Weekend, March 11-12, 2023 – A GREAT SELECTION OF NEW BOOKS FOR SPRING TIME READING
FROM THE ARCHIVES
WEEKEND, MARCH 11-12, 2023
ISSUE 936
NEW BOOKS ON
NEW YORK AND REGION
BY WOMEN OF FOCUSING
ON WOMEN
NEW YORK ALMANACK
Amelia Simmons and America’s First Cookbook
March 5, 2023 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment
| Amelia Simmons wrote what is widely regarded as the first American cookbook, American Cookery. Through its recipes and ingredients, this work shows how a unique American diet and identity was created.The book was so popular that after its first printing in Hartford, Connecticut in 1796, and it’s second printing in Albany, NY, that same year, it remained in print for 35 years after its first publication; however, very little is known about its author.Simmons’ American Cookery used terms known to Americans, using readily available ingredients. It’s believed to be the first cookbook to include “Indian pudding,” johnnycake, and a precursor to pumpkin pie.The cookbook was the first to suggest serving cranberry with turkey, and the first to use the Dutch word “cookey.” It introduced a precursor of baking soda, starting a revolution in the making of American cakes.The book was named one of the 88 “Books That Shaped America” by the Library of Congress. Only four copies of the first printings are known to survive.Pamela Cooley has sought to solve the mystery surrounding Simmons through historical and genealogical research. Cooley shares her research and theory about the enigmatic author in a virtual program with Oneida County History Center of Utica on Wednesday, March 15th.Pamela Cooley’s interest in culinary history led her to research Amelia Simmons. Cooley has presented on Simmons in the U.S. and Canada. She is a retired archivist and also an avid historic cook who teaches open hearth, bake oven, and |
The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley: A Poet’s Journey
February 27, 2023 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment
| Admired by George Washington, ridiculed by Thomas Jefferson, published, and read far and wide, Phillis Wheatley led an extraordinary life. Seized in West Africa and forced into slavery as a child, she was sold to a merchant family in Boston, where she became a noted poet at a young age.Mastering the Bible, Latin translations, and literary works, she celebrated political events, praised warriors, and used her verse to variously lampoon, question, and assert the injustice of her enslaved condition.By doing so, she added her voice to a vibrant, multisided conversation about race, slavery, and discontent with British rule; before and after her emancipation, her verses shook up racial etiquette and used familiar forms to create bold new meanings.In a new biography, The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley: A Poet’s Journeys Through American Slavery & Independence (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2023), David Waldstreicher offers an account of Wheatley’s life and works, correcting myths, reconstructing intimate friendships, and deepening our understanding of her verse and the revolutionary era.The Massachusetts Historical Society a program with David Waldstreicher, in conversation with Kellie Carter Jackson of Wellesley College, on Monday, March 13th.This program will take place from 6 to 7 pm, and will be held both in person at the Massachusetts Historical Society, and virtually. Admission is $10 for in person attendance, free for virtual. For more information or to make a reservation, click here.David Waldstreicher teaches history at the City University of New York Graduate Center and is the author of Slavery’s Constitution: From Revolution to Ratification and Runaway America: Benjamin Franklin, Slavery, and the American Revolution. He has written for The New York Times Book Review, Boston Review, and The Atlantic, among other publications. |
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Assassin in Utopia: The Oneida Community & The Garfield Assassination
| February 9, 2023 by Editorial Staff 3 Comments |
| The new book An Assassin in Utopia: The True Story of a Nineteenth-Century Sex Cult and a President’s Murder (Pegasus Crime, 2023) by Susan Wels is a true crime odyssey that explores a forgotten, astonishing chapter of American history, leading the reader from a free-love community in Upstate New York to the shocking assassination of President James Garfield.From 1848 to 1881, a small utopian colony in Upstate New York — the Oneida Community — was known for its shocking sexual practices, from open marriage and free love to the sexual training of young boys by older women. And in 1881, a one-time member of the Oneida Community — Charles Julius Guiteau — assassinated President James Garfield in a brutal crime that shook America to its core.Thousands came by trains and carriages to see this new Eden, carved from hundreds of acres of woodland. They marveled at orchards bursting with fruit, thick herds of Ayrshire cattle and Cotswold sheep, and whizzing mills. They gaped at the people who lived in this place —especially the women, with their queer cropped hair and shamelessly short skirts. The men and women of this strange outpost worked and slept together — without sin, they claimed.An Assassin in Utopia is the first book that weaves together these explosive stories in a tale of utopian experiments, political machinations, and murder. This deeply researched narrative tells the true, interlocking stories of the Oneida Community and its radical founder, John Humphrey Noyes; his idol, the eccentric newspaper publisher Horace Greeley (founder of the New Yorker and the New York Tribune); and the gloomy, indecisive President James Garfield — who was assassinated after his first six months in office.Susan Wels is a bestselling author, historian, and journalist. Her Titanic: Legacy of the World’s Greatest Ocean Liner spent fourteen weeks on the New York Times bestseller list; the book was also a Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and USA Today bestseller. Her work has received press coverage in PEOPLE, Smithsonian’s Air & Space Magazine, the San Francisco Chronicle, the San Francisco Examiner, and the San Jose Mercury-News among many other journals. Wels’s work as a historian includes her acclaimed San Francisco: Arts for the City as well as her research on the role of women at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. Wels and her husband divide their time between the San Francisco Bay Area and their farm in the south of Chile. |
New Book On New York’s Women Legislators 1919-1992
January 19, 2023 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment
| The new book Ladies Day at the Capitol: New York’s Women Legislators 1919-1992 (SUNY press, 2022) by Lauren Kozakiewicz integrates for the first time the history of New York’s women lawmakers with the larger story of New York State politics.Through extensive research and interviews, Kozakiewicz documents New York women’s actions as elected officials between 1919 and 1992 and explores how gendered ideas affected their careers and ability to represent women’s voices in government. Ladies’ Day at the Capitol offers a general framework for understanding the women’s legislative careers over time while also providing a deeper look at key lawmakers’ specific histories. The study broadens out to include chapters on creating representative organizations of women legislators and women’s efforts to champion specific issues.Lauren Kozakiewicz holds a combined appointment as Lecturer in the History Department at the University at Albany, SUNY, and liaison for Albany’s University in the High School Program where she collaborates with New York State high schools to develop advanced history offerings for university credit.Her research focuses on women politicians and political culture generally in early twentieth century America, giving special attention to the world of New York State politics. She has published in the journal New York History and in New York Archives Magazine. Her teaching experience includes courses on women’s history, New York history, and political & reform movements in America. |
The Grimkes: The Legacy of Slavery in an American Family
December 11, 2022 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment
| Sarah and Angelina Grimke are revered figures in American history, famous for rejecting their privileged lives on a plantation in South Carolina to become firebrand activists in the North. Yet retellings of their epic story have long obscured their Black relatives.In The Grimkes: The Legacy of Slavery in an American Family (Liveright, 2022), Kerri Greenidge presents a parallel narrative, shifting the focus from the white abolitionist sisters to the Black Grimkes and deepening our understanding of the long struggle for racial and gender equality.Greenidge’s narrative centers on the Black women of the family, from the brilliant intellectual and reformer Charlotte Forten, to Angelina Weld Grimke, who channeled the family’s past into pathbreaking modernist literature during the Harlem Renaissance. In a grand saga that spans the eighteenth century to the twentieth and stretches from Boston and beyond, Greenidge reclaims the Black Grimkes as complex, often conflicted individuals shadowed by their origins. |
WEEKEND PHOTO OF THE DAY
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THURSDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY
WELFARE ISLAND BRIDGE WITH FDNY TRAINING CENTER ON THE NORTH AND CANCER HOSPITAL ON THE SOUTH. BEFORE MAIN STREET, CARS EXITED AND ENTERED THE ISLAND VIA A ROAD ON THE WEST SIDE OF ISLAND.
(YES, WE USED THIS PHOTO BEFORE)
(YES, WE USED THIS PHOTO BEFORE)
Text by Judith Berdy
Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS
Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website
Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
NEW YORK ALMANACK
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
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