Fernando Wood

Fernando Wood PDF Author: Jerome Mushkat
Publisher: Kent State University Press
ISBN: 9780873384131
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 348

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Book Description
Fernando Wood was one of the most controversial figures of nineteenth-century America. His fellow New Yorkers either respected or despised him, depending whether they considered his policies beneficial or harmful to their interests. The character revealed herein possessed some admirable qualities; high intelligence, sharp analytic skills, great capacity for hard work, and a clear talent to set his executive agenda. But equally evident are Wood's less admirable qualities; ruthless business practices, shoddy personal ethics, corrupt politics, dictatorial tendencies. What emerges is the story of a very complex person: a successful businessman, consummate politician, resourceful three-time may of New York City, and nine-term congressman, beneath which lurked mean and self-destructive tendencies. Take as a whole, Wood's colorful career was a unique microcosm of American history both during and after his lifetime. His business achievements mirrored popular beliefs in upward mobility. And Wood's mayoralty held a promise of revitalizing municipal government, giving it a social conscience, and setting new standards for the future. Despite his shortcomings, Fernando Wood played a major but unappreciated role in the urban and political history of time.

Fernando Wood

Fernando Wood PDF Author: Jerome Mushkat
Publisher: Kent State University Press
ISBN: 9780873384131
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 348

Get Book Here

Book Description
Fernando Wood was one of the most controversial figures of nineteenth-century America. His fellow New Yorkers either respected or despised him, depending whether they considered his policies beneficial or harmful to their interests. The character revealed herein possessed some admirable qualities; high intelligence, sharp analytic skills, great capacity for hard work, and a clear talent to set his executive agenda. But equally evident are Wood's less admirable qualities; ruthless business practices, shoddy personal ethics, corrupt politics, dictatorial tendencies. What emerges is the story of a very complex person: a successful businessman, consummate politician, resourceful three-time may of New York City, and nine-term congressman, beneath which lurked mean and self-destructive tendencies. Take as a whole, Wood's colorful career was a unique microcosm of American history both during and after his lifetime. His business achievements mirrored popular beliefs in upward mobility. And Wood's mayoralty held a promise of revitalizing municipal government, giving it a social conscience, and setting new standards for the future. Despite his shortcomings, Fernando Wood played a major but unappreciated role in the urban and political history of time.

The Kidnapping Club

The Kidnapping Club PDF Author: Jonathan Daniel Wells
Publisher: Bold Type Books
ISBN: 1645037118
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 345

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Book Description
Winner of a 2020-2021 New York City Book Award In a rapidly changing New York, two forces battled for the city's soul: the pro-slavery New Yorkers who kept the illegal slave trade alive and well, and the abolitionists fighting for freedom. We often think of slavery as a southern phenomenon, far removed from the booming cities of the North. But even though slavery had been outlawed in Gotham by the 1830s, Black New Yorkers were not safe. Not only was the city built on the backs of slaves; it was essential in keeping slavery and the slave trade alive. In The Kidnapping Club, historian Jonathan Daniel Wells tells the story of the powerful network of judges, lawyers, and police officers who circumvented anti-slavery laws by sanctioning the kidnapping of free and fugitive African Americans. Nicknamed "The New York Kidnapping Club," the group had the tacit support of institutions from Wall Street to Tammany Hall whose wealth depended on the Southern slave and cotton trade. But a small cohort of abolitionists, including Black journalist David Ruggles, organized tirelessly for the rights of Black New Yorkers, often risking their lives in the process. Taking readers into the bustling streets and ports of America's great Northern metropolis, The Kidnapping Club is a dramatic account of the ties between slavery and capitalism, the deeply corrupt roots of policing, and the strength of Black activism.

Fernando Wood of New York

Fernando Wood of New York PDF Author: Samuel Augustus Pleasants
Publisher: New York : Columbia University Press ; London : P.S. King & son, Limited
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
Presents a biography of Fernando Wood to evaluate him and his role during the war for southern independence.

The Devil's Own Work

The Devil's Own Work PDF Author: Barnet Schecter
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 080271837X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 450

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Book Description
As Barnet Schecter dramatically shows in The Devil's Own Work, the cataclysm in New York was anything but an isolated incident; rather, it was a microcosm-within the borders of the supposedly loyal northern states-of the larger Civil War between the North and South. The riots erupted over the same polarizing issues--of slavery versus freedom for African Americans and the scope of federal authority over states and individuals--that had torn the nation apart. And the riots' aftermath foreshadowed the compromises that would bedevil Reconstruction and delay the process of integration for the next 100 years. The story of the draft riots come alive in the voices of passionate newspaper rivals Horace Greeley and Manton Marble; black leader Rev. Henry Highland Garnet and renegade Democrat Fernando Wood; Irish soldier Peter Welsh and conservative diarist Maria Daly; and many others. In chronicling this violent demonstration over the balance between centralized power and civil liberties in a time of national emergency, The Devil's Own Work (Walt Whitman's characterization of the riots) sheds new light on the Civil War era and on the history of protest and reform in America.

Report on the Condition of the South

Report on the Condition of the South PDF Author: Carl Schurz
Publisher: DigiCat
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description
DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "Report on the Condition of the South" by Carl Schurz. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.

The Gangs of New York

The Gangs of New York PDF Author: Herbert Asbury
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 444

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Book Description


Lincoln and New York

Lincoln and New York PDF Author: Harold Holzer
Publisher: Philip Wilson Publishers
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
Abraham Lincoln--the quintessential westerner--surprisingly owed much of his national political success to his impact on New York, and, in turn, New York's impact on him. Virtually unknown outside his home state when he made his maiden speech in Manhattan in February 1860, Lincoln took New York by storm. This book, based on an exhibition at the New-York Historical Society of original artifacts, iconic images and hand-written period documents, traces the evolution of Lincoln's relationship with the nation's largest and wealthiest city. It goes from his 1860 debut to the early challenges of recruitment and investment in the Civil War, the development of new military technologies and the challenge to civil liberties in time of rebellion. New York's role as the Union's prime provider of manpower, money, media coverage, image-making and protest is explored alongside Lincoln's accompanying growth as a leader, writer, symbol of union and freedom, and, in the final instance, national martyr.

City of Sedition

City of Sedition PDF Author: John Strausbaugh
Publisher: Twelve
ISBN: 1455584193
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 510

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Book Description
In a single definitive narrative, City of Sedition tells the spellbinding story of the huge-and hugely conflicted-role New York City played in the Civil War. No city was more of a help to Abraham Lincoln and the Union war effort, or more of a hindrance. No city raised more men, money, and materiel for the war, and no city raised more hell against it. It was a city of patriots, war heroes, and abolitionists, but simultaneously a city of antiwar protest, draft resistance, and sedition. Without his New York supporters, it's highly unlikely Lincoln would have made it to the White House. Yet, because of the city's vital and intimate business ties to the Cotton South, the majority of New Yorkers never voted for him and were openly hostile to him and his politics. Throughout the war New York City was a nest of antiwar "Copperheads" and a haven for deserters and draft dodgers. New Yorkers would react to Lincoln's wartime policies with the deadliest rioting in American history. The city's political leaders would create a bureaucracy solely devoted to helping New Yorkers evade service in Lincoln's army. Rampant war profiteering would create an entirely new class of New York millionaires, the "shoddy aristocracy." New York newspapers would be among the most vilely racist and vehemently antiwar in the country. Some editors would call on their readers to revolt and commit treason; a few New Yorkers would answer that call. They would assist Confederate terrorists in an attempt to burn their own city down, and collude with Lincoln's assassin. Here in City of Sedition, a gallery of fascinating New Yorkers comes to life, the likes of Horace Greeley, Walt Whitman, Julia Ward Howe, Boss Tweed, Thomas Nast, Matthew Brady, and Herman Melville. This book follows the fortunes of these figures and chronicles how many New Yorkers seized the opportunities the conflict presented to amass capital, create new industries, and expand their markets, laying the foundation for the city's-and the nation's-growth. WINNER OF THE FLETCHER PRATT AWARD FOR BEST NON-FICTION BOOK

Machine Made: Tammany Hall and the Creation of Modern American Politics

Machine Made: Tammany Hall and the Creation of Modern American Politics PDF Author: Terry Golway
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0871407922
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 511

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Book Description
“Golway’s revisionist take is a useful reminder of the unmatched ingenuity of American politics.”—Wall Street Journal History casts Tammany Hall as shorthand for the worst of urban politics: graft and patronage personified by notoriously crooked characters. In his groundbreaking work Machine Made, journalist and historian Terry Golway dismantles these stereotypes, focusing on the many benefits of machine politics for marginalized immigrants. As thousands sought refuge from Ireland’s potato famine, the very question of who would be included under the protection of American democracy was at stake. Tammany’s transactional politics were at the heart of crucial social reforms—such as child labor laws, workers’ compensation, and minimum wages— and Golway demonstrates that American political history cannot be understood without Tammany’s profound contribution. Culminating in FDR’s New Deal, Machine Made reveals how Tammany Hall “changed the role of government—for the better to millions of disenfranchised recent American arrivals” (New York Observer).

The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution

The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution PDF Author: Eric Foner
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393652580
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
“Gripping and essential.”—Jesse Wegman, New York Times An authoritative history by the preeminent scholar of the Civil War era, The Second Founding traces the arc of the three foundational Reconstruction amendments from their origins in antebellum activism and adoption amidst intense postwar politics to their virtual nullification by narrow Supreme Court decisions and Jim Crow state laws. Today these amendments remain strong tools for achieving the American ideal of equality, if only we will take them up.