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New York
The area which is now known as New York was originally
inhabited by two very powerful Native American Indian
tribes: the Algonquian of the Hudson Valley and Long
Island area and the Iroquois of the Western area. These
two groups were very powerful and were well organized
both militarily and politically.
Italian explorer Giovanni de Verrazano was the first
European to discover the New York area in 1524, when he
came upon the New York Bay; however, New York was not
colonized until the arrival of Henry Hudson, an English
Navigator, who claimed the area for the Netherlands in
1609. The first settlement was established in 1624 at
Fort Orange.
New York received it's name in 1665 after the English
seized it from the Dutch and renamed it in honor of
James, the Duke of York and brother of King Charles II.
New York achieved statehood in 1788, as the 11th State
in the United States of America.
New York around the 1600's
New York City grew in importance as a trading port while
under British rule. In 1754, Columbia University was
founded under charter by King George II as King's
College in Lower Manhattan. The city emerged as the
theater for a series of major battles known as the New
York Campaign during the American Revolutionary War. The
Continental Congress met in New York City and in 1789
the first President of the United States, George
Washington, was inaugurated at Federal Hall on Wall
Street. New York City was the capital of the United
States until 1790.
New York City grew in importance as a trading port while
under British rule. In 1754, Columbia University was
founded under charter by King George II as King's
College in Lower Manhattan.The city emerged as the
theater for a series of major battles known as the New
York Campaign during the American Revolutionary War. The
Continental Congress met in New York City and in 1789
the first President of the United States, George
Washington, was inaugurated at Federal Hall on Wall
Street.New York City was the capital of the United
States until 1790.
During the 19th century, when the city was transformed
by immigration, a visionary development proposal called
the Commissioners' Plan of 1811 that expanded the city
street grid to encompass all of Manhattan, and the 1819
opening of the Erie Canal, which connected the Atlantic
port to the vast agricultural markets of the North
American interior.By 1835, New York City had
surpassed Philadelphia as the largest city in the United
States. Local politics fell under the domination of
Tammany Hall, a political machine
Anger at military conscription during the American Civil
War (1861–1865) led to the Draft Riots of 1863, one of
the worst incidents of civil unrest in American
history. In 1898, the modern City of New York was formed
with the consolidation of Brooklyn (until then an
independent city), Manhattan and municipalities in the
other boroughs. The opening of the New York City
Subway in 1904 helped bind the new city together.
Throughout the first half of the 20th century, the city
became a world center for industry, commerce, and
communication. In 1911, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory
fire, the city's worst industrial disaster, took the
lives of 146 garment workers and spurred the growth of
the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union and
major improvements in factory safety standards
community in Brooklyn. The
world-famous Grand Central Terminal opened as the
world's largest train station on February 1, 1913,
replacing an earlier terminal on the site. It was
preceded by Pennsylvania Station, several blocks to the
south.
Grand Central Station 1913
By this period some immigrant families began
establishing themselves, and more started moving into
the neighborhoods outside Manhattan; in a sign of
municipal maturation, the 1920 census showed Brooklyn
for the first time overtaking Manhattan as the most
populous borough. But the great period of European
immigration which had only just passed its peak was
halted abruptly by the Immigration Act of 1924 which
severely limited further immigrants from Southern and
Eastern Europe. This period instead saw a major domestic
movement to the city, as the Great Migration of African
Americans from the South resulted in a flowering of
African American culture in the Harlem Renaissance. |
