New York Almanack

History, Natural History & the Arts

Nativism

The Stench of Old New York: Pollution and Public Health

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Peter van Berkel's 'Scheepjes op kalm water' (Ships on Calm Water), late 20th or early 21st century.pngBetween 1748 and 1751, Swedish botanist Pehr (Peter) Kalm (1716-1779) made a journey through Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, and Canada. The Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences had selected him to explore the territory and collect plants that would thrive in Scandinavia’s cold climate.

On his return, Kalm published a three-volume journal of his experiences, translated into English in 1770/1 as Travels into North America. By 1772, there were renderings in German and Dutch, as well as a second English edition. The book provided a reasonably reliable account of America’s natural history and social structure in the eighteenth century. [Read more…] about The Stench of Old New York: Pollution and Public Health

19th Century NY Law and Birthright Citizenship

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Illustration of New York’s busy East River waterfront in the first half of the 19th century (provided by Village Preservation)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

Emma Lazarus, Nativism & The Gates of Immigration

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"Come UNto Me Ye Opprest!," a nativist, anti-Italian and anti-Anarchist cartoon by James Alley published in the Memphis Commercial Appeal, July 5, 1919Poet Emma Lazarus was active from the mid-1860s until her death in 1887. She descended from a well-established Sephardic family in Manhattan. Her presence coincided with the arrival of waves of Ashkenazi refugees from Eastern Europe. Their customs, Yiddish language, and political activism were distinct from the assimilated Sephardic community.

Emma created two contrasting sonnets on immigration, both dated 1883. Set against the socio-political background of their time of publication, these poems highlight some of the historical and continuous controversies surrounding the issue. [Read more…] about Emma Lazarus, Nativism & The Gates of Immigration

Lesbian History: Eve Adams, Monocles, Tearooms & Deportations

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S.S. Vaderland on the River Scheldt leaving for New YorkLaunched in July 1900, the transatlantic liner S.S. Vaderland (Flemish for fatherland) sailed the route between Antwerp and Hoboken on behalf of the Red Star Line. Catering for 340 first-class, 200 second-class, and over 600 third-class (formerly steerage) passengers, the liner was one of “mid tier” elegance rather than opulence and designed to compete with its rivals of the Cunard and White Star lines. She played a key role in the early history of mass emigration from Europe to the United States.

On May 25, 1912, the liner left Antwerp, arriving at Ellis Island for immigrant inspection on June 4th. On board was a talented twenty-year-old Polish woman keen to break free from traditional Jewish domestic constraints and find intellectual and sexual freedom in Manhattan. [Read more…] about Lesbian History: Eve Adams, Monocles, Tearooms & Deportations

Lake Champlain: The Irish Lake

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Lake Champlain, the Irish LakeBetween 1840 and 1860, a great wave of Irish immigrants washed up on the shores of Lake Champlain. So many, in fact, that the inland sea was nicknamed “the Irish lake.”

The reason, of course, was poverty and job opportunities. Although Irish Catholics had started arriving in New York and Vermont in numbers by 1820, Champlain truly became the Irish lake in the mid-1840s during the Great Famine. [Read more…] about Lake Champlain: The Irish Lake

Elizabeth Cady Stanton: A Revolutionary Life

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Elizabeth Cady Stanton: A Revolutionary LifeElizabeth Cady Stanton was a singular leader, thinker, and organizer whose fight for women’s emancipation stretched from the 1840s to her death in 1902, a full fifth of America’s history. Yet her legacy is marked by controversy.

In a new biography, Elizabeth Cady Stanton: A Revolutionary Life (Basic Books, 2026) historian Ellen Carol DuBois paints a fresh portrait of this complex woman whose work helped make contemporary feminism possible. [Read more…] about Elizabeth Cady Stanton: A Revolutionary Life

Immigration and Labor in Little Falls, New York

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Detail of photo of construction on an Erie Canal enlargement in Scotia, New YorkThe rampant industrialism of the Gilded Age and early Progressive Era eventually took root in Little Falls, NY. The city and the surrounding Mohawk Valley had served as a hub for immigrant and migrant labor for a significant time. The construction of the Little Falls Canal and the Erie Canal during the 18th and 19th centuries attracted a multitude of predominantly Irish laborers.

In the latter half of the 19th century, as industrialism took hold, the mass construction of railroads attracted even greater numbers of immigrant workers to Little Falls in search of jobs within the burgeoning factory apparatus. [Read more…] about Immigration and Labor in Little Falls, New York

The Little Falls Textile Strike: New Scholarship Brings A New Book

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Women, Immigrants, and the Working-Class Battle in Little Falls, New York: The Textile Strike of 1912-1913J.N. Cheney, an independent historian focusing on the labor movement, radical politics, and community action where he lives in the Mohawk Valley has published Women, Immigrants, and the Working-Class Battle in Little Falls, New York: The Textile Strike of 1912-1913 (Algora Publishing, 2025).

This is the first non-fiction book to provide a comprehensive recounting and analysis of the largely forgotten Little Falls Textile Strike, one of the most important events in New York State’s labor history and one with national significance. [Read more…] about The Little Falls Textile Strike: New Scholarship Brings A New Book

Nazis of Long Island: Sedition, Espionage & the Plot Against America

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Nazis of Long IslandEven as Hitler and his Nazi regime ran roughshod over Germany and Europe in the 1930s, there were those in America who championed their rise. And nowhere so much as on Long Island.

Camp Siegfried in Yaphank (a community in the south part of the Town of Brookhaven, Suffolk County) became a focal point for certain German Americans to gather and espouse the Nazi cause. [Read more…] about Nazis of Long Island: Sedition, Espionage & the Plot Against America

The Great Christmas Boycott of 1906

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Great Christmas Boycott of 1906Today’s battle over Christianity in American public schools has deep roots. In the nineteenth century it was an intramural struggle between Protestants and later-arriving Catholics.

But at Christmastime in 1905, when the Presbyterian principal of a Brooklyn elementary school urged his Jewish students to be more like Jesus Christ, Jews entered the fray in a big way. [Read more…] about The Great Christmas Boycott of 1906

Mabel Ping-Hua Lee, Thomas Nast & Chinese American History

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Postcard of Mott Street, Chinatown late-19th century, published by Brown BrothersMigration from Asia to the United States was minimal before the 1800s, but facing poverty and political instability large numbers of Chinese residents began looking a better life in the West from the 1840s onward.

Many would escape the Taiping Rebellion, a large-scale civil war that had started in 1850. Lasting for fourteen years, violence and persecution encompassed much of Southern China, pushing citizens away from their traditional homes. [Read more…] about Mabel Ping-Hua Lee, Thomas Nast & Chinese American History

Theodore Allen: Gambler, Political Organizer, Saloon Keeper and Criminal

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The Allen BiographyTheodore Allen, known as “The.”(ca. 1833–1908) was an New York gambler, political organizer, saloon keeper the head of a family of criminals in the mid-to-late 19th century.

Jerry Kuntz, a librarian and historical researcher whose interests have focused on people involved in American subcultures in the 1850s-1930s has assembled a series of articles purport to present Theodore Allen “in his own words,” as ‘The.’ Allen: The Rough and Tumble Years (Wickham House, 2025). [Read more…] about Theodore Allen: Gambler, Political Organizer, Saloon Keeper and Criminal

Anglo-American Nationalisms: The Idiom of the Stomach

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James Kirke PauldingAuthor and public servant James Kirke Paulding was born on August 22, 1779, in Great Nine Partners along the Hudson River in Dutchess County, NY, at the height of the American Revolution. His family was forced to take refuge from British invaders in Westchester County, returning after peace was declared.

James’s father William was an active patriot and from him he inherited strong anti-English sentiments. He would become one of the first distinctively American writers who vigorously argued the case against intellectual or artistic servitude towards Britain. [Read more…] about Anglo-American Nationalisms: The Idiom of the Stomach

Sensationalism In Historical Context: Wide-Awakes & The Civil War

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A Wide Awakes parade in Lower Manhattan, one of a series of political rallies held in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Cleveland, and Boston during the first week of October 1860.If you think the spread of sensationalism and “alternative facts” and their divisive effect on the American people are 21st century phenomena, think again. There may be no comparison between the instantaneous, often individually provocative communication of our Internet and the communication technologies of the mid-19th century.

Nevertheless, the pre-Civil War media landscape was hardly calm or trustworthy. [Read more…] about Sensationalism In Historical Context: Wide-Awakes & The Civil War

Election Anxiety: Bat Shea & The Murder of Robert Ross

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Bartholomewee Bat Shea, John H Boland, and John McGough charged in Robert Ross murderImmediately following Troy’s March 6, 1894 election riot in the 13th Ward, the question on everyone’s lips was “Who killed Robert Ross?” After interviewing 50 of the 100 witnesses at the scene of the violence, Superintendent of Police William W. Willard offered his gut reaction to the press.

“To a greater or lesser degree everyone [was responsible] who was engaged in the fight during which the crime was committed” according to the The Albany Argus of March 12, 1894. That opinion was not repeated at the March 15th inquest or the May 28th murder trial, although it did resurface before Bat Shea was strapped into the electric chair. [Read more…] about Election Anxiety: Bat Shea & The Murder of Robert Ross

In The 1920s Thousands of New Yorkers Joined The Ku Klux Klan

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First public appearance of women of the KKK on Long Island ca 1924 (LoC)On August 17, 1923, about a thousand white men and women took part in a Ku Klux Klan initiation ceremony near Warwick, New York.

According to newspaper reports, motorists traveling between Warwick and Florida in the southwestern part of Orange County on August 16th were stopped by Klansmen and asked for a “password” to enter area where the Klan rally was being held in an open field near the highway. [Read more…] about In The 1920s Thousands of New Yorkers Joined The Ku Klux Klan

Crania Americana: Phrenology, Slavery, Crime & Removal

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a 19th century phrenology text illustrationOn August 30, 1851, the New York Evening Post carried an advert that promised visitors free access to the Phrenological Cabinet at Clinton Hall, 131 Nassau Street, in Manhattan, which displayed a collection of busts, casts and skulls of celebrities, pirates and murderers.

Those who entered the premises were given the opportunity to consult professional examiners for a verbal or written description of character. [Read more…] about Crania Americana: Phrenology, Slavery, Crime & Removal

Harold Holzer On The Civil War, Immigration, and Lincoln

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Father Thomas H Mooney, NY 69th Infantry Regiment Chaplain with Irish American soldiers at Catholic Mass, Fort Cocoran, Arlington Heights, Virginia on June 1, 1861 (Irish American, June 22, 1861)Amidst the carnage of the Civil War — upward of 700,000 dead with 40,000 of them from New York, more than any other state — came not only mass-mourning, but an urgent need for additional recruits to replenish the depleted United States Army.

In 1863, Abraham Lincoln proposed an innovative solution: in his annual message to Congress that December, he called for increased immigration to fill long-vacant civilian jobs in farming, mining, and other industries. [Read more…] about Harold Holzer On The Civil War, Immigration, and Lincoln

In Lake George Support for Workforce Housing Dims Amid Fear of Migrants

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More than 300 local workers and their supervisors, representing 82 businesses celebrate the end of the summer season at Six Flags Great Escape in 2023 (Warren County photo)A workforce housing project on the site of an aging motel, which Lake George pitched as part of its successful bid for a $10 million New York State Downtown Revitalization Grant, is shedding public support, officials say.

A fear the hostel might be used to house migrants seeking asylum in the U.S. is among the reasons why, according to Mayor Ray Perry and Dan Barusch, the Director of Planning and Zoning. [Read more…] about In Lake George Support for Workforce Housing Dims Amid Fear of Migrants

How Fiorello La Guardia Became America’s Mayor, and Why He Still Matters

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Fiorello La Guardia BookFiorello La Guardia was one of the twentieth century’s most colorful politicians ― on the New York and national stage. He was also quintessentially American: the son of Italian immigrants (his mother was also Jewish), who rose in society through sheer will and chutzpah.

Almost one hundred years later, America is once again grappling with issues that would have been familiar to the Little Flower, as he was affectionately known. [Read more…] about How Fiorello La Guardia Became America’s Mayor, and Why He Still Matters

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