selected news outlets to the White House and vilifying journalists, it’s important to revisit the struggle for a free press since the early history of the United States and its role in a democratic society. [Read more…] about New York’s Historical Defenses of Freedom of the Press
Two-Wheel Bureaucracy: How America Once Governed Bicycles
For those who choose two wheels, bicycles are celebrated as eco-friendly, low-barrier alternatives to the automobile. A bicycle license plate recently highlighted by the Vermont Historical Society however, reveals a time when they were subject to the same municipal oversight, state regulation, and licensing as motor vehicles.
In fact, municipal bicycle licensing and registration was widespread across Vermont, New York State, and indeed the United States, from the 1930s through the mid-1970s. [Read more…] about Two-Wheel Bureaucracy: How America Once Governed Bicycles
New York Horse Ferries: A Short History
Early ferry travel across New York’s rivers and large lakes relied on rowboats, scows, barges, or sail ferries, which were vulnerable to shifting currents and bad weather. New York’s horse ferries bridged the gap between this unpredictable transportation and the mechanical age.
Known as “teamboats,” these vessels emerged in 1814 as a direct response to the commercial monopoly held by Robert Fulton and Robert Livingston over steam navigation in New York waters. [Read more…] about New York Horse Ferries: A Short History
Rutgers, Race & The Hardenbergh Legacy
The New York and New Jersey metropolitan area hosts several leading higher education institutions, ranging from elite Ivy League and public research universities to specialist technological schools. Three of those belong to the historic group of nine pre-Revolutionary colonial colleges. [Read more…] about Rutgers, Race & The Hardenbergh Legacy
Civil Rights Leaders and RFK Meet in NYC, 1963
During a television interview broadcast in March 1964, Malcolm X famously said “If you stick a knife in my back nine inches and pull it out six inches, there’s no progress. If you pull it all the way out, that’s not progress. The progress is healing the wound that the blow made. And they haven’t even begun to pull the knife out, much less heal the wound. …They won’t even admit the knife is there.” [Read more…] about Civil Rights Leaders and RFK Meet in NYC, 1963
New Amicus Briefs Back Fight to Protect Presidential Records
Three groups filed amicus briefs in the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit backing the American Historical Association (AHA), American Oversight, Freedom of the Press Foundation, and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) in their fight to stop the Trump administration from evading the Presidential Records Act (PRA). [Read more…] about New Amicus Briefs Back Fight to Protect Presidential Records
Manhattan in Flames: Arson, Rebellion, Conspiracy, & Sabotage
Early British colonists brought English common law to the colonies and adapted it to frontier conditions. Formally known as Lawes Divine, Morall and Martiall, “Dale’s Code” was a legal system enacted in 1610 (published in 1612) by the Deputy-Governor of colonial Virginia, Thomas Dale.
It mandated the death penalty for a range of misdeeds, from stealing grapes to trading with Indigenous populations. Arson too was a capital crime. [Read more…] about Manhattan in Flames: Arson, Rebellion, Conspiracy, & Sabotage
Smut: An 1883 Obscenity Trial and Its Echoes Today
In June, 1883, Jefferson and Helen Beardsley of Ithaca, New York, were indicted, tried, and sentenced for “selling and exhibiting obscene pictures.”
In Smut: An 1883 Obscenity Trial and Its Echoes Today (Paul Dry Books, 2026), historian Carol Kammen draws directly from the trial transcript and reveals the fascinating history surrounding the case and its surprising relevance today. [Read more…] about Smut: An 1883 Obscenity Trial and Its Echoes Today
‘Strung Up’ Explains How White America Learned to Lynch Black Children
Strung Up: How White America Learned to Lynch Black Children (Beacon Press, 2026) examines how the lynching of Black children became not an aberration, but a normalized feature of American racial violence.
Drawing on meticulous archival research Strung Up traces how white supremacy trained itself socially, culturally, and psychologically to tolerate and ritualize the destruction of Black childhood, including the unborn. [Read more…] about ‘Strung Up’ Explains How White America Learned to Lynch Black Children
19th Century NY Law and Birthright Citizenship
In August 1829 the passenger ship Emily arrived from Liverpool and anchored in New York Harbor. Like many 19th century ships entering New York’s bustling port, Emily carried migrants intent on making a new life in the city. Passages such as the Emily’s were commonplace but the actions of her master, William Thompson, proved exceptional.
Thompson, likely on the order of shipowner George Miln, flagrantly ignored an 1824 New York State law intended to regulate the flow of migrants into the metropolis. [Read more…] about 19th Century NY Law and Birthright Citizenship
After NY Wetlands Rules Struck Down, DEC Plans Webinar Tuesday
In April, Albany County Supreme Court issued a decision in Chautauqua Lake Prop. Owners Assn., Inc. v State of New York annulling the recently revised 6 NYCRR Part 664 freshwater wetlands regulations in their entirety.
The court said the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) failed to comply with the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA) during the adoption process. [Read more…] about After NY Wetlands Rules Struck Down, DEC Plans Webinar Tuesday
New York’s Provincial Congress: From Association to State Government
The New York Provincial Congress on May 26, 1775, appointed a “standing committee of correspondence” and the next day ordered all the counties in the Province of New York to name committees for the counties, towns and districts and to have the “general association” signed, in order to execute the orders of the Second Continental Congress.
Every citizen was to be invited to sign the “association” and by July 1775, all the non-signers (loyalist, or otherwise) were to be reported to the Provincial Congress. [Read more…] about New York’s Provincial Congress: From Association to State Government
Judge Blocks Trump Administration from Disregarding Presidential Records Act
On Wednesday, May 20, 2026, the US District Court for the District of Columbia granted emergency relief in the American Historical Association and American Oversight’s lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s effort to evade the Presidential Records Act (PRA).
The injunction, which takes effect at 9 am on Tuesday, May 26, enjoins the White House Office, the National Security Council, the US DOGE Service, and all advisors to the president to comply in full with the PRA. [Read more…] about Judge Blocks Trump Administration from Disregarding Presidential Records Act
Hunting, Poaching & The American Revolution
John Bird Burnham (1869-1939), Chief Game Protector for the state of New York in the early 1900s, once made an observation worthy of Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America.
“The union of monarchial game laws with an anti-monarchial sentiment make for an impossible marriage, and in America, drastic prohibitions on hunting can never be as effective as they are in England,” he wrote. [Read more…] about Hunting, Poaching & The American Revolution
Federal Judge Restores NEH Grants; NY History Community Legal Fights Continue
On May 7, 2026, Judge Colleen McMahon, a senior judge in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, ruled that the mass termination by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) of more than 1,400 grants to support scholars, research institutions, and humanities organizations was “unlawful, unconstitutional, ultra vires [a Latin term meaning “beyond the powers”], and without legal effect.”
The decision is one of several issued recently in important lawsuits brought by members of the history and humanities communities of New York State. [Read more…] about Federal Judge Restores NEH Grants; NY History Community Legal Fights Continue
Watchdog, Historians Sue to Block Trump Effort to Evade Presidential Records Law
American Oversight and the American Historical Association have filed suit challenging a sweeping memorandum from the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel that declared the Presidential Records Act is unconstitutional and that President Donald Trump “need not further comply” with its requirements, effectively encouraging the president to violate federal law.
The lawsuit argues that the memo relies on virtually no judicial authority and defies binding U.S. Supreme Court precedent outright, representing what they say is “a radical attempt to nullify a law that has governed presidential records for nearly half a century.” [Read more…] about Watchdog, Historians Sue to Block Trump Effort to Evade Presidential Records Law
Beer, Hops, Reformation & Prohibition
Christianity banned beer from the sacred domain as the Roman clergy continued the Latin habit of drinking wine. The opposition: Christian wine versus pagan beer, was upheld even in the north of Europe. Believers accepted wine’s sacramental role, whatever their climates, social habits, or drinking customs.
The Catholic Church was, at the same time, actively involved in the lucrative business of beer making. The Reformation was not just a schism that breached the unity of the Church, it was also a revolt against clergy-imposed customs that brought about a drastic change – from herbs to hops – in beer production and consumption. [Read more…] about Beer, Hops, Reformation & Prohibition
Your Data Will Be Used Against You: Policing & Self-Surveillance
For consumers living in a digitally-connected world, smart technologies have built an inescapable trap of digital self-surveillance. Smart cars, smart homes, smart watches, and smart medical devices track our most private activities and intimate patterns.
While these devices allow users to receive personal insights by monitoring their every move, that data can be accessed by police and prosecutors looking to find incriminating clues. Digital technology exposes everyone, everywhere, all at once, and we have few laws to regulate it. [Read more…] about Your Data Will Be Used Against You: Policing & Self-Surveillance