On July 20, President Donald Trump imposed 50% tariffs on many Canadian goods, from dairy and alcohol to motor vehicles to building materials like plywood, kitchen cabinets, and cement. They’ll take effect August 19 unless the countries strike a deal before that date. [Read more…] about Businesses Brace Against Trump’s 50% Tariff on Canadian Goods
Tariffs
The American Revolutionary Committee System: 1765-1775
During the controversies over the enforcement of the Navigation Acts, the Sugar Act of 1764 and the Stamp Act of 1765, committees were created in New York to correspond with those of other colonies and to contrive means of opposing those measures. Similar committees were organized elsewhere.
The Townshend Acts of 1767 reawakened the disturbance occasioned by the Stamp Act and furnished a renewed occasion for protests through committees. [Read more…] about The American Revolutionary Committee System: 1765-1775
Canadian Travel to US Down for 15th Straight Month
Canadians continue to curb their enthusiasm for American booze and travel, with no end in sight.
Canadian travel to the U.S. is down for the 15th straight month, when President Donald Trump began his tariff war against Canada, and his rhetoric about the country becoming the 51st state. [Read more…] about Canadian Travel to US Down for 15th Straight Month
When Smuggling Swiss Watches Was A Thing
It was 1930, during the era of Prohibition (1920–1933). So, it was not unusual when law enforcement personnel caught bootleggers on the Glens Falls-Lake George Road attempting to transport illegal alcohol from Canada to a local speakeasy.
What was uncommon, however, was arresting a smuggler who tried to sneak a large cache of untaxed contraband, Swiss watches, into the United States. [Read more…] about When Smuggling Swiss Watches Was A Thing
Charles Frederic Adams: Man Against the Machine
On a cool, moist, spring evening in 1904, the outspoken lawyer and idealist Charles Frederic Adams (1851-1918) was traveling from his home in Brooklyn, by trolley and on foot, to a Milton Literary Society dinner in Manhattan. (He feared riding in automobiles.) But when crossing at an intersection, he was struck by a car and injured his back and scalp.
The driver of the vehicle stopped briefly, then sped off as a police officer tried to give chase. But scrupulous about obligations, Charles left the hospital he was taken to, and continued on to his dinner engagement. Only when he became ill there, would he let his friends help him home, where he took a few weeks to heal. [Read more…] about Charles Frederic Adams: Man Against the Machine
State Agencies Assess the Impact of Energy Tariff Threats
The Department of Public Service (DPS), the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) and the New York State Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services (DHSES) responded to Governor Kathy Hochul’s recent directive to review the federal energy tariffs and Canadian retaliation that have caused instability in capital markets and threatens to destabilize New York’s energy markets and drive up electricity and heating costs. [Read more…] about State Agencies Assess the Impact of Energy Tariff Threats
Canadian Visits to United States Decline by 23 Percent
New data form Statistics Canada shows Canadians are avoiding trips to the United States amid tariffs and threats by President Donald Trump’s administration that have also taken American products off the shelves in Canada, seen spectators boo the American national anthem at sporting events, and threats of cutting of energy supplies from Ontario. Trump has repeatedly threatened to make Canada a 51st state. [Read more…] about Canadian Visits to United States Decline by 23 Percent
The Boston Tea Party’s 250th Anniversary
Saturday, December 16, 2023, marks the 250th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party.
The seeds of the Boston Tea Party were sown in the spring of 1773, when Parliament passed the Tea Act of 1773 in an attempt to prevent the East India Company from going bankrupt. [Read more…] about The Boston Tea Party’s 250th Anniversary
Albany’s Daniel Manning: Newspaperman & Secretary of the Treasury
Daniel Manning was born in Albany, NY, on August 16, 1831, the second son of John and Eleanor Manning. The Mannings were of Irish, English, and Dutch descent.
Daniel was six at the time of the Panic of 1837 when his father died, causing financial strain on the politically connected family. When Daniel was ten he was appointed a page in the New York State Assembly where he served for two years. During the second year, he also got a job distributing the Albany Atlas newspaper. [Read more…] about Albany’s Daniel Manning: Newspaperman & Secretary of the Treasury
Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the 20th Century
Before 1870, humanity lived in dire poverty, with a slow crawl of invention offset by a growing population. Then came a great shift: invention sprinted forward, doubling our technological capabilities each generation and utterly transforming the economy again and again. Our ancestors would have presumed we would have used such powers to build utopia. But it was not so. When 1870 – 2010 ended, the world instead saw global warming; economic depression, uncertainty, and inequality; and broad rejection of the status quo.
Brad DeLong’s Slouching Towards Utopia (Basic Books, 2022) tells the story of how this unprecedented explosion of material wealth occurred, how it transformed the globe and why it failed to deliver us to utopia. [Read more…] about Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the 20th Century
The Sugar Act and the American Revolution
The initial Sugar Act of 1733 — also known as the Molasses Act — was designed to secure and encourage the trade of British colonies in the West Indies by placing prohibitive duties on the products of competing foreign colonies. The dramatic revision to that act in 1764 imposed duties for both revenue and trade regulation, in addition strengthening the laws of trade so as to tighten the connection between Great Britain and the colonies. [Read more…] about The Sugar Act and the American Revolution
Adirondack Logging History: Wood’s Lake & Beaver River Stations
After Hudson River logging sharply declined by 1905, the Adirondack railroad line known as the Mohawk & Malone kept NYS lumber companies in business for at least another twelve years. A big part of this was due to logging north of Big Moose, shown on this New York Central & Hudson River railroad map, with eight station stops northward toward Tupper Lake (shown at left), three of them as junctions for logging railroads — Wood’s Lake, Brandreth, and Nehasane.
Beaver River Station was shifting from logging to tourism. Little Rapids was a flag stop, Keepawa unlisted in an 1895 train schedule. This article will describe the logging history of Wood’s Lake and Beaver River stations, beginning with a new lumbering operation just north of Big Moose. [Read more…] about Adirondack Logging History: Wood’s Lake & Beaver River Stations
Wall Street History: The Bank War & The Shift of Financial Power to New York
At the time construction of the Erie Canal was begun in 1817, Philadelphia (the second largest city in the United States) was the nation’s financial center. Although there were successful banks in New York, Philadelphia, one of America’s leading seaports, had been the capital during the American Revolution and of the nation (1790 to 1800), and so was considered the financial center of the country.
This is not to say there was not some rivalry between financial institutions located on Wall Street in New York and Chestnut Street in Philadelphia, but the latter was the site of the first bank established in the nation in 1781, the Bank of North America, and more importantly became the site of the First Bank of the United States, which Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton had promoted. [Read more…] about Wall Street History: The Bank War & The Shift of Financial Power to New York
Albany’s Thurlow Weed: Seward, Lincoln’s Election, & The Civil War Years
The second Republican Party Presidential election was held in 1860. Thurlow Weed wanted supporters of the recently formed Republican Party to nominate William Seward.
Working against Weed was the fact that the Republican convention was to be held in Chicago, Illinois, home state of Abraham Lincoln. Weed knew that his man, Seward, was far better known throughout the country. In addition to being New York’s Governor, Seward had been a U.S. Senator and as a leading anti-slavery proponent he had received extensive publicity. His biggest drawback was that he had been considered at one time to be the most radical anti-slavery member of the Senate. [Read more…] about Albany’s Thurlow Weed: Seward, Lincoln’s Election, & The Civil War Years
Schaghticoke’s Congressman: John A. Quackenbush
When in doubt, take a dinner break.
That was the strategy for reaching unanimity in 1888 at New York’s 18th Congressional District nominating convention.
And the strategy worked, although some of the politicians from Washington and Rensselaer counties may have eaten crow, so to speak. [Read more…] about Schaghticoke’s Congressman: John A. Quackenbush
A Military Cemetery Mystery Solved
Timing is everything! While contemplating a unique marker in the Sackets Harbor military cemetery a puzzling question came up. Why was Henderson, NY resident Joseph Hawkins, who never served in the military, buried in the military cemetery?
Coincidentally, Henderson Historical Society’s Eric Anderson was simultaneously researching Joseph Hawkins and shared clues. [Read more…] about A Military Cemetery Mystery Solved
Wally Foote: ‘The Most Handsome Man in Congress’
The Plattsburgh Daily Press in late 1894 fact-checked the boasts of M.W. Howard, age 32, of Alabama, and George M. Southwick, age 31, of Albany, who each claimed to be the youngest member of the incoming U.S. House of Representatives.
Actually, it was local Representative-elect Wallace T. Foote Jr., who would still be 30 when he took office, that would have the distinction. Foote represented New York’s 23rd District, which included Essex, Clinton, Franklin, Warren and Washington counties. [Read more…] about Wally Foote: ‘The Most Handsome Man in Congress’
John H. Moffitt’s North Country Political Biography
Constituents in New York’s 21st Congressional District, unlike U.S. Rep. Constantine B. Kilgore, D-Texas, didn’t get caught taking summer naps, joked The Plattsburgh Sentinel on April 5, 1889.
Kilgore, better known by the nickname “Buck,” had persistently blocked Republican John H. Moffitt, who represented New York’s North Country, from securing a $10,000 appropriation to construct a road through the military reservation in Plattsburgh. [Read more…] about John H. Moffitt’s North Country Political Biography
Collections Mystery: The Emancipator Newspaper in 1888
It has long been the conventional wisdom that the Irish in America trend Democratic in their voting tendencies. This was more true in the late 19th Century and in the 1880s, Republican Party election committees were hell-bent on mitigating that trend. [Read more…] about Collections Mystery: The Emancipator Newspaper in 1888
Ashbel Fitch: Champion of Old New York
The concept of an “honest Tammany man” sounds like an oxymoron, but it became a reality in the curious career of Ashbel P. Fitch, who served New York City as a four-term congressman and a one-term city comptroller during the late nineteenth century.
Although little known today, Fitch was well respected in his own day and played a pivotal role on both national and local stages. Born in Northern New York, he was once challenged to a duel by an impulsive Theodore Roosevelt. [Read more…] about Ashbel Fitch: Champion of Old New York