In the political ferment of early 20th century New York City, when socialists and reformers battled sweatshops, and writers and artists thought a new world was being born, an immigrant Jewish woman from Russia appeared in the Yiddish press, in Carnegie Hall, and at rallies. Her name was Rose Pastor Stokes, and she fought for socialism, contraception and workers’ rights.
The First Cinemas in Black Harlem: A Look at the Silent Film Era, 1909-1926
By Agata Frymus
The history of cinemas in Harlem is as old — or, in fact a few years older — than its history as a lively center of Black life. Movie houses that opened their doors to African Americans in the late 1900s and early 1910s offer a fascinating insight into the history of Harlem’s residents.
“The presentation of the civic and commercial life of the city”: May King Van Rensselaer and the founding of the Museum of the City of New York
By Alena Buis
At the January 2, 1917 annual meeting of the New-York Historical Society (N-YHS), May King Van Rensselaer (1848-1925) delivered a passionate speech. Addressing the organization’s staid (and at that point startled) representatives she proclaimed: “I have been attending the meetings of the New-York Historical Society for nearly three years, and have not heard one new or advanced scientific thought, although many distinguished scholars have visited the city.”
The Panic of 1907: How J.P. Morgan Took Over Wall Street
By Richard A. Naclerio
One of the most influential shapers of New York City’s history is Wall Street. The economic, social, demographic, and political impact the banking industry has had on New York City is undeniable in its scope and power. However, Wall Street itself is influenced by men who have harnessed and bridled it throughout its textured history. The consolidation of financial power is almost always a harbinger for the rise or fall of New York’s future, and no event was more exemplary of this effect than the little-known Panic of 1907, and no man amassed so much power from it than J.P. Morgan.
Eva Tanguay's Racial and Gender Iconoclasticism and the Making of “Personality”
By Jonathan Goldman
When Dorothy Parker wanted to dunk on Billie Burke’s performance in the new Somerset Maugham play, she called Burke's acting “an impersonation of Eva Tanguay.”The reference may be obscure now, but it was not then. In January 1920, Tanguay had been a New York fixture and international celebrity for over fifteen years. Crowned “Queen of Vaudeville” by an infatuated press, from 1905 on she commanded her industry's highest salaries.
Piecework, Peddlers, and Prostitutes: Intertwined Lives on the Lower East Side
By Deena Ecker
At the dawn of the 20th century, the stoop of 102 Allen Street, near the corner of Delancey Street on Manhattan’s Lower East Side hopped with activity. Children played in front of the building, competing for space with “those women, called ‘Naphkes’” who would “say to men: ‘Come up’.” Isaac Yarmus, just 12 years old, said that when he “went on the stoop the Naphkes would take my hat and throw it into the street and tell me to keep away from the stoop.” Meanwhile, the building’s housekeeper, Hester Wolf, kept careful watch and would “say to the Naphkes: ‘Go inside’. when she saw a policeman or detective coming along the street.”
Forbs, Fungi, and Fading Memories: What Can Preserving a Disappearing Staten Island a Century Ago Teach Us Today?
By Melissa Zavala
Staten Island’s rich history of conservation is overshadowed by its reputation as a “dump,” most often associated with Fresh Kills, the notorious landfill which at its peak point of operations in the 1980s was considered the largest landfill in the world. A look through the Staten Island Museum’s archival collections, however — its founder’s letters, journals, publications, photographs, and a wide array of other objects including herbariums, assorted wet and dry collections of specimens, and more — reveals an island that has transformed radically.
The House on Henry Street: And Interview with Ellen M. Snyder-Grenier
Interviewed by Marjorie N. Feld
Today on the blog, Margorie N. Feld interviews Ellen M. Snyder-Grenier, author of The House on Henry Street: The Enduring Life of a Lower East Side Settlement. This book moves Snyder-Grenier into Manhattan and the rich history of a settlement house, founded by a dynamic Progressive activist named Lillian Wald, in 1893. Unlike so many of the settlement houses founded in that fascinating historical moment, Henry Street is still very much alive as a social service agency, still helping its Lower East Side neighbors after over a century.
From 1899 to 1914, people around the world gave over 12,000 animals to the New York Zoological Park in the Bronx (almost 5,000 of them were snakes). Donations to the zoo fulfilled two purposes: they supplied the zoological park with more animals, and, perhaps more importantly, helped the zoo form a relationship with certain communities around them. This project is a focused look at a section of these animal donors, the people of New York City.
“My Colored House is on Fire”: Children, Housing, and the Architecture of Black Charity in San Juan Hill
By Jessica Larson
Following their displacement from the Tenderloin in the early 1900s, Manhattan’s largest Black population moved northward and sought to rebuild their community’s infrastructure in San Juan Hill, an area bounded by 59th Street to the south, 65th Street to the north, Amsterdam Avenue to east, and West End Avenue to the west. Black reformers — the majority of whom were women — worked to construct a neighborhood that offered to its residents missing social welfare services.
