History, Natural History & the Arts
During the Renaissance (roughly 1400–1600) and Baroque (roughly 1600–1750) eras, Spanish barber shops doubled as social hubs. Barbers kept stringed instruments hanging on the wall for waiting customers to play or played them themselves to entertain patrons.
Spain has a rich lineage of stringed instruments that includes the bandurria. [Read more…] about A Tale of Mistaken Identity: Mandolin Mania in Manhattan
In June 1776, the Second Continental Congress faced a question every new nation must answer: how do you make other countries take you seriously?
Declaring independence was one thing. Convincing France, Spain, or the Netherlands to risk war on your behalf was another. [Read more…] about The Road to Independence: The Model Treaty
Located on the River Scheldt (Schelde), Hoboken is a southern district of the city of Antwerp in Flanders. The name originates in the medieval Dutch phrase Hooghe Buechen (Hoge Beuken, or tall beech trees). Today there is a geriatric hospital in Hoboken named Hoge Beuken. The first historical records of the place date from the year 1135.
The New Jersey area of Hoboken on the western shore of the Hudson River was inhabited by Lenape indigenous people who called it Hopoghan Hackingh (Land of the Tobacco Pipe) for its green-veined rock from which they carved their pipes. [Read more…] about Hoboken: A Tale of Immigration & Frank Sinatra
Described in numerous news articles as the Spanish Alps, Las Villas, as they were collectively known, was a lively enclave of Spanish, Puerto Rican and other Hispanic summer resorts in Plattekill, NY, and the Catskill Mountains.
Las Villas of Plattekill and Ulster County (Arcadia Publishing, 2016) by Ishmael Martinez is the first comprehensive historical retrospective on Las Villas of Plattekill and Ulster County. [Read more…] about Las Villas of Plattekill and Ulster County
America has been the world’s most diverse nation since its founding 250 years ago. New York has been the nation’s most diverse city. New York has led the way in welcoming immigrants, integrating them into American life and, at the same time, enabling them to retain something of the culture that they brought with them from abroad.
New York City’s America’s Making Exposition just over a century ago undertook to demonstrate the contributions of various national and ethnic groups and to show how they contributed to and enriched American society. [Read more…] about Beyond ‘Americanization’: New York’s 1921 Celebration of Diversity
Pineapples originate from the Orinoco River basin from where indigenous peoples spread specimens across parts of South America and towards the Caribbean and Bahamas. The early history of pineapple cultivation was a European, post-Columbus affair. The American passion for pineapple evolved from the eighteenth century when colonists began importing the fruit from the Caribbean.
Rare and restricted to the elite for some time, imports increased rapidly and the fruit became widely available. Such was its popularity that the pineapple became a feature of America’s cultural identity.
Flavor memories linger to this day (in craft beers for example), despite Donald Trump’s sworn deposition (October 2022) in which he labeled the fruit (as well as tomatoes and bananas) “dangerous stuff,” expressing anxiety that the pineapple had been weaponized by protesters. [Read more…] about Pineapple Mania & Manhattan Architecture
It’s easy to focus on the American Revolution‘s famous battles, like Saratoga and Yorktown, its iconic leaders, like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, or its foundational documents, like the Declaration of Independence.
But International alliances — especially with France and Spain — played a critical role in securing the United States’ independence. [Read more…] about How France and Spain Helped Win the American Revolution
The term “Low Countries” is a political and historic concept rather than a geographic one. Prior to modern nation-building, it referred to an area of northern Europe roughly stretching from Pas-de-Calais in France to the area of Schleswig-Holstein in Germany, including French-speaking Wallonia and Dutch-speaking Flanders.
Born in Ghent in 1500 Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain, ruled over the vast Habsburg Empire that included the Low Countries. Flanders was crucial to its economy. [Read more…] about Dutch Doors in Colonial New York
King George’s War and the Thirty-Year Peace:continues the contest for North America from the end of Queen Anne’s War in 1713, marking the beginning of the Thirty-Year Peace, through the start of King George’s War in 1744, to its conclusion with the signing of Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle four years later.
While there would be little fighting between the French, Spanish, and British colonies in North America during the Thirty-Year Peace — the Franco-Spanish conflict of 1719 being an exception — for the French and British it did not prove to be peaceful. [Read more…] about King George’s War and the Thirty-Year Peace
Although King William’s War (1689–1697) had established the basic disputes between New France and the English colonies, the conflict had resolved little beyond making it clear that the smaller French colony was more than capable of defending itself.
When news of the War of Spanish Succession (1701–1714), or Queen Anne’s War as it would become known in North America, arrived in 1702, few envisioned that the resumption of the previous conflict would grow to engulf eastern North America from Newfoundland to Florida, pitting the Spanish, English, and French colonies along with their respective native allies into a concerted contest for control of the continent. [Read more…] about Queen Anne’s War: The Second Contest for North America, 1702–1713
Sugarbaker is a relatively common name that began to appear in American censuses from the 1830s onward. As an occupational surname, it derives from the German Zuckerbäcker. Originally, this compound noun referred to the highly rated skill of a confectioner. By the mid-nineteenth century, the word pointed at all those who worked in the sugar refining industry.
Sugar was mega business. First produced in India, it spread to Europe by way of Persia. Venetians played a crucial role as intermediates. A hub of commerce between Europe and the East, its merchants dominated the trade until around 1500 when other regions became involved. The “mystery” skill of sugar refining was brought to America by various groups of European immigrants. [Read more…] about Sugar, Slave Labor & Art Galleries
At the start of the 1880s, Barcelona was an expanding city of about 350,000 people. Its medieval walls had been knocked down only twenty-five years earlier. Capital of the autonomous community of Catalonia, city and region developed into Spain’s economic dynamo. Prosperity mushroomed. A self-confident territory strove to re-establish its identity by invigorating local traditions, culture and language. Barcelona became an engine of change and modernity. [Read more…] about Catalonia in Manhattan: The Architectural Legacy of Rafael Guastavino
The poetry of Walt Whitman is crowded with allusions to song and the singer. Music was important to him in life (he had worked as a music journalist) and is a central metaphor in his work. The poet of “I Hear America Singing” was blessed with an ear for inner rhythms which he transformed into melodious free verse that broke the barriers of poetic language.
Given the musicality of his songs, it is not surprising that the poet inspired composers around the world (the number of settings of his texts exceed 1,200). [Read more…] about The Canary Craze & Walt Whitman
City of New York-born Frederick Swartwout Cozzens (father of the marine artist Fred Cozzens) was a wine merchant who between 1854 and 1861 edited Cozzens’ Wine Press, a professional magazine on the culture of wine and the promotion of American wines. Cozzens was also a humorist (sometimes using the pseudonym Richard Haywarde).
In 1867, he published The Sayings of Dr Bushwacker and Other Learned Men which contains this intriguing passage: “My old friend, Dominick Lynch, sir, the wine-merchant, the only great wine merchant we ever had, sir, imported the finest oil, sir, from Lucca, known even to this day as ‘Lynch’s Oil’. He it was who made Château Margaux and the Italian opera popular, sir, in this great metropolis.”
Who was this refined spirit who brought the delights of Bordeaux wine, Tuscan olive oil and Italian opera to Manhattan? [Read more…] about An Irish Wine Merchant & A Spanish Diva: How Manhattan Fell for Italian Opera
Catalyntje Jeronimous Trico was born in about 1605 in Pres or Prijs, Hainault, in what was then the Spanish Netherlands, now Nord, Valenciennes, France to Jeronimus Jean Tricot and Michele Sauvagie.
Although her birth record has never been found (records in her parish only begin nearly a century after her birth), she is known through her sister Margareta (Triko) de la Fontaine dit Wicart’s will, which left half of her estate to Catalina. [Read more…] about Catalyntje Trico: A Life in New Amsterdam
In this episode of Ben Franklin’s World, early North America was a diverse place. It was a place that contained hundreds of distinct Indigenous nations and peoples who spoke at least 2,000 distinct languages prior to European contact.
Then, in the early sixteenth century, Spain began to establish colonies on mainland North America, and they were followed by the French, Dutch, and English, and the forced migration of enslaved Africans who represented at least 45 different ethnic and cultural groups. With such diversity, early North America was a place full of cross-cultural encounters. [Read more…] about Indigenous Justice in Early America & The Albany Treaty of 1722
The Spanish Civil War has been called “The Last Great Cause” as the fight against Fascism involved a striking number of intellectuals, writers and journalists both from Europe and the United States. They fought in battalions, supported medical services, reported from the front lines or entertained the troops as non-combatant partisans. [Read more…] about The Spanish Civil War: A New York Story For Modern Times
In this episode of Ben Franklin’s World, Martha Menchaca, a Professor of Anthropology at the University of Texas, Austin, joins us to explore the Spanish and Mexican origins of Texas with details from her book, The Mexican American Experience in Texas: Citizenship, Segregation, and the Struggle for Equality (University of Texas Press, 2022). [Read more…] about The Mexican American Experience in Texas
The latest episode of the A Minute In New York History podcast tells the story of the 1839 La Amistad Rebellion, in which 53 illegally enslaved Africans rose up against their Spanish captors off the coast of Cuba, took over the ship, and attempted to sail it to freedom. [Read more…] about The Amistad Rebellion: An Atlantic Odyssey of Slavery and Freedom
We now have a more clear-eyed understanding of Founding Fathers such as George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and Alexander Hamilton; even so, they are often considered American saints, revered for their wisdom and self-sacrificing service to the nation.
However, within the generation of founders of the United States there lurked many unscrupulous figures — men who violated the era’s expectation of public virtue and advanced their own interests at the expense of others.
They were turncoats and traitors, opportunists and con artists, spies, and foreign intriguers. [Read more…] about A Republic of Scoundrels: Schemers, Intriguers, and Adventurers
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