Today on the blog, editor Katie Uva sits down with Elisabeth Israels Perry to talk about her research process and her insights as she prepares her new book, After the Vote: Feminist Politics in La Guardia's New York (Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2019).
Read MoreAnthony Comstock was a household name in nineteenth-century America, so much so that his last name became synonymous with a movement and set of laws that sought to censor obscenity and eradicate vice. Historian Amy Werbel explores this anti-obscenity movement — and its champion — in her provocative and cutting-edge work, Lust on Trial: Censorship and the Rise of American Obscenity in the Age of Anthony Comstock (2018).
Read MoreA specter haunted the city and port of New York during the Quasi-War (1798-1800) and the years preceding it. With the young republics of France and the United States engaged in undeclared naval warfare, New Yorkers feared a seaborne strike would lay waste to their community and cripple its thriving maritime commerce. Although unrealized, these fears were certainly justified; despite attempts to construct an adequate system of defense, the city remained incapable of withstanding assault. Indeed, in March 1798, one official highlighted New York’s vulnerability, noting that its immense wealth and property “invite invasion” and that it would be helpless if set upon by a “single Twenty Gun privateer.” Many residents recalled with bitterness the great fire of 1776, a conflagration that had destroyed a quarter of the city, and feared that New York would soon be revisited by a similar trauma.
Read MoreFounded by Marcus Garvey, with the assistance of Amy Ashwood, in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1914, the UNIA (Universal Negro Improvement Association) was the largest and most influential Pan-Africanist movement of the twentieth century. Emphasizing racial pride, black political self-determination, racial separatism, African heritage, economic self-sufficiency, and African redemption from European colonization, Garvey envisioned the UNIA as a vehicle for improving the social, political, and economic conditions of black people everywhere. From Kingston, Jamaica, Garvey oversaw UNIA affairs before relocating to Harlem. At its peak, from 1919 to 1924, the organization attracted millions of followers in more than forty countries around the world.
This post is excerpted and adapted from Set the World on Fire: Black Nationalist Women and the Global Struggle for Freedom, courtesy of University of Pennsylvania Press.
Read MoreThe tenacity with which many Dutch commoners held to their native language — even as it diverged from the Dutch spoken in the Netherlands — did not escape the notice of influential New Yorkers. In the midst of the hotly contested election of 1768, politicians courting the vote of the city’s Dutch-speakers arranged to print a Dutch version of “A Kick for the Whipper by Sir Isaac Foot,” a partisan essay, in the New-York Gazette. In February 1775, when the printer of the New-York Journal published the “whole proceedings of the continental congress, held in Philadelphia in September and October 1774,” he alerted readers that his edition included “the principal parts, translated into Low Dutch.” Improbable as it may seem in light of the fact that English had long been “the language where power... resided,” Dutch remained a living language in New York City long after members of the elite assumed it would be displaced by English.
Reprinted from Who Should Rule at Home? Confronting the Elite in British New York City, by Joyce D. Goodfriend. Copyright © 2017 by Cornell University. Used by permission of the publisher, Cornell University Press.
Read MoreOn May 20, 1913, nationally renowned suffragist, Rosalie Gardiner Jones, made a spectacular debut in Staten Island, where she became the first suffrage activist to fly for the cause. To achieve this feat, she met her pilot Harry Bingham Brown, one of Staten Island’s resident pilots, at the Grant City train station and boarded his plane. The New York Times reported, “Gen. Rosalie did not show a sign of fear as she took her seat in the biplane, seized a steel rod, the only thing to hold to, with her left hand, had her skirts tied down with a little piece of blue string, and, with a bunch of leaflets in her right hand, nodded a smiling good-bye to the crowd below.” Decorated with 'Votes for Women' banners, the plane arrived at its destination, roughly two miles away on the island’s eastern shore, in fifteen minutes. It landed at the Flying Carnival of the Staten Island Aeronautical Society in a flurry of yellow leaflets, which Jones had been scattering along the way.
Read MoreFifty years ago this week, students at Columbia shut down the university for seven days, in protest of plans to build a gymnasium in a nearby Harlem park, university links to the Vietnam War, and what they saw as Columbia’s generally unresponsive attitude to student concerns.
Today on Gotham, we continue a weeklong series featuring excerpts from a new collection of more than sixty essays, edited by Paul Cronin, reflecting on that moment. A Time to Stir reveals clearly the lingering passion and idealism of many strikers. But it also speaks to the complicated legacy of the uprising. If, for some, the events inspired a lifelong dedication to social causes, for others they signaled the beginning of a chaos that would soon engulf the left. Taken together, these reflections move beyond the standard account, presenting a more nuanced Rashoman-like portrait. On Monday, we considered the remembrances of students (male, female, black, white, visiting, resident, pro, anti), followed on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday by select views of faculty, police officers, and government officials. Today, we hear from some of the "outside agitators" often blamed at the time for stirring up the trouble.
Copyright (c) 2018 Columbia University Press. Used by arrangement with the publisher. All rights reserved.
Read MoreFifty years ago this week, students at Columbia shut down the university for seven days, in protest of plans to build a gymnasium in a nearby Harlem park, university links to the Vietnam War, and what they saw as Columbia’s generally unresponsive attitude to student concerns.
Today on Gotham, we continue a weeklong series featuring excerpts from a new collection of more than sixty essays, edited by Paul Cronin, reflecting on that moment. A Time to Stir reveals clearly the lingering passion and idealism of many strikers. But it also speaks to the complicated legacy of the uprising. If, for some, the events inspired a lifelong dedication to social causes, for others they signaled the beginning of a chaos that would soon engulf the left. Taken together, these reflections move beyond the standard account, presenting a more nuanced Rashoman-like portrait. On Monday, we considered the remembrances of students (male, female, black, white, visiting, resident, pro, anti), followed on Tuesday and Wednesday by views of faculty and police officers. Today, we hear from some of the government officials involved.
Copyright (c) 2018 Columbia University Press. Used by arrangement with the publisher. All rights reserved.
Read MoreFifty years ago this week, students at Columbia shut down the university for seven days, in protest of plans to build a gymnasium in a nearby Harlem park, university links to the Vietnam War, and what they saw as Columbia’s generally unresponsive attitude to student concerns.
Today on Gotham, we continue a weeklong series featuring excerpts from a new collection of more than sixty essays, edited by Paul Cronin, reflecting on that moment. A Time to Stir reveals clearly the lingering passion and idealism of many strikers. But it also speaks to the complicated legacy of the uprising. If, for some, the events inspired a lifelong dedication to social causes, for others they signaled the beginning of a chaos that would soon engulf the left. Taken together, these reflections move beyond the standard account, presenting a more nuanced Rashoman-like portrait. On Monday, we considered the remembrances of students (male, female, black, white, visiting, resident, pro, anti). Yesterday, we considered the views of faculty. Today, we look across the barricades, to see how police officers charged with ending the demonstration viewed and remember the event.
Copyright (c) 2018 Columbia University Press. Used by arrangement with the publisher. All rights reserved.
Read MoreRemembering the Columbia Protest of '68: Faculty
Fifty years ago this week, students at Columbia shut down the university for seven days, in protest of plans to build a gymnasium in a nearby Harlem park, university links to the Vietnam War, and what they saw as Columbia’s generally unresponsive attitude to student concerns.
Today on Gotham, we continue a weeklong series featuring excerpts from a new collection of more than sixty essays, edited by Paul Cronin, reflecting on that moment. A Time to Stir reveals clearly the lingering passion and idealism of many strikers. But it also speaks to the complicated legacy of the uprising. If, for some, the events inspired a lifelong dedication to social causes, for others they signaled the beginning of a chaos that would soon engulf the left. Taken together, these reflections move beyond the standard account, presenting a more nuanced Rashoman-like portrait. Yesterday we considered the remembrances of students (male, female, black, white, visiting, resident, pro, anti). Today, we carrying forward the approach with faculty. Tomorrow: police officers.
Copyright (c) 2018 Columbia University Press. Used by arrangement with the publisher. All rights reserved.
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