Editorial Note [HTML] or [PDF] Articles Nancy Robin Jaicks, “Race, Ethnicity and Class on Shelter Island, 1652-2013” [HTML] or [PDF] Derek Stadler, “The Modernization of the Long Island Rail Road” [HTML] or [PDF] Natalie Naylor, “Long Island Women Preserving Nature and the Environment” [HTML] or [PDF] Durahn Taylor, “Publicizing the Fight: Long Island’s Influence […]
Continue ReadingThe Long Island History Journal thanks the Long Island Council for the Social Studies (LICSS) for its continuous support. A special acknowledgment is due to Assemblyman Steve Englebright— a Stony Brook University colleague and staunch advocate of the University in general and strong friend and supporter of the Long Island History Journal in particular. The Center […]
Continue ReadingNeil Buffett is currently an Assistant Professor of History at Suffolk County Community College. He earned his PhD in History from Stony Brook University in December, 2011. His research interests focus upon urban and suburban history, social movements, and high school student/teenaged political activism in the twentieth century United States. Nancy Robin Jaicks was an […]
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Review of Books Robert F. Murphy, The Three Graces of Raymond Street: Murder, Madness, Sex, and Politics in 1870s Brooklyn. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 2015. Pp. x, 243. $24.95. The three graces of the title are three women charged with murder who served time awaiting trial or verdict in the […]
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Long Island in the 1960s: A Visual Essay
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By Natalie Naylor The modern environmental movement of the last half century has its roots in conservation activities beginning in the late nineteenth century. Long Islander Theodore Roosevelt was a national leader in these efforts, creating national forests, bird reserves, and national parks.[1] Many of the early conservation efforts were in the West, but TR’s […]
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By Durahn Taylor No good children’s story is without a villain. In the comic books, the villains have ranged from the Joker and the Riddler to the Prankster and the Puzzler. But in the real-life early twentieth century, starting on Long Island and soon throughout the rest of the country, the children’s enemy was far […]
Continue ReadingWe are pleased to share with you Volume 25-2, the tenth issue of the online Long Island History Journal. Our masthead reveals an addition to our editorial staff. Richard Tomczak, who was very much involved in the preparation of our previous special issue on whaling on Long Island, formally joins us as Editorial Assistant. Rick […]
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By Nancy Robin Jaicks Less than 110 miles from Manhattan and roughly the same size, eight thousand acres, sits the place called Shelter Island. The island is nestled between the North and South Forks of Long Island. Bounded by tranquil bays rather than by oceans – Gardiner’s Bay to the north and the Peconic Bay […]
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By Derek Stadler Like other American railroads, the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) was at an impasse by the mid-twentieth century. Since rail was no longer the preferred method of transportation, many private railroads faltered and were forced into bankruptcy, unable to fund operating costs and essential improvements. Ultimately, public management set railroads on the […]
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Arfin, Paul M. Unfinished Business: Social Action in Suburbia, Long Island NY, 1945-2014. Self-published, 2015. $39.95 In the post-World War II era, Long Island rapidly began to evolve from a relatively rural landscape, to one which, by the latter decades of the twentieth century, came to typify the fully developed, modern American suburb. Due in […]
Continue ReadingJennifer Anderson is an Associate Professor of Atlantic History at Stony Brook University. She holds a PhD in History from New York University. Her recent book, Mahogany: The Costs of Luxury in Early America (Harvard Univ. Press, 2012) examines the complex history of the colonial tropical timber industry. Since curating an exhibition at NYU about […]
Continue ReadingThis special issue of the Long Island History Journal is underwritten by a grant from the Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation. The Editors wish to express our sincere gratitude for their generous support and special thanks to Executive Director Kathryn M. Curran. The Long Island History Journal thanks the Long Island Council for the […]
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Review of Books Nancy Shoemaker, Native American Whale Men and the World: Indigenous Encounters and the Contingency of Race (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015) ISBN: 978-1-4696-2257-6 Nancy Shoemaker, ed., Living with Whales: Documents and Oral Histories of Native New England Whaling History (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2014) ISBN: 978-1-62534-081-8 Two new […]
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By Nomi Dayan The Whale-Hunt: A Tale in Images
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By David Bunn Martine My grandmother, Alice Osceola Bunn Martinez, born in 1901, was a keeper of many oral histories. She remembered whaling stories from our Shinnecock-Montauk family and community going back to the early 19th century. In fact, she was a granddaughter of David Waukus Bunn, who was a whaler on several ships. But […]
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By Georgette Grier-Key Introduction Archaeologist Steve Mrozowski, Ph.D. acknowledges that Long Island’s history, as in much of the North, seems largely to escape the slavery narrative. Stories about African Americans and enslaved Africans on Long Island are the less-told stories largely because of the lack of surviving or noted physical evidence.[1] Yet, Long Island had […]
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By Stephen N. Sanfilippo I have seen the Storm arise Like a giant in his wrath.[1] There was no regular mail service between the seaports of the northeastern United States and the ships that those ports sent to the Pacific during the mid-19th century peak of “Yankee” whaling. Letters were passed from ship to ship, […]
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By Francis Turano William Cooper (1785-1857) was a builder of whaleboats in Sag Harbor Long Island (Figure 1).[1] He was born in Southampton.[2] His father Caleb (1745-1834) was also a boat builder as well as a trustee of the Town of Southampton.[3] In 1806, William was in New York City.[4] In 1808, he married Phebe […]
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By Allison Manfra McGovern “March the 3 I arrived at Montauk in the year of our Lord 1798 on Sat. Night. I was gone Nine years and five months. I sailed out Nantucket.” “I Jeremiah Pharaoh the Bold mariner I sailed the world all over nine long years. When I Returned home I found my […]
Continue ReadingBy Jenna Wallace Coplin Located on the north shore of Long Island not 40 miles east of Manhattan, Cold Spring Harbor, at the beginning of the 19th century, was a small community that was home to a lesser-known whaling business run by John H. and Walter R. Jones. These brothers, along with a long list […]
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By John A. Strong Introduction The Long Island Algonquian communities along the south shore were closely attuned to their maritime environment. The coastal wetlands provided them with a reliable supply of shellfish, fish, migratory fowl, and sea mammals. They collected clams year round, trapped and netted fish, and hunted water fowl, seals, and whales. Little […]
Continue ReadingThis issue of the Long Island History Journal (LIHJ) is devoted to presenting new research on the history of whaling, an industry of singular importance to our region from the 17th to the 19th centuries. This focus is especially timely because in recent months, whales–from playful white belugas to massive barnacle-laden humpbacks–have been sighted increasingly […]
Continue ReadingBy Nancy Shoemaker The American whaling industry originated on Long Island in the mid-seventeenth century, and as the historian John Strong has demonstrated in numerous books and articles, including his essay in this collection, Native American men’s labor was fundamental to the enterprise’s growth and success.[1] The bounty of whales off Long Island and Cape […]
Continue ReadingEditorial Note [HTML] or [PDF] Articles John A. Strong, “Indian Whalers on Long Island, 1669-1746” [HTML] or [PDF] Jenna Wallace Coplin, “Family, Finance, and the Cold Spring Whaling Company, 1836-1862” [HTML] or [PDF] Allison Manfra McGovern, “The Materiality of a ‘Bold Mariner’: Jeremiah Pharaoh’s Home at Indian Fields” [HTML] or [PDF] Francis Turano, “The […]
Continue ReadingAnn M. Becker is an Assistant Professor at SUNY Empire State College. Dr. Becker served as the Assistant Editor for the Long Island Historical Journal through 2008. She is also the co-author of Stony Brook: State University of New York (2002), and author of Mount Sinai (2003). Lauren Brincat is the Assistant Curator of Decorative […]
Continue ReadingWelcome to Vol. 24-2, the eighth issue of the on-line Long Island History Journal. Our readers will find four articles and seven book reviews spanning Long Island history from the colonial period to the twentieth century. Two of the articles focus upon the role of the Loyalists in the American Revolution: Christopher Minty offers a […]
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After the Battle of Long Island in the fall of 1776, British forces re-gained control of New York from rebel forces. Until 1783, they commanded the southern portion of the colony-turned-state. A consequence of the British occupation was that New York — New York City, in particular — became a beacon for American Loyalists. Thousands […]
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In the spring of 1939 all the world converged on Flushing, Queens to cast a hopeful eye on the future. With George and Ira Gershwin’s Dawn of a New Day as its anthem, the 1939 World’s Fair promised a peek at the “World of Tomorrow.”[1] Flushing Meadows-Corona Park played host to the international exposition. The […]
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Marilyn E. Weigold Peconic Bay: Four Centuries of History on Long Island’s North and South Forks. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2015. Pp. 336. ISBN: 9780815610458. Cloth, $24.95. Whether you are stranger to the East End or are intimately familiar with the area, Marilyn E. Weigold’s work describing “one of the last great places in the […]
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Ellen NicKenzie Lawson. Smugglers, Bootleggers, and Scofflaws: Prohibition and New York City. Albany: SUNY Press, 2013. Pp. 151. ISBN: 9781438448169. Paper, $19.95 The Prohibition Era brings to mind the Mafia and the government G-men who sought their elimination. But there is also a maritime component to this story. Ellen NicKenzie Lawson examines the movement of […]
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Edward P. Kohn, editor. A Most Glorious Ride: The Diaries of Theodore Roosevelt, 1877-1886. Albany: SUNY Press. 2014. Pp. 322. Photos, index, glossary. ISBN: 9781438455150. Hardcover, $29.95. On Saturday, April 1 1877, while at Newtonville, Massachusetts, Theodore Roosevelt entered into his diary: “Arvicola riparia. Hesperomys leucopus. Melospiza palustris. Loxia curvirostra. Salamandra. Rana damitans and palustris. […]
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Introduction The wartime experiences of Colonel Richard Floyd IV, a wealthy Brookhaven landowner and influential judge, provide an intimate lens through which to view the varied Loyalist perspectives on the Revolution. Richard IV, who was a steadfast Loyalist throughout the entire Revolutionary War, was one of only three Suffolk County Loyalists named in the 1779 […]
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Harrison Hunt and Bill Bleyer. Long Island and the Civil War: Queens, Nassau and Suffolk Counties During the War Between the States. Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2015. Pp. 170, photographs. ISBN: 9781626197718. Paper, $21.99. This book fills in an important gap in Long Island’s history. No major Civil War battle ever occurred on Long […]
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Robert B. MacKay, editor. Gardens of Eden: Long Island’s Early Twentieth-Century Planned Communities. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2015. Copyright by the Society for the Preservation of Long Island Antiquities. Pp. 303. Illustrations, index. ISBN: 9780393733211. Hardcover, $65.00. Oh, let us fly without delay Into the country far away, Where, free from all this […]
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The William Floyd Estate today comprises 613 acres of land bordering Moriches Bay and the original Old Mastic House on site was lived in by at least eight generations of family members from 1718 to 1976. It is run today by the National Park Service and is a separate operating unit of Fire Island National Seashore. […]
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Richard F. Welch. General Washington’s Commando: Benjamin Tallmadge in the Revolutionary War. North Carolina: McFarland, 2014. Pp. 204. Photos, notes, bibliography, index. ISBN 978-0-7864-7963-4. Softcover, $35.00. Richard Welch offers a comprehensive biography of Setauket native Benjamin Tallmadge, an important, though little appreciated, figure in the history of Revolutionary War spy-craft and intelligence gathering. His book […]
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Natalie A. Naylor. Women in Long Island’s Past: A History of Eminent Ladies and Everyday Lives. Charleston: The History Press, 2012. Pp. 192. ISBN: 9781609494995. Paper, $19.99. Natalie Naylor has written an excellent account of the often overlooked role of women in Long Island’s history. As the title suggests, it includes both women whose names […]
Continue ReadingEditorial Note [HTML] Articles Lauren Brincat, “Material Life on the Long Island Frontier: The Inventory of Captain William Lawrence Flushing, 1680” [HTML] or [PDF] Matthew M. Montelione, “Richard Floyd IV: Long Island Loyalist” [HTML] or [PDF] Christopher Minty, “A List of Persons on Long Island: Biography, Voluntarism, and Suffolk County’s 1778 Oath of Allegiance” […]
Continue ReadingDetermine why you are not having sex now, and what precisely you’d have to improve in order to begin. Sex is a shape or relaxation in which you forget your worries temporarily. Making love caused me to enormous quantity of annoyance in the form of bullying. The longer you wish to have sexual activity , […]
Continue ReadingEditorial Note [HTML] Articles Kevin Olsen, “What Do You Do With the Garbage? New York City’s Progressive Era Sanitary Reforms and Their Impact on the Waste Management Infrastructure in Jamaica Bay” [HTML] or [PDF] John Strong and Mary Laura Lamont, “The Richard Floyd Account Book, 1686-1690: A Search for Authorship and Historical Significance” [HTML] […]
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Note:This article is based on a paper given by Lamont and Strong at the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA) conference at Mohegan Sun, Uncasville, CT June 3-6 2012. We thank the Fire Island National Park administration for purchasing digital copies of the ledger books from the Huntington Library in San Marino, California. Introduction […]
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Music and art were the interconnected passions of artist William Sidney Mount’s life. Mount was one of the foremost pre-Civil War genre painters in the United States who lived in Stony Brook and Setauket, Long Island, for the majority of his life. Born into a family that loved singing, dancing, and performing music nearly as […]
Continue ReadingAnn M. Becker is an Assistant Professor at SUNY Empire State College. Dr. Becker served as the Assistant Editor for the Long Island Historical Journal through 2008. She is also the co-author of Stony Brook: State University of New York (2002), and author of Mount Sinai (2003). Christopher Capozzola is an associate professor of history […]
Continue ReadingAn Archaeological View of the Slavery and Social Relations at Rock Hall, Lawrence, New York Ross T. Rava (Independent Researcher) and Christopher N. Matthews (Montclair State University) Abstract. The 1790 federal census recorded seventeen enslaved Africans living at Rock Hall Manor in Lawrence, New York, the largest number recorded for a single household in Queens […]
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Bethel-Christian Avenue-Laurel Hill Historic District
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Steven H. Gittelman. Willie K. Vanderbilt II: A Biography. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2010. Pp. 264. Photos, notes, bibliography, index. ISBN: 9780786447770. $38.00. As Steven Gittelman, a board member of the Suffolk County Vanderbilt Museum admits in his acknowledgement and preface, Willie K. Vanderbilt II: A Biography represents a parallel journey. On […]
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In December, 1958, the Sperry Gyroscope Corporation, a large defense contractor located on Long Island, presented Sandy Kuene, a female worker, with an award. No ordinary honor, human resources managers and employees recognized Kuene for winning the coveted title of “Miss Sperry” for 1958.[1] Her prizes (described somewhat curiously as “gifts”) included a large oil painting […]
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Editor’s note: throughout this manuscript, spelling and grammar from historical documents are kept in their original primary form. In a letter dated September 23, 1837, Aaron Smith of Smithtown, Long Island, lamented to his aunt, Elizabeth Blydenburgh, living in Michigan City, Indiana, that Smithtown remains the same sluggish, unaspiring and unimproving place that it has […]
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Editor’s Note Professor Burrows presented this talk at a symposium, “The American Revolution on Long Island and in New York City,” held at Stony Brook University on October 4, 2010, and co-sponsored by the Three Village Historical Society, the LIHJ, and Stony Brook University. The LIHJ includes the talk as it was delivered by Professor […]
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The government of Suffolk County has been a leader in creating environmental and conservation initiatives and legislation over the last half century.1 Many were the first of their kind within New York State and even the country. Why is this? Economics? Limited natural resources? Personnel? And when did this begin? The county’s legacy of protecting […]
Continue Reading[videojs width=”450″ height=”253″ mp4=”http://lihj.cc.stonybrook.edu/media/SouthamptonWomen.mp4″][/videojs] Editor’s Note “Southampton Women Who Made a Difference” was an exhibition hosted by the Southampton Historical Museum from March 6 to May 1, 2010. It sprang from a slide presentation on 100 Long Island women given by Dr. Gaynell Stone in 1996 at the Hofstra University conference on “Long Island Women: […]
Continue ReadingWelcome to the fourth issue of the online LIHJ, as we mark our second year of publishing our journal on the web. In the articles section of this issue of the LIHJ, you will find two new original contributions: Ann Sandford shares with us her exploration of the life of Ernestine Rose, a Bridgehampton resident […]
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Ernestine Rose was an only child, born in 1880 to two Anglo Americans, farmer Stephen Rose and teacher Anna Chatfield. Her parents and paternal grandparents lived in Hay Ground, a settlement considered at the time to be part of the hamlet of Bridgehampton, located on the South Fork of the eastern end of Long Island, […]
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Edmund Morris. Colonel Roosevelt. New York, NY: Random House, 2010. Pp. 766. Photographs, bibliography, endnotes, and index. ISBN: 9780375504877. $35.00. Colonel Roosevelt is masterful. Edmund Morris’s third volume in his epic project on Theodore Roosevelt has the prose and the dramatic narrative of history of which timeless biographies consist. Morris’s first volume, The […]
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Geoffrey K. Fleming. Ever Eastward: Alfred H. Cosden and His Estate at Southold. Southold: Southold Historical Society, 2010. Pp. 59. Photographs, bibliographic references. $24.99. Geoffrey K. Fleming’s book Ever Eastward is a delightful account of the history of Alfred Costen’s estate in Southold. The inclusion of “Eastward” in the name Cosden chose for […]
Continue ReadingEdwin G. Burrows, Distinguished Professor of History at Brooklyn College, is co-author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 (1998). He serves on the boards of the Dyckman Farmhouse Museum in Manhattan, New York Academy of History, and New York History. Kiernan Lannon is the Executive Director of the […]
Continue ReadingEditorial Note [HTML] Articles R. Lawrence Swanson, Carolyn Hall, and Kristin Kramss, “Suffolk County, a National Leader in Environmental Initiatives. Why?” [HTML] or [PDF] Ann Sandford, “Rescuing Ernestine Rose (1880-1961): Harlem Librarian and Social Activist” [HTML] or [PDF] Edwin G. Burrows, “The Prisoners of New York” [HTML] or [PDF] Reviews Lt. Col. Gregory Wynn […]
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Christopher R. Vaccaro. Long Island High School Sports. Mount Pleasant, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2009. Photographs and illustrations. Pp 128. ISBN: 9780738565569. $21.99. Teams of fresh-faced youngsters clad in the colors of their respective high schools take to athletic fields to battle for school and personal pride. The din of drum-laden fight songs cuts […]
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