Author Archives:
The Shantytown: Nineteenth-Century Manhattan’s “Straggling Suburbs”
This posting was written by Catherine McNeur, a Bernard & Irene Schwartz Postdoctoral Fellow at the New-York Historical Society. In the spring of 1855 Charles Loring Brace, who had recently started running the Children’s Aid Society, ventured into a neighborhood on the edge of the city called Dutch Hill. Located near East 41st Street and the [...]
Historians and America’s First Secret Societies
This posting was written by Kevin Butterfield, a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow at the New-York Historical Society, 2012-1013. Much of what we know about the past we know for one simple reason: someone took the care to record and to preserve some record of his or her time. Thankfully, people like New York’s [...]
Where to Live in New York: the Women of the Ladies Christian Union
Everyone knows how hard it is to find housing in New York. However, locating safe housing for young women in New York City in the mid-nineteenth century was particularly difficult. In 1858, a prayer group known as the “Ladies’ Christian Association” recognized this as a common problem and decided to provide housing for young women [...]
Free of an Empire, by Way of an Empress
This posting was written by Dael Norwood, a Bernard & Irene Schwartz Postdoctoral Fellow at the New-York Historical Society. On February 22, 1784, a small ship with big ambitions weighed anchor, and sailed down the East River. Commanded by John Green, the Empress of China left New York on George Washington’s birthday aiming to be [...]
The Pastoral Records of Frederick W. Geissenhainer
This post was written by Bob Greiner who is working on behalf of the Mid-Atlantic Germanic Society to index the Reverend Frederick W. Geissenhainer records at the New-York Historical Society . The Patricia D. Klingenstein Library at the New-York Historical Society maintains the pastoral records of the Reverend Frederick W. Geissenhainer in its manuscript collection [...]
NYC 2012: Imagining the Olympic Games in New York City
From 2000-2005, New York planned a bid to host the 2012 Summer Olympic games. It was New York City’s first bid to host an Olympics and was managed by Daniel Doctoroff and his private non-profit organization, NYC2012. New York City was one of five candidates for the games but came in fourth behind London, [...]
Johnny Reb in the Big Apple: The Confederate Veteran Camp of New York
This post was written by N-YHS intern Rachel Schimke, a graduate student in the Archives and Public History program at NYU, who processed the Alexander Robert Chisolm Papers. Though most war-weary Confederate soldiers returned home following Lee’s surrender, not all had the ability or interest to recover their lives in the South. Founded in 1890, [...]
“Aliens” in America: British Citizens during the War of 1812
Post written by Rachel Schimke, a spring intern at N-YHS who processed the Peter Curtenius Papers. This year marks the bicentennial of the War of 1812, a conflict that is often overshadowed by the more celebrated wars in our nation’s history. The newly processed Peter Curtenius Papers offer invaluable information for researchers interested in this [...]
