Examines the many facets of the Hudson’s rich history, distinctive regional culture, and important contributions to the development of modern America.
Since its inception in 1984, The Hudson River Valley Review has taken an eclectic and interdisciplinary approach to a region that has long been recognized for its role in American colonial history; its important contributions to American arts, letters, and architecture; its role in the economic development of the nation; and its significant and ongoing contributions to American culture and history. This collection of essays brings together eighteen of the best essays from the Review’s first twenty-five years of publication. From natives and newcomers to twentieth-century leaders, the authors of these essays examine the many facets of the Hudson’s rich history, distinctive regional culture, and important contributions to the development of modern America.
Thomas S. Wermuth is Vice President of Academic Affairs and Dean of Faculty at Marist College and Director of the Hudson River Valley Institute. He is the author of Rip Van Winkle’s Neighbors: The Transformation of Rural Society in the Hudson River Valley, also published by SUNY Press. James M. Johnson is Military Historian of the Hudson River Valley and Executive Director of the Hudson River Valley Institute. He is the author of Militiamen, Rangers, and Redcoats: The Military in Georgia, 1754–1776. Christopher Pryslopski is Program Director of the Hudson River Valley Institute.
Published in cooperation with the Hudson River Valley Institute.
Table of Contents
Preface: Tara Sullivan
Introduction: Four Hundred Years of the Hudson River Valley Thomas S. Wermuth & James M. Johnson
Natives & Newcomers
Dutch and Indians in the Hudson Valley: the early Period Charles T. Gehring & William A. Starna
the Algonquians in Context: the end of the spirituality of the natural World Vernon Benjamin
Pro-Leislerian Farmers in early new York: A “Mad Rabble” or “Gentlemen standing Up for their Rights?” Firth Haring Fabend
From entrepreneurs to ornaments: the Livingston Women, 1679–1790 Cynthia Kierner
The American Revolution
the American Revolution in the Hudson River Valley: An overview James M. Johnson and Thomas S. Wermuth
A suspected Loyalist in the Rural Hudson Valley: the Revolutionary War experience of Roeloff Josiah eltinge Kenneth Shefsiek
Robert R. Livingston, Jr: the Reluctant Revolutionary Claire Brandt
“the women in this place have risen in a mob”: Women Rioters and the American Revolution in the Hudson River Valley Thomas S. Wermuth
Social and Economic Change: 1790–1850
The Struggle to Build a Free African-American Community in Dutchess County, 1790–1820 Michael Groth
From Merchant to Manufacturer: The Economics of Localism in Newburgh, New York, 1845–1900 Mark Carnes
The Hudson River Railroad and the Development of Irvington, New York, 1849–1860 Rohit T. Aggarwala
Irish Immigrant Workers in Antebellum New York: The Experience of Domestic Servants at Van Buren’s Lindenwald Patricia West
Business Women in the “Land of Opportunity”: First-and Second-Generation Immigrant Proprietresses in Albany, New York, 1880 Susan Ingalls Lewis
Painters, Poets, and Writers
The “Prophetic Eye of Taste”: Samuel F.B. Morse at Locust Grove Robert M. Toole
The Commerce of Art in the Nineteenth-Century Hudson Valley Richard C. Wiles
The Moral Geography of Cooper’s Miles Wallingford Novels Donald Ringe
20th Century Leaders
Franklin D. Roosevelt, Father Divine, and the “Krum Elbow” Flurry Thomas W. Casey
