The seven essays in this collection, originally presented at a New-York Historical Society Conference, examine ways in which the epic political events associated with the founding of the United States affected the lives of New Yorkers.

"For many, the appearance of Occupy Wall Street seemed so sudden and so surprising it seemed to have come out of nowhere. But Occupy Wall Street was in some sense not unusual: it was part and parcel of a long history of riot, revolt, uprising, and sometimes even revolution that has shaped the city and the larger histories and geographies of which it is part. The history of New York is, in significant part, a history of revolt. Many citizens, activists, and scholars know pieces of that history, but nowhere has it been put together in something close to its entirety. The effect is that each revolt or uprising seems almost sui generis, always surprising, disconnected from both its long- and near-term history and social geography. Revolting New York brings together the historical geography of revolt in New York in its fullness, from the earliest uprisings of the Munsee against Dutch occupation of Manhattan to Occupy. All in a style accessible to a broad as well as academic audience The book will show that there is a continuous, if varied and punctuated, history of rebellion in New York that is at least as vital as the more standard histories of formal politics, planning, economic growth and restructuring that largely define our consciousness of New York's evolution and the structuring of life within it" --

The Encyclopedia of New York State is one of the most complete works on the Empire State to be published in a half-century. In nearly 2,000 pages and 4,000 signed entries, this single volume captures the impressive complexity of New York State as a historic crossroads of people and ideas, as a cradle of abolitionism and feminism, and as an apex of modern urban, suburban, and rural life. The Encyclopedia is packed with fascinating details from fields ranging from sociology and geography to history. Did you know that Manhattan's Lower East Side was once the most populated neighborhood in the world, but Hamilton County in the Adirondacks is the least densely populated county east of the Mississippi; New York is the only state to border both the Great Lakes and the Atlantic Ocean; the Erie Canal opened New York City to rich farmland upstate . . . and to the west. Entries by experts chronicle New York's varied areas, politics, and persuasions with a cornucopia of subjects from environmentalism to higher education to railroads, weaving the state's diverse regions and peoples into one idea of New York State. Lavishly illustrated with 500 photographs and figures, 120 maps, and 140 tables, the Encyclopedia is key to understanding the state's past, present, and future. It is a crucial reference for students, teachers, historians, and business people, for New Yorkers of all persuasions, and for anyone interested in finding out more about New York State.

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Simon P. Newman vividly evokes the celebrations of America's first national holidays in the years between the ratification of the Constitution and the inauguration of Thomas Jefferson. He demonstrates how, by taking part in the festive culture of the streets, ordinary American men and women were able to play a significant role in forging the political culture of the young nation. The creation of many of the patriotic holidays we still celebrate coincided with the emergence of the first two-party system. With the political songs they sang, the liberty poles they raised, and the partisan badges they wore, Americans of many walks of life helped shape a new national politics destined to replace the regional practices of the colonial era.

George Washington lived in an age of revolutions, during which he faced political upheaval, war, economic change, and social shifts. These revolutions affected American women in profound ways, and the women Washington knew—personally, professionally, and politically—lived lives that reveal these multifaceted transformations. Although Washington often operated in male-dominated arenas, he participated in complex and meaningful relationships with women from across society. A lively and accessibly written volume, Women in George Washington’s World highlights some of the women—Black and white, free and enslaved—whom Washington knew. Women who admired and memorialized him, women who provided him love and solace, women who frustrated him, and women who worked for or against him—all of these women are chronicled through their own experiences and identities. The essays, written by established and emerging historians of gender, reveal the lives of a diverse group of women, including plantation mistresses and enslaved workers, Loyalists and Patriots, poets and socialites, as well as mothers, wives, and sisters. Collectively, women emerge as strong actors during the American Revolution and its aftermath, not merely passive spectators or occasional participants. Although usually not on battlefields or in government offices, women made choices and acted in ways that affected their own, their families’, and sometimes even the nation’s future. Contributors:James Basker, The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History * George W. Boudreau, The McNeil Center * Charlene M. Boyer Lewis, Kalamazoo College * Ann Bay Goddin, independent scholar * Sara Georgini, Massachusetts Historical Society * Kate Haulman, American University * Cynthia A. Kierner, George Mason University * Lynn Price Robbins, independent scholar * Samantha Snyder, George Washington’s Mount Vernon * Mary V. Thompson, George Washington’s Mount Vernon

Each of these essays illuminates an important dimension of the complex array of Black male experiences as workers, artists, warriors, and leaders. The essays describe the expectations and demands to struggle, to resist, and facilitate the survival of African American culture and community. Black manhood was shaped not only in relation to Black womanhood, but was variously nurtured and challenged, honed and transformed against a backdrop of white male power and domination, and the relentless expectations and demands on them to struggle, resist, and to facilitate the survival of African-American culture and community.

During the American Revolution tens of thousands of colonists loyal to Britain left the colonies and resettled in Canada, Britain, and the Carribean. Among them were a substantial number of black loyalists. This groundbreaking study explores the lives, struggles, and politics of black loyalists who dispersed throughout the Atlantic region, including Canada, Britain, Sierra Leone, and Jamaica. The struggles of these populations, a diaspora within a diaspora, for political and economic independence under various British colonial regimes highlight the variety of challenges which faced black loyalists in the Afro-Atlantic World.

Explores the long-neglected rural dimensions of northern slavery and emancipation in New York’s Mid-Hudson Valley. Slavery and Freedom in the Mid-Hudson Valley focuses on the largely forgotten history of slavery in New York and the African American freedom struggle in the central Hudson Valley prior to the Civil War. Slaves were central actors in the drama that unfolded in the region during the Revolution, and they waged a long and bitter battle for freedom during the decades that followed. Slavery in the countryside was more oppressive than slavery in urban environments, and the agonizingly slow pace of abolition, constraints of rural poverty, and persistent racial hostility in the rural communities also presented formidable challenges to free black life in the central Hudson Valley. Michael E. Groth explores how Dutchess County’s black residents overcame such obstacles to establish independent community institutions, engage in political activism, and fashion a vibrant racial consciousness in antebellum New York. By drawing attention to the African American experience in the rural Mid-Hudson Valley, this book provides new perspectives on slavery and emancipation in New York, black community formation, and the nature of black identity in the Early Republic. “Groth provides a systematic overview focused on the history of African Americans in the Mid-Hudson Valley during the decades before the American Revolution through emancipation and during the national political struggle for abolition and the regional struggle for civil rights.” — Andor Skotnes, author of A New Deal for All? Race and Class Struggle in Depression-Era Baltimore