The annual publication of the Dutchess County Historical Society.

Volume 98 in the long running series of Yearbooks from the Dutchess County (NY) Historical Society.

This is a collection of Oral histories and first person narratives, observations and perceptions. Topics covered include stories about: Marching with Sherman : Dutchess County's 150th Regiment, Miss Hannah W. Lyman Vassar College's first lady principal, The Legacy of Maple Grove, Ice Yachting (1899-1935), James A Hughes recollections of Early Vassar Hospital, Bridge of Dreams (about the Poughkeepsie Rail Bridge) and The Art of Pastry and the founding of Frank Cordaro's La Deliziosa Pastry Shoppe. Its fun to read about beginnings.

From the longest-running historical journal in New York comes the 2020 edition which showcases the aspirations and achievements of the women of Dutchess County, on the 100th anniversary of women gaining the right to vote nationally.

EPDF and EPUB available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence. Focusing on material and social forms of infrastructure, this edited collection draws on rich empirical details from cities across the global North and South. The book asks the reader to think through the different ways in which infrastructure comes to be present in cities and its co-constitutive relationships with urban inhabitants and wider processes of urbanization. Considering the climate emergency, economic transformation, public health crises and racialized inequality, the book argues that paying attention to infrastructures' past, present and future allows us to understand and respond to the current urban condition.

“In this engaging work, Van Atta . . . provides an in-depth analysis of the 1820 Missouri Compromise, a seminal event on the road to the Civil War.” —Choice In Wolf by the Ears, John R. Van Atta discusses how the question of slavery surfaced in the divisive fight over Missouri statehood. As Thomas Jefferson wrote at the time, a nation dealing with the politically implacable issue of slavery essentially held the “wolf” by the ears—and could neither let go nor hang on forever. The first organized Louisiana Purchase territory to lie completely west of the Mississippi River and northwest of the Ohio, Missouri carried special significance for both pro- and anti-slavery advocates. Northern congressmen leaped out of their seats to object to the proposed expansion of the slave “empire,” while slave-state politicians voiced outrage at the northerners’ blatant sectional attack. Although the Missouri confrontation ultimately appeared to end amicably with a famous compromise that the wily Kentuckian Henry Clay helped to cobble together, the passions it unleashed proved vicious, widespread, and long lasting. Van Atta deftly explains how the Missouri crisis revealed the power that slavery had already gained over American nation building. He explores the external social, cultural, and economic forces that gave the confrontation such urgency around the country, as well as the beliefs, assumptions, and fears that characterized both sides of the slavery argument. Wolf by the Ears provides students in American history with an ideal introduction to the Missouri crisis while at the same time offering fresh insights for scholars of the early republic. “Van Atta has written the clearest narrative of the Missouri crisis to date.” —Louisiana History

The South Precinct of Dutchess County grew from fewer than 50 families in 1740 to nearly 1400 in 1790. With over 200 pages devoted to never-before-published tax lists and farm lot maps, this volume brings together tax, tenant, militia, and census records of that part of Dutchess County that became Putnam County in 1812. The complete extant tax records include over 20,000 entries from 1741 to 1779. Based upon a meticulous comparison of the lists from year to year, the author augments the tax lists with suggested corrections for possible or apparent scribe errors. The every-name index includes over 1500 surnames and over 5000 individuals. This volume is a must-have for researchers interested in the history and peoples of this era.

A territory split by slavery, a state forged for union Avenues of Transformation traces the surprising path, marked by shame, ambition, and will that led to Illinois’s admission to the Union in 1818. Historian James A. Edstrom guides the reader through this story by associating each stage of the narrative—the original statehood campaign, the passage of Illinois’s statehood-enabling act by Congress, and Illinois’s first constitutional convention—with the primary leaders in each of those episodes. The lives of these men—Daniel Pope Cook, Nathaniel Pope, and Elias Kent Kane—reflect the momentous tangle of politics, slavery, and geography. This history maps the drive for statehood in the conflict between nation and state, in the perpetuation of slavery, and in the sweep of water and commerce. It underscores the ways in which the Prairie State is uniquely intertwined—economically, socially, and politically—with every region of the Union: North, South, East, and West—and captures the compelling moment when Illinois statehood stood ready to more perfectly unify the nation. This volume is the first full-length book in over a century to describe and analyze Illinois’s admission to the Union. It marks the first time that a historian has analyzed in detail the roll-call votes of the first state constitutional convention, seated evenly by pro- and antislavery delegates. Edstrom’s wit and prose weave a lively narrative of political ambition and human failure. Patiently crafted, Avenues of Transformation will be the first source for readers to turn to for gaining a better understanding of Illinois statehood.

"Originally published as Sybil Ludington: the call to arms, Purple Mountain Press, 2000" -- Title page verso.