History, Natural History & the Arts
On August 31st, 1901, Polish-American anarchist Leon Czolgosz booked a room in Nowak’s Hotel at 1078 Broadway.
Six days later he made a trip to Buffalo, site of the Pan-American Exposition where President William McKinley was due to speak. He shot him from close range. [Read more…] about 1899 And The Making Of New York City
The break-up of Standard Oil and other monopolies during the Trust-busting Era, created somewhat greater competition, but did not significantly impact Wall Street, or its major players. For example, after the success of the Justice Department in the 1911 Supreme Court Case United States v. Standard Oil (in which the Court ruled that Standard Oil of New Jersey violated the Sherman Antitrust Act), the company was ordered broken into 34 ostensibly independent companies. *
The stock in each of these companies was distributed to Standard Oil Company shareholders (principally the Rockefeller family) and each company had separate boards of directors and separate management, but by and large they continued to operate on separate floors of the same building — 26 Broadway in Manhattan. [Read more…] about Wall Street History: Individual Investors & The Crash of 1929
As control of the American economy became increasingly centralized in trusts located on Wall Street after the Civil War, and the wealth of men like J.P. Morgan and John D. Rockefeller grew exponentially, there developed an increasing backlash against such concentrations of wealth. In the 1880s, through an investigation by a committee of the New York State Legislature, Americans became aware that Standard Oil secretly controlled a number of supposedly competing oil companies. By 1910 almost 90% of the world’s oil supply was controlled from the company’s headquarters at 26 Broadway in Manhattan. [Read more…] about Trust Busting: William Jennings Bryan & Theodore Roosevelt
New York State’s Forest Preserve lands of the Adirondacks and Catskills are living fossils of the broad 19th-century movement to protect wild forests of the federal public lands in the West as forest reserves and not as national forest sources of fiber, forage, and minerals.
New York State’s Forest Preserve lands therefore are living proof that the wilderness preservation movement is not an upstart 20th-century offshoot of the mainstream American conservation movement. [Read more…] about Ed Zahniser On Wilderness & New York State
Edith Roosevelt, wife of TR, was staying with her husband at the Tahawus Club in Newcomb when he was called away to deal with the assassination of President William McKinley.
In 1933, she spoke about her experience in an address to school children: [Read more…] about Remembering Edith Roosevelt, Wife of Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt spent a bit of time in Saratoga County, particularly in the years leading up to and including his time as Governor of New York (1899-1900).
TR would often visit a friend, Guy Baker, who lived in Ballston. He hunted on Baker’s Hawkwood estate and sometimes brought members of his family for short visits with the Bakers. [Read more…] about Ballston’s Hawkwood Estate: Teddy Roosevelt, Guy Baker & The Countess
On October 23rd, 1914, several thousand people heard former president Teddy Roosevelt address separate gatherings in Liberty and Monticello, in Sullivan County, in the Catskills.
Just two years removed from his near assassination while campaigning for president in Milwaukee, and a scant few months after his ill-fated trip down the River of Doubt which had left him severely weakened, Roosevelt was touring on behalf of the Progressive Party candidate for governor of New York, Frederick M. Davenport. [Read more…] about Teddy Roosevelt In The Catskills
Republican gubernatorial candidate Nathan Miller was on such a tight schedule on October 12th, 1920 that one of the keynote speakers in his entourage got left behind at the railroad depot south of Ticonderoga village, on Lake Champlain.
At least that’s the official explanation. [Read more…] about Teddy In Ticonderoga: Get Me From the Train On Time
The National Park Service (NPS) has announced that Sagamore Hill National Historic Site will be closed to all visitors until further notice in response to concerns from the local community and public health officials. No entry will be allowed into the site, except to employees, residents, and other authorized persons. [Read more…] about Sagamore Hill Temporarily Closed
This week on The Historians Podcast, Bob Cudmore reads three stories from an audio tour compiled by Montgomery County historian Kelly Yacobucci Farquhar: the Palatine Church, Charleston’s forests and the St. Kateri Tekakwitha Shrine. Also the story of Amsterdam drama coach Bert DeRose and from the archives, historian David Pietrusza on the last years of Teddy Roosevelt. [Read more…] about Mohawk Valley History Stories Podcast