Before Central Park

Reviewed by Kara Murphy Schlichting

Before Central Park is Sara Cedar Miller’s fourth publication about New York City’s famous greensward. Miller is historian emerita and, since 1984, a photographer for the Central Park Conservancy. Before Central Park is distinctive in its combination of Miller’s photography, her expert understanding of the park’s geography and archeology, and her meticulous real estate history of parkland from the 17th through the 19th centuries.

Tong Kee Hang: A Chinese American Civil War Veteran Who Was Stripped of His Citizenship

By Kristin Choo

May is Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage month, an appropriate time to recognize the Chinese Americans whose lives were disrupted, constricted or uprooted by the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act and other racist laws and policies. Tong Kee Hang did not suffer the most egregious mistreatment meted out to Chinese immigrants during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He was not beaten, lynched, or driven from his home like many others. But the loss of his citizenship and right to vote was a cruel blow for a man who had served his country in wartime and who took deep pride in being American.

Antebellum & Civil War, Immigration, Manhattan, Progressive Era, Race & Ethnicity, Staten IslandGuest UserMay 31, 2022Comment

This Is a Cemetery: The Saga of the Second Asbury African Methodist Episcopal Church Cemetery of Staten Island

By Patricia M. Salmon

Having studied cemeteries for the last thirty-six years and spending the first nineteen years of my life living next to a Homestead Graveyard that was abandoned, I should perhaps not be so surprised about the demise of Second Asbury, an African Methodist Episcopal Church Cemetery in Port Richmond Center, Staten Island, also known colloquially as “Cherry Lane.” Designated a “Colored Cemetery” because African-Americans were interred at the site, it used to be called the “Old Slave’s Burying Ground.” Not only was the last living enslaved person from Staten Island buried therein, but numerous others were, too.

Antebellum & Civil War, Race & Ethnicity, Religion, Staten IslandGuest UserMarch 8, 2022Comment

The Great Disappearing Act: An Interview with Christina A. Ziegler-McPherson

Interviewed by Hongdeng Gao

Today on the Blog, Gotham editor Hongdeng Gao speaks to Christina Ziegler-McPherson about her latest book, The Great Disappearing Act: Germans in New York City, 1880-1930. Ziegler-McPherson discusses how over the span of a few decades, New York City’s German community went from being the best positioned to promote a new, more pluralistic American culture that they themselves had helped to create to being an invisible group. She offers fresh insights into how German immigration shaped cultural, financial, and social institutions in New York City and debates about assimilation and multi-lingualism in the United States.

Antebellum & Civil War, Gilded Age, Interviews, Progressive Era, Race & Ethnicity, ImmigrationGuest UserMarch 3, 2022Comment

Sites and Sounds: Hart Island

Site and Sounds: Hart Island

By Melinda Hunt

On today’s episode of Sites and Sounds, Melinda Hunt talks about the public graveyard at Hart Island.

“Loose Hogs, Fancy Dogs, and Mounds of Manure in the Streets of Manhattan”: An Interview with Catherine McNeur

Interviewed by Amanda Martin-Hardin, Maddy Aubey, and Prem Thakker of the Everyday Environmentalism Podcast

Today on the blog, Catherine McNeur discusses how during the early 19th century, working class New Yorkers living in Manhattan raised livestock and even practiced a form of recycling by reusing urban waste. Battles over urbanizing and beautifying New York City ensued, involving fights over sanitation and animals in the streets; and how to manage recurring epidemics and diseases like cholera that ravaged the city. McNeur explains how these tensions exacerbated early forms of gentrification in the 19th century, and contemplates how we can learn from the past to create more equitable urban green spaces and shared environmental resources in the future.

“For the Use of the State”: Edmund Bailey O’Callaghan and the Work of New York’s Archives

By Derek Kane O’Leary

In mid-winter of 1847, Edmund Bailey O’Callaghan was a historian with an unfinished book manuscript who needed a decent-paying job. He was hip deep in his two-volume History of New Netherland; or, New York under the Dutch (1846-1848), the first major historical account of the state’s Dutch colonial period aside from Washington Irving’s satirical History of New York by Diedrich Knickerbocker (1809) — which O’Callaghan and many other history-conscious New Yorkers were keen to forget.

Antebellum & Civil War, PoliticsGuest UserAugust 3, 2021Comment

The First Reconstruction: Black Politics in America from the Revolution to the Civil War

Van Gosse interviewed by Jessica Georges

It may be difficult to imagine that a consequential black electoral politics evolved in the United States before the Civil War, for as of 1860, the overwhelming majority of African Americans remained in bondage. Yet free black men, many of them escaped slaves, steadily increased their influence in electoral politics over the course of the early American republic. Despite efforts to disfranchise them, black men voted across much of the North, sometimes in numbers sufficient to swing elections.

Antebellum & Civil War, Early Republic, Interviews, Podcasts, Politics, Race & Ethnicity, Slavery & AntislaveryGuest UserJuly 30, 2021Comment

The Chinese Lady: An Interview with Nancy E. Davis

Interviewed by Hongdeng Gao

Today on the blog, editor Hongdeng Gao speaks to Nancy E. Davis about her recent book, The Chinese Lady: Afong Moy in Early America. Through creative use of disparate sources from many years of research, Davis captures the experiences of Afong Moy — the first recognized Chinese woman to arrive in America — as she introduced exotic goods from the East, as well as Chinese life, to the American public. The book provides rich insights into how Afong Moy’s presence changed Americans’ views of China and influenced American popular and material culture. It also sheds light on New York City’s role in the early US-China trade and the rise of the global marketplace.

Hart Island and the Paradox of Redemption

By Sally Raudon

In the twelve months before January 2021, 2,225 people were buried on Hart Island, New York City’s public burial ground. At a time when the Island’s operations are undergoing the most significant organizational changes in its modern history, that’s the highest number of such burials recorded since the 1918-1920 influenza pandemic.