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| history of mount vernon ny: Inside the Apple Michelle Nevius, James Nevius, 2009-03-24 How much do you actually know about New York City? Did you know they tried to anchor Zeppelins at the top of the Empire State Building? Or that the high-rent district of Park Avenue was once so dangerous it was called Death Avenue? Lively and comprehensive, Inside the Apple brings to life New York's fascinating past. This narrative history of New York City is the first to offer practical walking tour know-how. Fast-paced but thorough, its bite-size chapters each focus on an event, person, or place of historical significance. Rich in anecdotes and illustrations, it whisks readers from colonial New Amsterdam through Manhattan's past, right up to post-9/11 New York. The book also works as a historical walking-tour guide, with 14 self-guided tours, maps, and step-by-step directions. Easy to carry with you as you explore the city, Inside the Apple allows you to visit the site of every story it tells. This energetic, wide-ranging, and often humorous book covers New York's most important historical moments, but is always anchored in the city of today. |
| history of mount vernon ny: Mount Vernon Larry H. Spruill, 2009 Conceived in 1850, Mount Vernon is a young city, founded as an alternative to overcrowded New York City living by a group of ambitious middle- and laboring-class citizens. By the beginning of the 20th century, Mount Vernon was known as the city of happy homes. It became a bedroom community for the region's most prominent upwardly mobile movers and shakers. Its ideal location to the city, elegant spacious homes, tree-lined streets, progressive schools and businesses, and receptivity to diversity spawned decades of sustained growth. Today Mount Vernon has become a critical gateway to New York and Westchester County. The images in Mount Vernon highlight the people and places that shaped the formative and golden years of the community, providing the quintessential look at the most dynamic small city in New York. |
| history of mount vernon ny: Boy @ the Window Donald Earl Collins, 2013-11 As a preteen Black male growing up in Mount Vernon, New York, there were a series of moments, incidents and wounds that caused me to retreat inward in despair and escape into a world of imagination. For five years I protected my family secrets from authority figures, affluent Whites and middle class Blacks while attending an unforgiving gifted-track magnet school program that itself was embroiled in suburban drama. It was my imagination that shielded me from the slights of others, that enabled my survival and academic success. It took everything I had to get myself into college and out to Pittsburgh, but more was in store before I could finally begin to break from my past. Boy @ The Window is a coming-of-age story about the universal search for understanding on how any one of us becomes the person they are despite-or because of-the odds. It's a memoir intertwined with my own search for redemption, trust, love, success-for a life worth living. Boy @ The Window is about one of the most important lessons of all: what it takes to overcome inhumanity in order to become whole and human again. |
| history of mount vernon ny: Mount Vernon Revisited Jessie Biele, Michael K. Bohn, 2014 The Mount Vernon community in Fairfax County, Virginia, draws its name from George Washington's home overlooking the Potomac River. Washington acquired the house and plantation in 1754 and lived there in peace and war until his 1799 death. Since then, however, the area's 340-year history has gained breadth and texture beyond Washington's personal heritage. In the 1840s and 1850s, forty Quaker families moved to Mount Vernon and revitalized area agriculture and commerce. The Mount Vernon Ladies' Association bought the mansion and 200 acres from Washington's great-grandnephew in 1858 and continues to preserve the historic landmark to this day. The development of Route 1 and the George Washington Memorial Parkway in the 20th century contributed to today's economic development and growth in the Mount Vernon area. Neighborhoods and sites along the Potomac River are rife with history, including landmarks like the Woodlawn Plantation, Gum Springs, Pohick Church, Fort Belvoir, and Gunston Hall. |
| history of mount vernon ny: History of Westchester County John Thomas Scharf, 1886 |
| history of mount vernon ny: Mount Vernon Love Story Mary Higgins Clark, 2012-09-04 Always a lover of history, Mary Higgins Clark wrote this extensively researched biographical novel and titled it Aspire to the Heavens, after the motto of George Washington's mother. Published in 1969, the book was more recently discovered by a Washington family descendant and reissued as Mount Vernon Love Story. Dispelling the widespread belief that although George Washington married Martha Dandridge Custis, he reserved his true love for Sally Carey Fairfax, his best friend's wife, Mary Higgins Clark describes the Washington marriage as one full of tenderness and passion, as a bond between two people who shared their lives -- even the bitter hardship of a winter in Valley Forge -- in every way. In this author's skilled hands, the history, the love, and the man come fully and dramatically alive. |
| history of mount vernon ny: Scenes from the Suburbs Timotheus Vermeulen, 2014-04-08 This book looks again at the filmic and televised spaces we think we know so well. How are these spaces built up? What is it that makes us recognize them as suburbs? How do they function? Vermeulen usesDesperate Housewives, The Simpsons, King of the Hill, Happiness, Pleasantville, Brick and Chumscrubber to explore these questions. |
| history of mount vernon ny: George Washington in New York Allan Boudreau, Alexander Bleimann, 1987 |
| history of mount vernon ny: The Quanders Rohulamin Quander, 2021-04-12 Short of the Book TitleThe selected title of this book, The Quanders – Since 1684: An Enduring African American Legacy, is self-explanatory and becomes more so once the reader delves into the content. Tracing the legacy of Henry Quando and Margrett Pugg, his wife, and their progeny, from 1684 to the present, unfolds a story of triumph and sustained accomplishment beyond and in spite of whatever racially-inspired obstacles were placed as inhibitors on the road to success. Description of the WorkThe Quanders – Since 1684: An Enduring African America Legacy introduces stories that constitute the Quander family legacy as one of the oldest consistently documented African American families in the United States. This is not so much an African American story, as it is an American history story, written from an African American perspective. It features examples of faith, strength, focus, character, and triumph emerging from and beyond a series of imposed stumbling blocks. As well, the author acknowledges the contributions of those who came before and builds upon their achievements and successes to the benefit of future generations.While most Americans respect our nation and its Founding Fathers who made it a reality, the Quander story expands the scope of that recognition by painting smaller parallel stories addressing what else was ongoing, i.e., incidences, events, setbacks, the cumulative effect of which helped us, as people of African descent, to hold our heads just as high as other communities. Indeed, we too shared in the building of this great nation and in seeking to fulfill the American Dream. |
| history of mount vernon ny: Having Our Say Sarah L. Delany, A. Elizabeth Delany, Amy Hill Hearth, 2023-01-03 Warm, feisty, and intelligent, the Delany sisters speak their mind in a book that is at once a vital historical record and a moving portrait of two remarkable women who continued to love, laugh, and embrace life after over a hundred years of living side by side. Their sharp memories tell us about the post-Reconstruction South and Booker T. Washington, Harlem’s Golden Age and Langston Hughes, W. E. B. Du Bois and Paul Robeson. Bessie Delany breaks barriers to become a dentist; Sadie Delany quietly integrates the New York City system as a high school teacher. Their extraordinary story makes an important contribution to our nation’s heritage—and an indelible impression on our lives. |
| history of mount vernon ny: George Washington's Mount Vernon Robert F. Dalzell, Lee Baldwin Dalzell, 2000-02-24 ... The details of Washington's 45-year-long campaign to build and perfect Mount Vernon.--Jacket. |
| history of mount vernon ny: Visitors' Guide to Mount Vernon ... Elizabeth Bryant Johnston, 1876 |
| history of mount vernon ny: Westchester County Field Horne, 2018 |
| history of mount vernon ny: Liberty Is Sweet Woody Holton, 2021-10-19 A “deeply researched and bracing retelling” (Annette Gordon-Reed, Pulitzer Prize–winning historian) of the American Revolution, showing how the Founders were influenced by overlooked Americans—women, Native Americans, African Americans, and religious dissenters. Using more than a thousand eyewitness records, Liberty Is Sweet is a “spirited account” (Gordon S. Wood, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Radicalism of the American Revolution) that explores countless connections between the Patriots of 1776 and other Americans whose passion for freedom often brought them into conflict with the Founding Fathers. “It is all one story,” prizewinning historian Woody Holton writes. Holton describes the origins and crucial battles of the Revolution from Lexington and Concord to the British surrender at Yorktown, always focusing on marginalized Americans—enslaved Africans and African Americans, Native Americans, women, and dissenters—and on overlooked factors such as weather, North America’s unique geography, chance, misperception, attempts to manipulate public opinion, and (most of all) disease. Thousands of enslaved Americans exploited the chaos of war to obtain their own freedom, while others were given away as enlistment bounties to whites. Women provided material support for the troops, sewing clothes for soldiers and in some cases taking part in the fighting. Both sides courted native people and mimicked their tactics. Liberty Is Sweet is a “must-read book for understanding the founding of our nation” (Walter Isaacson, author of Benjamin Franklin), from its origins on the frontiers and in the Atlantic ports to the creation of the Constitution. Offering surprises at every turn—for example, Holton makes a convincing case that Britain never had a chance of winning the war—this majestic history revivifies a story we thought we already knew. |
| history of mount vernon ny: "The Only Unavoidable Subject of Regret" Mary V. Thompson, 2019 American historians began producing in-depth studies of slavery and slave life shortly after World War II, but it was not until the early 1980s that the country's museums took the first tentative steps to interpret those same controversial topics. Perhaps because of the tremendous amount of primary material related to George Washington, almost no one looked into the lives of Mount Vernon's enslaved population. Incorporating the results of detailed digging, of both the archaeological and archival varieties, the number of chapters grew as further questions arose. While a few scholars outside Mount Vernon turned their attention to Washington's changing ideas about slavery, they largely overlooked the daily lives of those who were enslaved on the estate, a subject about which visitors expressed a desire to know more. The resulting book makes use of a wide range of sources, including letters, financial ledgers, work reports, travel diaries kept by visitors to Mount Vernon, the reminiscences of family members, former slaves, and neighbors, reports by archaeologists, and surviving artifacts to flesh out the lives of a people who left few written records, but made up 90 percent of the estate's population. The book begins with a look at George and Martha Washington as slaveowners, before turning to various facets of slave life ranging from work, to family life, housing, foodways, private enterprise, and resistance. Along the way, readers will see a relationship between Washington's military career and his style of plantation management, learn of the many ways slaves rebelled against their condition, and get to know many of the enslaved people who made Mount Vernon their home-- |
| history of mount vernon ny: Never Caught Erica Armstrong Dunbar, 2017-02-07 A startling and eye-opening look into America’s First Family, Never Caught is the powerful story about a daring woman of “extraordinary grit” (The Philadelphia Inquirer). When George Washington was elected president, he reluctantly left behind his beloved Mount Vernon to serve in Philadelphia, the temporary seat of the nation’s capital. In setting up his household he brought along nine slaves, including Ona Judge. As the President grew accustomed to Northern ways, there was one change he couldn’t abide: Pennsylvania law required enslaved people be set free after six months of residency in the state. Rather than comply, Washington decided to circumvent the law. Every six months he sent the slaves back down south just as the clock was about to expire. Though Ona Judge lived a life of relative comfort, she was denied freedom. So, when the opportunity presented itself one clear and pleasant spring day in Philadelphia, Judge left everything she knew to escape to New England. Yet freedom would not come without its costs. At just twenty-two-years-old, Ona became the subject of an intense manhunt led by George Washington, who used his political and personal contacts to recapture his property. “A crisp and compulsively readable feat of research and storytelling” (USA TODAY), historian and National Book Award finalist Erica Armstrong Dunbar weaves a powerful tale and offers fascinating new scholarship on how one young woman risked everything to gain freedom from the famous founding father and most powerful man in the United States at the time. |
| history of mount vernon ny: Lives Bound Together Jessie MacLeod, Mary V. Thompson, Philip D. Morgan, Molly H. Kerr, Eleanor Breen, Esther C. White, Scott E. Casper, Maurie D. McInnis, Rohulamin Quander, Gladys Tancil Holmes, Zsun-nee Matema, 2016-09-15 At the time of George Washington's death in 1799, more than 300 enslaved men, women, and children lived on his Mount Vernon plantation. Lives Bound Together: Slavery at George Washington's Mount Vernon, published to accompany a 2016-2018 exhibition, explores this important example of eighteenth-century slavery through brief biographies of 19 enslaved individuals, 10 essays, and 130 illustrations (including paintings, prints, objects, buildings, landscapes, documents, charts, maps, and conjectural silhouettes that suggest the presence of the enslaved). The text illuminates three key themes: first, the lives, families, and experiences of the enslaved people of Mount Vernon; second, Washington's changing views on slavery, culminating in his pioneering action to free his slaves per the terms of his will; and third, the extent to which his public career and his family's lives were inextricably entwined with the labor of Mount Vernon's enslaved people. The biographies represent a range of experiences, including men and women; natives of Africa and the Virginia Tidewater; field-workers, artisans, and domestic laborers; some who escaped and some who were recaptured and sold as punishment; some who died in slavery and some who became free. Compiled by Mount Vernon Associate Curator Jessie MacLeod, these biographies draw upon documentary references, from Washington's diaries, letters, account books, invoices, farm managers' reports, visitor descriptions, and public records, supplemented by archaeology and oral histories. The essays provide a broader context for understanding the individual life stories, focusing on George Washington's changing attitude toward slavery; the resistance actions of the enslaved; the nineteenth-century history of slavery at Mount Vernon and images created by nineteenth-century artists; the kinds of evidence found in documents, databases, archaeology, and landscapes; and personal reflections by members of families descended from individuals enslaved at Mount Vernon. Harvard law professor and historian Annette Gordon Reed contributes the introduction; an appendix presents a timeline linking key events in the lives of people enslaved at Mount Vernon with George Washington's public and private actions relating to slavery as well as landmark events of national history. Detailed reference notes and suggestions for further readings complete the work. |
| history of mount vernon ny: History of Public Health in New York City, 1625-1866 John Duffy, 1968-10-15 Traces the development of the sanitary and health problems of New York City from earliest Dutch times to the culmination of a nineteenth-century reform movement that produced the Metropolitan Health Act of 1866, the forerunner of the present New York City Department of Health. Professor Duffy shows the city's transition from a clean and healthy colonial settlement to an epidemic-ridden community in the eighteenth century, as the city outgrew its health and sanitation facilities. He describes the slow growth of a demand for adequate health laws in the mid-nineteenth century, leading to the establishment of the first permanent health agency in 1866. |
| history of mount vernon ny: Sarah Johnson's Mount Vernon Scott E. Casper, 2008 |
| history of mount vernon ny: Rock, Roll & Remember Dick Clark, Richard Robinson, 1978 |
| history of mount vernon ny: Mount Vernon Mary Collins, 1998 Dramatic and defining moments in American history come vividly the life in the Cornerstones of Freedom series. |
| history of mount vernon ny: Experiencing Mount Vernon Jean Butenhoff Lee, 2006 George Washington, acutely aware of the accomplishments and potential of the American Revolution, used his Mount Vernon estate both to preserve the memory of events that had created a new nation and to forward his keen vision of what that nation might become. During the 1780s and 1790s, an era when neither public museums nor a national library existed, visitors to Mount Vernon viewed John Trumbull's iconic image of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Houdon's famous bust of the countryís preeminent hero, and Washington's voluminous wartime correspondence. More important, they listened as the Washingtons recalled the remarkable events that had forged independence and the unique American experiment in representative government. At Mount Vernon, too, Washington and his guests discussed how best to secure the success and well-being of the United States. Here was a place to contemplate what the nation, at its best, might be. Following George and Martha Washington's deaths, the estate passed to four successive heirs, the last of whom deeded it to the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association in 1860. While still in private hands, the property nonetheless attracted thousands of visitors each year, most of whom arrived after a fifteen-mile overland trek from Washington, D.C. With the establishment of regular steamboat access in the 1850s, the numbers swelled to ten thousand annually. The public claimed Mount Vernon as its own. In the words of a nineteenth-century Washington family member, the Nation shares it with us. In a remarkable display of civic religion that testified to the siteís enormous hold on the public imagination, Americans pronounced Mount Vernon sacred ground and made it the nationís most important site of revolutionary memory and inspiration. The sacred ground was, nonetheless, contested ground: visitors criticized the heirs' management of the property; northerners abhorred the persistence of slavery at the estate. As pilgrims contemplated the highest ideals of the Revolution at Washington's home and tomb, they often found their own society wanting. Amid escalating sectional strife in the 1850s, some argued that if Mount Vernon could be saved for the nation, the nation might be preserved from ruin. In letters and journals, newspaper and magazine articles, and public speeches, visitors recorded, often in detail and with intense emotion, their varied reactions to the site. Experiencing Mount Vernon presents the most informative of these accounts, as well as selected documents from the Washington owners (beginning with Washington himself, who in 1784 prematurely wrote Lafayette that, at his beloved home, he had retired from all public employments). Numerous maps, contemporary images, and annotations complement the texts. This book constitutes the only eyewitness chronicle we have of the Washington estate's ascent to the status of national shrine, and it offers the closest possible evidence of Mount Vernonís singular role in helping forge American national identity. |
| history of mount vernon ny: Never Caught, the Story of Ona Judge Erica Armstrong Dunbar, Kathleen Van Cleve, 2020-08-18 “A brilliant work of US history.” —School Library Journal (starred review) “Gripping.” —BCCB (starred review) “Accessible…Necessary.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review) A National Book Award Finalist for Nonfiction, Never Caught is the eye-opening narrative of Ona Judge, George and Martha Washington’s runaway slave, who risked everything for a better life—now available as a young reader’s edition! In this incredible narrative, Erica Armstrong Dunbar reveals a fascinating and heartbreaking behind-the-scenes look at the Washingtons when they were the First Family—and an in-depth look at their slave, Ona Judge, who dared to escape from one of the nation’s Founding Fathers. Born into a life of slavery, Ona Judge eventually grew up to be George and Martha Washington’s “favored” dower slave. When she was told that she was going to be given as a wedding gift to Martha Washington’s granddaughter, Ona made the bold and brave decision to flee to the north, where she would be a fugitive. From her childhood, to her time with the Washingtons and living in the slave quarters, to her escape to New Hampshire, Erica Armstrong Dunbar, along with Kathleen Van Cleve, shares an intimate glimpse into the life of a little-known, but powerful figure in history, and her brave journey as she fled the most powerful couple in the country. |
| history of mount vernon ny: Young Washington Peter Stark, 2018-05-01 FINALIST FOR THE GEORGE WASHINGTON BOOK PRIZE A new, brash, and unexpected view of the president we thought we knew, from the bestselling author of Astoria Two decades before he led America to independence, George Washington was a flailing young soldier serving the British Empire in the vast wilderness of the Ohio Valley. Naïve and self-absorbed, the twenty-two-year-old officer accidentally ignited the French and Indian War—a conflict that opened colonists to the possibility of an American Revolution. With powerful narrative drive and vivid writing, Young Washington recounts the wilderness trials, controversial battles, and emotional entanglements that transformed Washington from a temperamental striver into a mature leader. Enduring terrifying summer storms and subzero winters imparted resilience and self-reliance, helping prepare him for what he would one day face at Valley Forge. Leading the Virginia troops into battle taught him to set aside his own relentless ambitions and stand in solidarity with those who looked to him for leadership. Negotiating military strategy with British and colonial allies honed his diplomatic skills. And thwarted in his obsessive, youthful love for one woman, he grew to cultivate deeper, enduring relationships. By weaving together Washington’s harrowing wilderness adventures and a broader historical context, Young Washington offers new insights into the dramatic years that shaped the man who shaped a nation. |
| history of mount vernon ny: A Crisis of Peace David Head, 2019-12-03 The dramatic story of George Washington's first crisis of the fledgling republic. In the war’s waning days, the American Revolution neared collapsed when Washington’s senior officers were rumored to be on the edge of mutiny. After the British surrender at Yorktown, the American Revolution blazed on—and as peace was negotiated in Europe, grave problems surfaced at home. The government was broke and paid its debts with loans from France. Political rivalry among the states paralyzed Congress. The army’s officers, encamped near Newburgh, New York, and restless without an enemy to fight, brooded over a civilian population indifferent to their sacrifices. The result was the so-called Newburgh Conspiracy, a mysterious event in which Continental Army officers, disgruntled by a lack of pay and pensions, may have collaborated with nationalist-minded politicians such as Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and Robert Morris to pressure Congress and the states to approve new taxes and strengthen the central government. A Crisis of Peace tells the story of a pivotal episode of George Washington's leadership and reveals how the American Revolution really ended: with fiscal turmoil, out-of-control conspiracy thinking, and suspicions between soldiers and civilians so strong that peace almost failed to bring true independence. |
| history of mount vernon ny: Houses from Books Daniel D. Reiff, 2010-11-01 Many homes across America have designs based on plans taken from pattern books or mail-order catalogs. In Houses from Books, Daniel D. Reiff traces the history of published plans and offers the first comprehensive survey of their influence on the structure and the style of American houses from 1738 to 1950. Houses from Books shows that architectural publications, from Palladio&’s I Quattro Libri to Aladdin's Readi-Cut Homes, played a decisive role in every aspect of American domestic building. Reiff discusses the people and the firms who produced the books as well as the ways in which builders and architects adapted the designs in communities throughout the country. His book also offers a wide-ranging analysis of the economic and social conditions shaping American building practices. As architectural publication developed and grew more sophisticated, it played an increasingly prominent part in the design and the construction of domestic buildings. In villages and small towns, which often did not have professional architects, the publications became basic resources for carpenters and builders at all levels of expertise. Through the use of published designs, they were able to choose among a variety of plans, styles, and individual motifs and engage in a fruitful dialogue with past and present architects. Houses from Books reconstructs this dialogue by examining the links between the published designs and the houses themselves. Reiff&’s book will be indispensable to architectural historians, architects, preservationists, and regional historians. Realtors and homeowners will also find it of great interest. A catalog at the end of the book can function as a guide for those attempting to locate a model and a date for a particular design. Houses from Books contains a wealth of photographs, many by the author, that enhance its importance as a history and guide. |
| history of mount vernon ny: Before the Melting Pot Joyce D. Goodfriend, 1994-10-09 From its earliest days under English rule, New York City had an unusually diverse ethnic makeup, with substantial numbers of Dutch, English, Scottish, Irish, French, German, and Jewish immigrants, as well as a large African-American population. Joyce Goodfriend paints a vivid portrait of this society, exploring the meaning of ethnicity in early America and showing how colonial settlers of varying backgrounds worked out a basis for coexistence. She argues that, contrary to the prevalent notion of rapid Anglicization, ethnicity proved an enduring force in this small urban society well into the eighteenth century. |
| history of mount vernon ny: The Manor: Three Centuries at a Slave Plantation on Long Island Mac Griswold, 2013-07-02 Mac Griswold's The Manor is the biography of a uniquely American place that has endured through wars great and small, through fortunes won and lost, through histories bright and sinister—and of the family that has lived there since its founding as a Colonial New England slave plantation three and a half centuries ago. In 1984, the landscape historian Mac Griswold was rowing along a Long Island creek when she came upon a stately yellow house and a garden guarded by looming boxwoods. She instantly knew that boxwoods that large—twelve feet tall, fifteen feet wide—had to be hundreds of years old. So, as it happened, was the house: Sylvester Manor had been held in the same family for eleven generations. Formerly encompassing all of Shelter Island, New York, a pearl of 8,000 acres caught between the North and South Forks of Long Island, the manor had dwindled to 243 acres. Still, its hidden vault proved to be full of revelations and treasures, including the 1666 charter for the land, and correspondence from Thomas Jefferson. Most notable was the short and steep flight of steps the family had called the slave staircase, which would provide clues to the extensive but little-known story of Northern slavery. Alongside a team of archaeologists, Griswold began a dig that would uncover a landscape bursting with stories. Based on years of archival and field research, as well as voyages to Africa, the West Indies, and Europe, The Manor is at once an investigation into forgotten lives and a sweeping drama that captures our history in all its richness and suffering. It is a monumental achievement. |
| history of mount vernon ny: For Better Or Worse , 1994 |
| history of mount vernon ny: Worthy Partner Joseph E. Fields, 1994-01-30 A collection of all the known Martha Washington papers. |
| history of mount vernon ny: Prominent Families of New York Lyman Horace Weeks, 1898 |
| history of mount vernon ny: George Washington, Architect Allan Greenberg, 1999 The building of a nation. |
| history of mount vernon ny: Long Past Slavery Catherine A. Stewart, 2016-02-05 From 1936 to 1939, the New Deal's Federal Writers' Project collected life stories from more than 2,300 former African American slaves. These narratives are now widely used as a source to understand the lived experience of those who made the transition from slavery to freedom. But in this examination of the project and its legacy, Catherine A. Stewart shows it was the product of competing visions of the past, as ex-slaves' memories of bondage, emancipation, and life as freedpeople were used to craft arguments for and against full inclusion of African Americans in society. Stewart demonstrates how project administrators, such as the folklorist John Lomax; white and black interviewers, including Zora Neale Hurston; and the ex-slaves themselves fought to shape understandings of black identity. She reveals that some influential project employees were also members of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, intent on memorializing the Old South. Stewart places ex-slaves at the center of debates over black citizenship to illuminate African Americans' struggle to redefine their past as well as their future in the face of formidable opposition. By shedding new light on a critically important episode in the history of race, remembrance, and the legacy of slavery in the United States, Stewart compels readers to rethink a prominent archive used to construct that history. |
| history of mount vernon ny: William and Henry Walters, the Reticent Collectors William R. Johnston, 1999-10-25 Surprisingly, the story of how William Walters and his son Henry created one of the finest privately assembled museums in the United States has not been told.--BOOK JACKET. |
| history of mount vernon ny: The Big Oyster Mark Kurlansky, 2007-01-09 Before New York City was the Big Apple, it could have been called the Big Oyster. Now award-winning author Mark Kurlansky tells the remarkable story of New York by following the trajectory of one of its most fascinating inhabitants–the oyster, whose influence on the great metropolis remains unparalleled. For centuries New York was famous for its oysters, which until the early 1900s played such a dominant a role in the city’s economy, gastronomy, and ecology that the abundant bivalves were Gotham’s most celebrated export, a staple food for the wealthy, the poor, and tourists alike, and the primary natural defense against pollution for the city’s congested waterways. Filled with cultural, historical, and culinary insight–along with historic recipes, maps, drawings, and photos–this dynamic narrative sweeps readers from the island hunting ground of the Lenape Indians to the death of the oyster beds and the rise of America’s environmentalist movement, from the oyster cellars of the rough-and-tumble Five Points slums to Manhattan’s Gilded Age dining chambers. Kurlansky brings characters vividly to life while recounting dramatic incidents that changed the course of New York history. Here are the stories behind Peter Stuyvesant’s peg leg and Robert Fulton’s “Folly”; the oyster merchant and pioneering African American leader Thomas Downing; the birth of the business lunch at Delmonico’s; early feminist Fanny Fern, one of the highest-paid newspaper writers in the city; even “Diamond” Jim Brady, who we discover was not the gourmand of popular legend. With The Big Oyster, Mark Kurlansky serves up history at its most engrossing, entertaining, and delicious. |
| history of mount vernon ny: The Property of the Nation Matthew R. Costello, 2021-12-03 George Washington was an affluent slave owner who believed that republicanism and social hierarchy were vital to the young country’s survival. And yet, he remains largely free of the “elitist” label affixed to his contemporaries, as Washington evolved in public memory during the nineteenth century into a man of the common people, the father of democracy. This memory, we learn in The Property of the Nation, was a deliberately constructed image, shaped and reshaped over time, generally in service of one cause or another. Matthew R. Costello traces this process through the story of Washington’s tomb, whose history and popularity reflect the building of a memory of America’s first president—of, by, and for the American people. Washington’s resting place at his beloved Mount Vernon estate was at times as contested as his iconic image; and in Costello’s telling, the many attempts to move the first president’s bodily remains offer greater insight to the issue of memory and hero worship in early America. While describing the efforts of politicians, business owners, artists, and storytellers to define, influence, and profit from the memory of Washington at Mount Vernon, this book’s main focus is the memory-making process that took place among American citizens. As public access to the tomb increased over time, more and more ordinary Americans were drawn to Mount Vernon, and their participation in this nationalistic ritual helped further democratize Washington in the popular imagination. Shifting our attention from official days of commemoration and publicly orchestrated events to spontaneous visits by citizens, Costello’s book clearly demonstrates in compelling detail how the memory of George Washington slowly but surely became The Property of the Nation. |
| history of mount vernon ny: Washington's Spies Alexander Rose, 2014-03-25 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Turn: Washington’s Spies, now an original series on AMC Based on remarkable new research, acclaimed historian Alexander Rose brings to life the true story of the spy ring that helped America win the Revolutionary War. For the first time, Rose takes us beyond the battlefront and deep into the shadowy underworld of double agents and triple crosses, covert operations and code breaking, and unmasks the courageous, flawed men who inhabited this wilderness of mirrors—including the spymaster at the heart of it all. In the summer of 1778, with the war poised to turn in his favor, General George Washington desperately needed to know where the British would strike next. To that end, he unleashed his secret weapon: an unlikely ring of spies in New York charged with discovering the enemy’s battle plans and military strategy. Washington’s small band included a young Quaker torn between political principle and family loyalty, a swashbuckling sailor addicted to the perils of espionage, a hard-drinking barkeep, a Yale-educated cavalryman and friend of the doomed Nathan Hale, and a peaceful, sickly farmer who begged Washington to let him retire but who always came through in the end. Personally guiding these imperfect everyday heroes was Washington himself. In an era when officers were gentlemen, and gentlemen didn’ t spy, he possessed an extraordinary talent for deception—and proved an adept spymaster. The men he mentored were dubbed the Culper Ring. The British secret service tried to hunt them down, but they escaped by the closest of shaves thanks to their ciphers, dead drops, and invisible ink. Rose’s thrilling narrative tells the unknown story of the Revolution–the murderous intelligence war, gunrunning and kidnapping, defectors and executioners—that has never appeared in the history books. But Washington’s Spies is also a spirited, touching account of friendship and trust, fear and betrayal, amid the dark and silent world of the spy. |
| history of mount vernon ny: County Courthouse Book Elizabeth Petty Bentley, 2009 The County Courthouse Book is a concise guide to county courthouses and courthouse records. It is an important book because the genealogical researcher needs a reliable guide to American county courthouses, the main repositories of county records. To proceed in his investigations, the researcher needs current addresses and phone numbers, information about the coverage and availability of key courthouse records such as probate, land, naturalization, and vital records, and timely advice on the whole range of services available at the courthouse. Where available he will also need listings of current websites and e-mail addresses. -- Publisher website. |
| history of mount vernon ny: American Metropolis George J. Lankevich, 1998-06-01 Magnet for the ambitious, lodestone for talented and oppressed alike, Mecca for businessmen and immigrants, New York City has presided for over 350 years as the critical center of American life. From its origins as a primitive Dutch outpost to the sprawling urban complex it is today, the defining characteristic of New York has been continuous, dramatic, and rapid change. Historian George J. Lankevich's volume concentrates on political and economic affairs, illustrating how New York has always combined principle and pragmatism in its role as pace-setter in business communications, education, urban policy, and cultural life. American Metropolis is loosely divided into three historical epochs, each spanning roughly one of the last three centuries. In its early years, New York was defined by trial and tribulation; wars, fires, rebellions, and revolution were guiding influences on the colonial port. Nineteenth-century New York history was dominated by heroic figures in the form of bosses, reformers, merchant princes and statesmen, by enormous population increases, and by the achievement of commercial, financial, and cultural supremacy. For much of the twentieth century, greater New York, plagued by crime, white flight, fiscal trauma, and decay, embodied the nation's urban crisis. Its current Renaissance stands as fresh testimony to its characteristic vitality and resilience. Emphasizing the cyclical nature of New York's history through tides of crisis and renewal, George J. Lankevich here offers the definitive short history of America's most important and vibrant metropolis. By understanding the history of New York, we obtain a vital sense of what America was, is, and can become. |
| history of mount vernon ny: First in the Homes of His Countrymen Lydia Mattice Brandt, 2016-12-14 Over the past two hundred years, Americans have reproduced George Washington’s Mount Vernon plantation house more often, and in a greater variety of media, than any of their country’s other historic buildings. In this highly original new book, Lydia Mattice Brandt chronicles America’s obsession with the first president’s iconic home through advertising, prints, paintings, popular literature, and the full-scale replication of its architecture. Even before Washington’s death in 1799, his house was an important symbol for the new nation. His countrymen used it to idealize the past as well as to evoke contemporary--and even divisive--political and social ideals. In the wake of the mid-nineteenth century’s revival craze, Mount Vernon became an obvious choice for architects and patrons looking to reference the past through buildings in residential neighborhoods, at world’s fairs, and along the commercial strip. The singularity of the building’s trademark piazza and its connection to Washington made it immediately recognizable and easy to replicate. As a myriad of Americans imitated the building’s architecture, the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association carefully interpreted and preserved its fabric. Purchasing the house in 1859 amid intense scrutiny, the organization safeguarded Washington’s home and ensured its accessibility as the nation’s leading historic house museum. Tension between popular images of Mount Vernon and the organization’s official narrative for the house over the past 150 years demonstrates the close and ever-shifting relationship between historic preservation and popular architecture.In existence for roughly as long as the United States itself, Mount Vernon’s image has remained strikingly relevant to many competing conceptions of our country’s historical and architectural identity. |
History Of Mount Vernon Ny (book) - netsec.csuci.edu
history of mount vernon ny: Mount Vernon Larry H. Spruill, 2009 Conceived in 1850, Mount Vernon is a young city, founded as an alternative to overcrowded New York City living by a group of ambitious middle- and laboring-class citizens.
Mount Vernon Fire Department A Brief History
A Brief History. The origins of the Mount Vernon Fire Department (hereafter referred to as MVFD) can be traced to 1877. On March 7, 1877, Mount Vernon passed a civil ordinance which …
Benjamin and Rebecca Turner - BoardDocs, a Diligent Brand
The Mount Vernon plot of land had everything to do with a forgotten “Negro” - Benjamin Turner. After three years of entertaining often humorous claims, the city concluded that there were no …
The Mount Vernon Public Library Celebrates 125 years of Having …
While the Mount Vernon Public Library (MVPL) has been in physical existence since 1902, it was on March 19, 1896 that MVPL was recognized by New York State as a legally established …
PELHAM MANOR - NPS History
This little booklet is an effort to acquaint our Mount Vernon inhabitants with the details of the battle, the personalities involved, and its proper place in the War of the Revolution.
WESTCHESTER COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY
Book Mount Kisco #2 Comley. History of New York State (Biographical). Hufeland-NY State Book #85 (Westchester names only). Courtney-Batson. Supervisors of the Town of Bedford. HOC B …
MOUNT VER NON LADIES’ ASSOCIATION
foundation of Mount Vernon is secure for generations to come. Since the purchase of Mount Vernon in 1858, the MVLA has been a steady hand, adhering to the highest standards in …
BASIC INFORMATION City of Mount Vernon Downtown Mount …
According to the Journal News, the City of Mount Vernon (Mt. Vernon) is where the next generation of New Yorkers is coming to live and work. Our unique location, diversity, …
Archdiocese of New York
1. The parishes of Our Lady of Victory and of Sacred Heart in Mount Vernon, New York, are merged. The name of the newly merged parish will be the parish of Our Lady of Victory and of …
City of Mount Vernon Health Equity Report 2021
This report also provides a comprehensive picture of the population health status for thirty-three (33) Minor Civil Divisions (MCDs), smaller areas than counties that meet the definition of …
Mount Vernon Public Library Long-Range Strategic Plan
Mount Vernon Public Library was chartered by The State of New York in March of 1896. In 1904, philanthropist and American industrialist, Andrew Carnegie, endowed $50,000.00 for the …
Two Magazines and the Fight to Save Mount Vernon, …
Two magazines assisted in this mission: a Philadelphia-based women's magazine and a Southern literary magazine out of Richmond. Beginning in December 1853 and effectively ending with …
Chapter 178. NOISE
City of Mount Vernon, NY Friday, January 8, 2016. [HISTORY: Adopted by the Council of the City of Mount Vernon as indicated in article histories. Amendments noted where applicable.]
City of Mount Vernon - osc.ny.gov
The City of Mount Vernon (City) is the eighth largest city in New York State and is located in Westchester County. The City is governed by a charter and State and local laws. An elected …
Microsoft Word - welcome brochure2017.doc - Mount Vernon …
The Mount Vernon Public Library mission is to provide free and equal access to up-to-date collections, electronic resources, an accessible facility, professional service and highly skilled …
City of Mount Vernon - CMVNY
Mount Vernon is a city of many strengths, situated in an ideal location north of New York City with a diverse and dense population. Still, Mount Vernon has struggled to attract and sustain …
1971 CLASS AA CHAMPIONSHIP New York State Section I
Mount Vernon (18-0) Class AA Champion 94-64 Mount Vernon (19-0) @ Westchester County Center Class AA/A Champion Yorktown (19-2) Class A Champion 1971 CLASS A …
CITY OF MOUNT VERNON Public Water System - pd.cmvny.com
During 2022, the Water Board installed 35 and repaired 21 hydrants; installed, repaired, or replaced 181 meters; repaired 63 main breaks and street side service leaks, serviced 83 water …
Brian Pugh – Resume - WordPress.com
American Solar Partners , Mount Vernon, NY (January 2013—May 2015) Research Director Prepare grant applications for state and federal incentive programs.
Wartburg Celebrates 150th Anniversary of Nurturing Body, Mind …
Mount Vernon, NY (May 17, 2016) Ahead of their time since its inception, Wartburg, a full-service continuing care organization serving Westchester and The Metro NY Area seniors that began …
History Of Mount Vernon Ny (book) - netsec.csuci.edu
history of mount vernon ny: Mount Vernon Larry H. Spruill, 2009 Conceived in 1850, Mount Vernon is a young city, founded as an alternative to overcrowded New York City living by a …
Mount Vernon Fire Department A Brief History
A Brief History. The origins of the Mount Vernon Fire Department (hereafter referred to as MVFD) can be traced to 1877. On March 7, 1877, Mount Vernon passed a civil ordinance which …
Benjamin and Rebecca Turner - BoardDocs, a Diligent Brand
The Mount Vernon plot of land had everything to do with a forgotten “Negro” - Benjamin Turner. After three years of entertaining often humorous claims, the city concluded that there were no …
The Mount Vernon Public Library Celebrates 125 years of Having …
While the Mount Vernon Public Library (MVPL) has been in physical existence since 1902, it was on March 19, 1896 that MVPL was recognized by New York State as a legally established …
PELHAM MANOR - NPS History
This little booklet is an effort to acquaint our Mount Vernon inhabitants with the details of the battle, the personalities involved, and its proper place in the War of the Revolution.
WESTCHESTER COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY
Book Mount Kisco #2 Comley. History of New York State (Biographical). Hufeland-NY State Book #85 (Westchester names only). Courtney-Batson. Supervisors of the Town of Bedford. HOC B …
MOUNT VER NON LADIES’ ASSOCIATION
foundation of Mount Vernon is secure for generations to come. Since the purchase of Mount Vernon in 1858, the MVLA has been a steady hand, adhering to the highest standards in …
BASIC INFORMATION City of Mount Vernon Downtown Mount Vernon ...
According to the Journal News, the City of Mount Vernon (Mt. Vernon) is where the next generation of New Yorkers is coming to live and work. Our unique location, diversity, …
Archdiocese of New York
1. The parishes of Our Lady of Victory and of Sacred Heart in Mount Vernon, New York, are merged. The name of the newly merged parish will be the parish of Our Lady of Victory and of …
City of Mount Vernon Health Equity Report 2021
This report also provides a comprehensive picture of the population health status for thirty-three (33) Minor Civil Divisions (MCDs), smaller areas than counties that meet the definition of …
Mount Vernon Public Library Long-Range Strategic Plan
Mount Vernon Public Library was chartered by The State of New York in March of 1896. In 1904, philanthropist and American industrialist, Andrew Carnegie, endowed $50,000.00 for the …
Two Magazines and the Fight to Save Mount Vernon, …
Two magazines assisted in this mission: a Philadelphia-based women's magazine and a Southern literary magazine out of Richmond. Beginning in December 1853 and effectively ending with …
Chapter 178. NOISE
City of Mount Vernon, NY Friday, January 8, 2016. [HISTORY: Adopted by the Council of the City of Mount Vernon as indicated in article histories. Amendments noted where applicable.]
City of Mount Vernon - osc.ny.gov
The City of Mount Vernon (City) is the eighth largest city in New York State and is located in Westchester County. The City is governed by a charter and State and local laws. An elected …
Microsoft Word - welcome brochure2017.doc - Mount Vernon …
The Mount Vernon Public Library mission is to provide free and equal access to up-to-date collections, electronic resources, an accessible facility, professional service and highly skilled …
City of Mount Vernon - CMVNY
Mount Vernon is a city of many strengths, situated in an ideal location north of New York City with a diverse and dense population. Still, Mount Vernon has struggled to attract and sustain …
1971 CLASS AA CHAMPIONSHIP New York State Section I
Mount Vernon (18-0) Class AA Champion 94-64 Mount Vernon (19-0) @ Westchester County Center Class AA/A Champion Yorktown (19-2) Class A Champion 1971 CLASS A …
CITY OF MOUNT VERNON Public Water System - pd.cmvny.com
During 2022, the Water Board installed 35 and repaired 21 hydrants; installed, repaired, or replaced 181 meters; repaired 63 main breaks and street side service leaks, serviced 83 water …
Brian Pugh – Resume - WordPress.com
American Solar Partners , Mount Vernon, NY (January 2013—May 2015) Research Director Prepare grant applications for state and federal incentive programs.
Wartburg Celebrates 150th Anniversary of Nurturing Body, Mind …
Mount Vernon, NY (May 17, 2016) Ahead of their time since its inception, Wartburg, a full-service continuing care organization serving Westchester and The Metro NY Area seniors that began …
