Download Free Staten Island And Its People A History 1609 1933 Book in PDF and EPUB Free Download. You can read online Staten Island And Its People A History 1609 1933 and write the review.

What sets Staten Island apart from the rest of New York City? The island’s identity has in part been defined in opposition to the city, its physical and cultural differences, and the perception of neglect by city government. It has long been whiter, wealthier, less populated, and more politically conservative. And despite many attempts over the years, Staten Island is not connected by the subway to any of the other four boroughs. Kenneth M. Gold argues that the lack of a subway connection has deeply shaped Staten Island’s history and identity. He chronicles decades of recurrent efforts to build a rail link, using this history to explore the borough’s fraught relationship with New York City as a whole. The Forgotten Borough ranges from when Staten Island first contemplated joining the city in the 1890s to the opening of the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge in 1964, highlighting pivotal moments when the construction of a subway appeared possible. The economics and engineering of tunnel construction, the difficulty of uniting Staten Islanders around a single solution, competition from the other boroughs, and resistance from powerful corporations and public authorities all undermined a rapid transit connection. Gold demonstrates that the failure to establish a rail link during this period caused Staten Island to diverge culturally, demographically, and politically from the other four boroughs. Drawing on extensive archival research, The Forgotten Borough shows how transportation infrastructure and politics shed new light on urban history.
The history of Staten Island from early settlements to revolutionary battleground is explored in this local history. The shores of Staten Island were one of the first places Giovanni da Verrazzano and Henry Hudson landed in North America, and they became a safe harbor for thousands of refugees fleeing religious conflicts in Europe. As Dutch Staaten Eylandt and then English Richmond County, the island played a vital role in colonial development of the continent and the American Revolution. Rebel raids along the kills and inlets kept British forces and local Tories constantly battling for position, while Hessian and British troops occupied the island longer than any other county during the war. Staten Island’s strategic location was used to launch counterstrikes against Washington’s forces in New Jersey, while Major General John Sullivan led Continental army troops in defeat at the Battle of Staten Island. Author Joe Borelli reveals the colonial history of Richmond County and its role in the fight for American independence.
Before the sensational cases of Amanda Knox and Casey Anthony—before even Lizzie Borden—there was Polly Bodine, the first American woman put on trial for capital murder in our nation’s debut media circus. On Christmas night, December 25, 1843, in a serene village on Staten Island, shocked neighbors discovered the burnt remains of twenty-four-year-old mother Emeline Houseman and her infant daughter, Ann Eliza. In a perverse nativity, someone bludgeoned to death a mother and child in their home—and then covered up the crime with hellfire. When an ambitious district attorney charges Polly Bodine (Emelin’s sister-in-law) with a double homicide, the new “penny press” explodes. Polly is a perfect media villain: she’s a separated wife who drinks gin, commits adultery, and has had multiple abortions. Between June 1844 and April 1846, the nation was enthralled by her three trials—in Staten Island, Manhattan, and Newburgh—for the “Christmas murders.” After Polly’s legal dream team entered the fray, the press and the public debated not only her guilt, but her character and fate as a fallen woman in society. Public opinion split into different camps over her case. Edgar Allen Poe and Walt Whitman covered her case as young newsmen. P. T. Barnum made a circus out of it. James Fenimore Cooper’s last novel was inspired by her trials. The Witch of New York is the first narrative history about the dueling trial lawyers, ruthless newsmen, and shameless hucksters who turned the Polly Bodine case into America’s formative tabloid trial. An origin story of how America became addicted to sensationalized reporting of criminal trials, The Witch of New York vividly reconstructs an epic mystery from Old New York—and uses the Bodine case to challenge our system of tabloid justice of today.
Broome, LaTourette, and Mercereau Families of New York and Connecticut If you have a connection to Staten Island, New York, you probably have a connection to these families. The LaTourette and Mercereau families came separately to Staten Island from France in the late 17th century. They were French Huguenots who left France for religious freedom and were among the small number of early settlers on Staten Island. There were a lot of intermarriages between the LaTourette and Mercereau families and with the other Staten Island families, such as Broome, Chadrayne, Corsen, Doucinet, Lake, Poillon, and Vanderbilt. Later generations went further afield, though not very far to Manhattan Island (New York City), Long Island, upstate New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut to include Barnard, Chetwood, Fay, Gould, Jarvis, LaGrange, Phelps, Platt, and Smith. And still later, they included other families in other states. This book tells the stories of these early American settlers and their descendants. Even if you dont know of a connection to Staten Island, you may find a connection to a later descendant. And you will learn about early difficulties and successes of these pioneers.
The Emerson Brothers: A Fraternal Biography in Letters is a narrative and epistolary biography drawn from the unpublished lifelong correspondence exchanged among four brothers: Charles Chauncy, Edward Bliss, Ralph Waldo, and William Emerson. This is an extensive correspondence, for not counting Waldo's previously published letters, there are 768 letters exchanged among the brothers and an additional 483 unpublished letters from the brothers to their aunt Mary Moody Emerson, mother Ruth Haskins Emerson, and Charles' fiancée Elizabeth Hoar, among others. While lesser figures might have faltered under the burden of having been born an Emerson, with social, political, and ecclesiastic roots extending back to the first century of New England settlement, the brothers' letters reveal that all were invigorated by a shared sense of origin and aspired to make a significant reputation for themselves. Across six richly developed chapters, the signal events and friendships that shaped the Emerson brothers' lives are strung together to reveal a remarkable family culture. For the first time, The Emerson Brothers treats the illustrious history of the Emerson family in America as a foreshadowing of expectations the brothers inherited; defines the extent of Waldo's debt to William for his encounter with German Biblical Criticism; develops Charles' and Edward's incredibly promising but ultimately tragic lives; examines the profound emotional and intellectual impact of Aunt Mary on the younger Emersons; considers the three-year courtship between Charles and Elizabeth Hoar in the context of Waldo's own marriages; and studies the brothers' preoccupation with financial security for "the family" (revealing, too, that finances were at least as powerful a motivation behind Waldo's 1832 resignation from Boston's Second Church as were the death of his first wife and his religious doubts). This biography approaches Waldo's inner life in a way that makes him a figure to imagine personally by portraying him in relation to his brothers who are his intellectual equals. It offers an imaginative social and cultural history of one of our oldest and most gifted families, unique players in a period often considered to be the "American Renaissance."