Project MUSE®: New York History - Latest Articles
https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/745
Project MUSE®: Latest articles in New York History.daily12026-05-11T00:00:00-05:00text/htmlen-USVol. 95 (2014) through current issue
Latest Articles: New York HistoryTWOProject MUSE®New York History2328-81320146-437XLatest articles in New York History. Feed provided by Project MUSE®Letter from the Editors
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/983862
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One element of historical work that greatly enriches our entire field is the importance of perspective in understanding the past. Approaching history from diverse points of view, or with a particular sensitivity to group objectives or experiences, or through a particular disciplinary lens can yield distinctive new understandings of the past. This issue of New York History features works that help remind us of the value of this multiplicity of approaches to studying the Empire State.Articles by Rhianna M. Gordon and Mark Paul Richard study social institutions and social discourse through the prism of women's history. In "Widow's Weeds and Filthy Rags: The Moral Language of the Rochester Home for the Friendless
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-11T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/745/image/coversmallLetter from the Editors2026-02-25text/htmlen-USLetter from the Editors2026-02-252026TWOProject MUSE®55992026-05-11T00:00:00-05:002026-02-25Pioneers of North Country Health Care: The Grey Nuns in Plattsburgh, New York, 1910–1963
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/983864
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In 1860, the Sisters of Charity of Ottawa established the first parish school in Plattsburgh, New York, and half a century later, its first hospital (1910). The Sisters of Charity were among the many Canadian nuns who made significant contributions to U.S. health care in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The history of women religious in the medical field has not attracted significant scholarly attention. Part of the challenge is that few records of the hospital work of Catholic nuns have survived.1 Using records of the Sisters of Charity of Ottawa, the Grey Nuns of the Sacred Heart in Philadelphia, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Ogdensburg (New York), and Champlain Valley Physicians Hospital in Plattsburgh
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-11T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/745/image/coversmallPioneers of North Country Health Care: The Grey Nuns in Plattsburgh, New York, 1910–19632026-02-25text/htmlen-USPioneers of North Country Health Care: The Grey Nuns in Plattsburgh, New York, 1910–19632026-02-252026TWOProject MUSE®1175532026-05-11T00:00:00-05:002026-02-25Widow's Weeds and Filthy Rags: The Moral Language of the Rochester Home for the Friendless, 1849–1875
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/983865
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In the spring of 1849, a twenty-seven-year-old Irish woman named Hannah Broderick arrived in New York City. Upon arrival, Broderick met with men from the Intelligence Office, who guaranteed a reputable situation "30 miles past Rochester," New York.1 This information about a prospective situation, or job, cost Broderick almost all the money she had brought to America. Emptying her purse, she boarded a canal boat and began her journey west like so many other immigrants. However, things did not go as Broderick planned, and somehow she ended up in the small town of Mount Morris, southwest of Rochester. There, Broderick sat on the side of the street, poorly clad in worn-out raiment after she had "parted with some of her
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-11T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/745/image/coversmallWidow's Weeds and Filthy Rags: The Moral Language of the Rochester Home for the Friendless, 1849–18752026-02-25text/htmlen-USWidow's Weeds and Filthy Rags: The Moral Language of the Rochester Home for the Friendless, 1849–18752026-02-252026TWOProject MUSE®885122026-05-11T00:00:00-05:002026-02-25The 1807 Election and Chaos
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/983866
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Four themes dominated New York politics from 1807 to 1817. Foreign policy, especially the embargo of 1807–9 and the War of 1812, emerged as primary issues in local and state races. New York's electoral requirements based on property ownership limited the electorate, creating opportunities for political leaders to allow only eligible voters to vote for assembly members or governor or state senators. New York politicians wanted to win races and ignored election laws to bring their "voters" to the polls and cried foul when their opponents did the same. Daniel Tompkins, elected governor in 1807, admitted participating as an illegal voter, lacking enough property to vote in the 1790s. Future president Martin Van Buren
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-11T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/745/image/coversmallThe 1807 Election and Chaos2026-02-25text/htmlen-USThe 1807 Election and Chaos2026-02-252026TWOProject MUSE®714552026-05-11T00:00:00-05:002026-02-25Going Dutch: Edward Hopper and His Hudson Valley Roots
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/983867
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Edward Hopper (1882–1967) was one of the leading American artists of the twentieth century (fig. 1). He is renowned for his enigmatic paintings of isolated, thoughtful, and perhaps lonely figures who inhabit spare, tidy settings in both the city and in rural places. Before studying art in Manhattan, Hopper grew up in Nyack, New York, where his boyhood home is now a museum and study center. Hopper was truly a product of the Hudson Valley, and he was aware of the debt that his lineage and upbringing left upon him and his art. We can look at his ancestry as well as the long legacy of Hudson Valley Dutch culture, from the seventeenth century to Hopper's own time. In doing so, we can learn not just about Hopper's own
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-11T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/745/image/coversmallGoing Dutch: Edward Hopper and His Hudson Valley Roots2026-02-25text/htmlen-USGoing Dutch: Edward Hopper and His Hudson Valley Roots2026-02-252026TWOProject MUSE®956822026-05-11T00:00:00-05:002026-02-25The Life and Times of a New York Carpenter in 1890
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/983868
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The growth of New York City in the late nineteenth century stimulated many local industries and was especially a boon to the building trades. In Lower Manhattan, skyscraper construction began to create the city's skyline. Up and down the avenues, builders erected great hotels, offices, and stores. In the neighborhoods around Central Park, luxury apartments, mansions, and row houses were built by the hundreds. Along the waterfront, huge tenement districts emerged to house the working classes, and the inauguration of the elevated railways threw open the whole island to development. Year after year, many tens of millions of dollars were spent on construction, turning building into one of the city's largest industries.
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-11T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/745/image/coversmallThe Life and Times of a New York Carpenter in 18902026-02-25text/htmlen-USThe Life and Times of a New York Carpenter in 18902026-02-252026TWOProject MUSE®666712026-05-11T00:00:00-05:002026-02-25Western New York Salt-Glazed Stoneware and the Traveling Decorators: August Kretschmer, Martin White, George G. Williams, and Emil King
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/983869
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New York State was pivotal for the establishment of potteries to supply earthenware in the form of salt-glazed stoneware to households throughout the Northeast United States during the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries. The process is considered to have been developed in the Alsace region of Germany and France in the fifteenth century and featured the use of granular salt to form a permanent glaze on the surface of the vessels. After a kiln was loaded, often with hundreds of pieces of decorated "green ware," the master potter would remove a brick and throw in a handful or more of salt, which would vaporize and coat the surfaces of the vessels. This critical step in the firing process was timed to a certain
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-11T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/745/image/coversmallWestern New York Salt-Glazed Stoneware and the Traveling Decorators: August Kretschmer, Martin White, George G. Williams, and Emil King2026-02-25text/htmlen-USWestern New York Salt-Glazed Stoneware and the Traveling Decorators: August Kretschmer, Martin White, George G. Williams, and Emil King2026-02-252026TWOProject MUSE®472252026-05-11T00:00:00-05:002026-02-25Artifact NY: A Silver Mine in Ossining
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/983870
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Photograph taken by the author. courtesy of the ossining historical society and museum.This piece sits in a locked cabinet in a dark corner of the parlor room at the Ossining Historical Society and Museum. Overlooked by most who pass by, it is nonetheless a significant relic of a past that seems almost inconceivable in today's comfortable suburban community of Ossining.Let us begin by taking a close look at this spoon. Fairly large, it was likely used for soup. There are elaborate initials etched into the handle, which are difficult to decode.Photograph taken by the author. courtesy of the ossining historical society and museum.On the reverse we see the silversmith's imprint:Photograph taken by the author. courtesy
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-11T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/745/image/coversmallArtifact NY: A Silver Mine in Ossining2026-02-25text/htmlen-USArtifact NY: A Silver Mine in Ossining2026-02-252026TWOProject MUSE®165102026-05-11T00:00:00-05:002026-02-25Artifact NY: Statues at War
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/983871
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There are dozens of statues in Manhattan's Central Park, from a figure recalling the heroic accomplishment of an Alaskan husky to the recently placed monument commemorating women's rights activists. Among all those memorials in the 843-acre urban oasis are two with unexpected ties to the same sculptor, the same model, and conflicting sides of the Civil War.The year 1864 was consequential in the nation's history, as Union and Confederate armies continued their struggle for ascendancy, and Abraham Lincoln faced uncertainty in his bid for reelection in November. For a group of actors, theater owners, and managers in New York, there was another event of import that year: the three hundredth anniversary of the birth of
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-11T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/745/image/coversmallArtifact NY: Statues at War2026-02-25text/htmlen-USArtifact NY: Statues at War2026-02-252026TWOProject MUSE®226052026-05-11T00:00:00-05:002026-02-25Community NY: Bayles Boat Shop
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/983872
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A visit to the village of Port Jefferson on the north shore of Long Island is not complete without seeing the Bayles Boat Shop, part of the Long Island Seaport and Eco Center (LISEC), established in 1994. The area's history of shipbuilding dates to 1797, when John Willse established a boatbuilding yard on the harbor. It was the ideal location, generating three centuries of shipbuilding. By the mid-nineteenth century, Port Jefferson was the largest shipbuilding center on Long Island, surpassed only by the Brooklyn Navy Yard. The last large-scale shipbuilding occurred during World War I, and that steel building has been repurposed into the Village Center. Next door, workers at Bayles Boat Shop continue a tradition of
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-11T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/745/image/coversmallCommunity NY: Bayles Boat Shop2026-02-25text/htmlen-USCommunity NY: Bayles Boat Shop2026-02-252026TWOProject MUSE®55502026-05-11T00:00:00-05:002026-02-25Nelson Rockefeller's Dilemma: The Fight to Save Moderate Republicanism by Marsha E. Barrett (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/983873
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Marsha Barrett has produced an important study of the complex interplay of Nelson Rockefeller's grandiose political aspirations and his shifting policy priorities across his nearly two decades as both the central figure in New York politics and the embattled national figurehead of moderate Republicanism. Built on an impressive foundation of assiduous archival work—particularly at the Rockefeller Archive Center and the New York State Archives—this carefully crafted monograph offers a systematic exploration of Rockefeller Republicanism. Dr. Barrett's arguments emerge gradually and organically from thoughtful analysis that is elegantly woven into her captivating historical narrative, and while the author's
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-11T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/745/image/coversmallNelson Rockefeller's Dilemma: The Fight to Save Moderate Republicanism by Marsha E. Barrett (review)2026-02-25text/htmlen-USNelson Rockefeller's Dilemma: The Fight to Save Moderate Republicanism by Marsha E. Barrett (review)2026-02-252026TWOProject MUSE®282542026-05-11T00:00:00-05:002026-02-25The Black Woods: Pursuing Racial Justice on the Adirondack Frontier by Amy Godine (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/983874
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Amy Godine's The Black Woods is a groundbreaking study that examines the history and legacy of the abolitionist Gerrit Smith's "scheme of justice and benevolence": the 1846 agrarian reform initiative that gifted three thousand African American New Yorkers 120,000 acres of Adirondack land (p. 1). Drawing on hundreds of archival sources, speeches, local histories, personal journals, and letters, Godine has crafted a detailed yet readable assessment of an ignored subject. While traditional historical memory places abolitionists and antislavery activists at the center of the struggle for racial justice in the nineteenth century, Godine's fascinating book gives agency to a group of individuals forgotten by history: the
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-11T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/745/image/coversmallThe Black Woods: Pursuing Racial Justice on the Adirondack Frontier by Amy Godine (review)2026-02-25text/htmlen-USThe Black Woods: Pursuing Racial Justice on the Adirondack Frontier by Amy Godine (review)2026-02-252026TWOProject MUSE®79972026-05-11T00:00:00-05:002026-02-25Martin Van Buren: America's First Politician by James M. Bradley (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/983875
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Trivia buffs might know Martin Van Buren as the first American president born in the independent United States, but probably little more than that. James Bradley's modern biography breathes some life into an often-overlooked era. The Constitutional Convention cobbled together a contraption riddled with a number of fatal flaws. As the first heirs of the system, Van Buren and his peers struggled to keep it limping along. As part of this narrative, Van Buren is often credited as the creator of modern politics and the Democratic Party. Given that this system experienced a cataclysmic failure after his departure from office, this claim seems weak.In any event, writing Van Buren's biography would be difficult, at least
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-11T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/745/image/coversmallMartin Van Buren: America's First Politician by James M. Bradley (review)2026-02-25text/htmlen-USMartin Van Buren: America's First Politician by James M. Bradley (review)2026-02-252026TWOProject MUSE®87672026-05-11T00:00:00-05:002026-02-25The Long Crisis: New York City and the Path to Neoliberalism by Benjamin Holtzman (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/983876
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Exploring the era between 1960 and 1990, when New York City's problems captured national attention, Benjamin Holtzman reveals the development of structures of urban inequality and unaffordability that are making headlines today. Holtzman examines the rise of "marketization," a process of increasing the private sector's role in public matters like housing, parks, and safety. Private entities that took ever more responsibility for these aspects of urban life restored some parts of New York from their previous state of neglect. But marketization heightened differences between neighborhoods while spiking rents everywhere, ultimately making life harder for working-class and impoverished New Yorkers.The question of how
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-11T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/745/image/coversmallThe Long Crisis: New York City and the Path to Neoliberalism by Benjamin Holtzman (review)2026-02-25text/htmlen-USThe Long Crisis: New York City and the Path to Neoliberalism by Benjamin Holtzman (review)2026-02-252026TWOProject MUSE®100942026-05-11T00:00:00-05:002026-02-25Theodore Burr and the Bridging of Early America: The Man, Fellow Bridge Builders, and Their Forgotten Timber Spans by Ronald G. Knapp and Terry E. Miller (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/983877
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Theodore Burr was a pioneer of wooden bridges in America. Active in the early nineteenth century, he has long been recognized as the inventor of a special type of wooden bridge that continued to be built into the twentieth century. Often overlooked in the historical record, bridges played an essential role in the transportation networks of the young republic.Theodore Burr and his 1817 patent bridge design have been considered essential to the study of early wooden bridge design in America for well over a century. However, much of what has been written was often repeated from secondary sources. Knapp and Miller successfully demonstrate that a reevaluation of Burr was necessary and have provided the first
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-11T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/745/image/coversmallTheodore Burr and the Bridging of Early America: The Man, Fellow Bridge Builders, and Their Forgotten Timber Spans by Ronald G. Knapp and Terry E. Miller (review)2026-02-25text/htmlen-USTheodore Burr and the Bridging of Early America: The Man, Fellow Bridge Builders, and Their Forgotten Timber Spans by Ronald G. Knapp and Terry E. Miller (review)2026-02-252026TWOProject MUSE®89252026-05-11T00:00:00-05:002026-02-25When the City Stopped: Stories from New York's Essential Workers by Robert W. Snyder (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/983878
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During the darkest days of the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City, Patricia Tiu, a nurse at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, recorded video journals that she then posted to YouTube. In them, she recounts what she has seen and endured. Seared in her mind are the increasing numbers of patients on ventilators. She describes these patients as existing in a comatose-like state (tubes down their throats, paralyzed, and probably unable to hear). Tiu's account is bleak and meant to drive home the potential consequences of not complying with public health guidelines. If you don't pull through while ventilated, she reminds her viewers, "you die alone" (62). In her videos, several of which are transcribed
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-11T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/745/image/coversmallWhen the City Stopped: Stories from New York's Essential Workers by Robert W. Snyder (review)2026-02-25text/htmlen-USWhen the City Stopped: Stories from New York's Essential Workers by Robert W. Snyder (review)2026-02-252026TWOProject MUSE®81352026-05-11T00:00:00-05:002026-02-25New and Noteworthy in New York History 2025
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/983879
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New in 2025! Our New and Noteworthy in New York History feature will highlight all the books the journal receives each year. Look for this resource in the winter issue to keep upto-date on new and diverse scholarship about New York's past.Danielle Battisti and S. Deborah Kang, eds. Hidden Histories of Unauthorized Migrations from Europe to the United States. Urbana: University of Illinois Press (2025). Contributors: Danielle Battisti, Ashley Johnson Bavery, Mary Patrice Erdmans, Polina Ermoshkina, Torsten Feys, Carly Goodman, S. Deborah Kang, E. Kyle Romero, Randa Tawil, and Joanna Wojdon. 304 pages. Cloth, $125; paperback, $30; eBook, $19.95. Often depicted as the nation's iconic legal immigrant, unauthorized
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-11T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/745/image/coversmallNew and Noteworthy in New York History 20252026-02-25text/htmlen-USNew and Noteworthy in New York History 20252026-02-252026TWOProject MUSE®554852026-05-11T00:00:00-05:002026-02-25