Posts by Mark Boonshoft

The experience of women in 1790s New York City, from the records of the NYC Almshouse and Bridewell.

Fake news, radical resistance, and the coming of the American Revolution.

Recently digitized collections show how prisons protected property owners before and after the American Revolution.

An interview with Kyle Roberts about his new book, Evangelical Gotham, which was Made at NYPL.

When George Washington passed away, New Yorkers fought in the streets over his legacy.

In early New York City, reasoned and literary argument was understood as critical to political debate.

Fears of foreign meddling spurred the development of the United States' first political parties.

A story of financial fraud, failure, and a tragic suicide in early New York City, told from the diary of Elizabeth De Hart Bleecker.

A sympathetic account of the execution of British spy John André, written by an American Army officer.

A recently digitized item sheds light on the profound social upheaval caused by the American Revolution in New York.

The infamous Whiskey Rebellion, told from the perspective of the soldiers who suppressed it.

Health and disease in early New York City.

Most Americans in the revolutionary period found out who signed the Declaration of Independence in print, not parchment. The job of printing it went to a woman named Mary Katherine Goddard.

One woman's account of a parade of Freemasons in early-nineteenth-century New York City.

A major lottery jackpot in 1799 captures the attention of Elizabeth De Hart Bleecker.

One Philadelphian's account of the celebrations accompanying the repeal of the Stamp Act in 1766, and what it tells us about the coming of the American Revolution.

The tense New York State elections of 1800, as seen through the diary of Elizabeth De Hart Bleecker.

A look at the history of slavery in early New York, through the estate of the manor lord, Adolphus Philipse.

The story of a a sensational murder in early-nineteenth-century New York, told through a young woman's diary.