Prankery

2021 ◽  
pp. 52-66
Author(s):  
Ralph Keyes
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Abraham Lincoln ◽  
Water Tank ◽  
Military Vehicle ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Yorkers

The history of word-coining is rich with cases of neologisms created as part of pranks that went on to become part of our lexicon. The surname of Washington Irving’s faux historian of New York, Diedrich Knickerbocker, inspired a nickname for New Yorkers, and, shortened, to a type of underwear: knickers. Miscegenation was the title of a hoax booklet produced by two Democrats during the 1864 election to falsely portray Abraham Lincoln as an advocate of intermarriage. Maury Maverick’s popular neologism gobbledygook was apparently a prank-coinage based on a slang term for fellatio. In some cases neologisms created as part of a strategic hoax caught on. The name of a military vehicle known as a tank grew out of an elaborate British ruse to conceal its development by calling this vehicle a “water tank.” Publishers of dictionaries sometimes included faux neologisms called mountweazels, or nihilartikels, to smoke out plagiarizers.

Inventing “Little Italy”

2007 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donna R. Gabaccia
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
History Of Ideas ◽  
Dime Novels ◽  
Police Reporting ◽  
Rapid Spread ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Methodologies ◽  
The Moment ◽  
New Yorkers ◽  
Little Italy

Digitized texts open new methodologies for explorations of the history of ideas. This paper locates the invention of the term “Little Italy” in New York in the 1880s and explores its rapid spread through print and popular culture from police reporting to fictional portraits of slumming and then into adolescent dime novels and early film representations. New Yorkers invented “Little Italy” but they long disagreed with urban tourists about its exact location. Still, from the moment of its origin, both visitors and natives of New York associated Little Italy with entertainment, spectacle, and the search for “safe danger.” While the location of Little Italy changed over time, such associations with pleasure and crime have persisted, even as the neighborhood emptied of its immigrant residents.

In Pursuit of Privilege

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clifton Hood
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Upper Class ◽  
Wall Street ◽  
Cultural Economic ◽  
History Of ◽  
Urban Elite ◽  
Service Sectors ◽  
Eighteenth And Nineteenth Centuries ◽  
New Yorkers ◽  
Economic Foundations

A history that extends from the 1750s to the present, In Pursuit of Privilege recounts upper-class New Yorkers’ struggle to create a distinct world guarded against outsiders, even as economic growth and democratic opportunity enabled aspirants to gain entrance. Despite their efforts, New York City’s upper class has been drawn into the larger story of the city both through class conflict and through their role in building New York’s cultural and economic foundations. In Pursuit of Privilege describes the famous and infamous characters and events at the center of this extraordinary history, from the elite families and wealthy tycoons of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to the Wall Street executives of today. From the start, upper-class New Yorkers have been open and aggressive in their behavior, keen on attaining prestige, power, and wealth. Clifton Hood sharpens this characterization by merging a history of the New York economy in the eighteenth century with the story of Wall Street’s emergence as an international financial center in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as well as the dominance of New York’s financial and service sectors in the 1980s. Bringing together several decades of upheaval and change, he shows that New York’s upper class did not rise exclusively from the Gilded Age but rather from a relentless pursuit of privilege, affecting not just the urban elite but the city’s entire cultural, economic, and political fabric.

The Freethinker, the Jews, and the Missionaries: George Houston and the Mystery of Israel Vindicated

AJS Review ◽  
1980 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 101-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan D. Sarna
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
York City ◽  
Minority Groups ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
History Of ◽  
American Society ◽  
First Time ◽  
New Evidence ◽  
New Yorkers

In 1820, a volume entitled Israel Vindicated, written by "An Israelite," was published in New York City. It was the first Jewish polemic composed in response to the founding of a missionary society, the American Society for Meliorating the Condition of the Jews, and it remained influential throughout the nineteenth century. The author of this work, however, has never been identified. Nor has the volume itself received the attention it deserves. This article attempts to fill both of these lacunae.Section one describes and analyzes Israel Vindicated. It places the work within the context of its times, and compares it to other, more traditional anti-Christian polemics. Section two outlines the postpublication history of Israel Vindicated. Soon after it appeared, some New Yorkers attempted to have the work banned, and its author exposed and punished. Later, the work was variously invoked by Jews and Judeophobes alike, though, of course, for different purposes. In section three, the author of Israel Vindicated assumes center stage. A review of old and new evidence leads to the conclusion that the work flowed from the pen of freethinker George Houston, assisted probably by his Jewish printer, Abraham Collins. Finally, section four analyzes the motivations of George Houston and his Jewish supporters. As is shown, this was far from the first time that Jews joined forces temporarily with other, sometimes hostile minority groups in pursuit of self-interest. Adversity makes strange bedfellows.

Changing Strategies for Child Welfare, Enduring Beliefs about Childhood: The Fresh Air Fund, 1877–1926

2012 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-70
Author(s):  
Julia Guarneri
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
Child Welfare ◽  
Progressive Era ◽  
York City ◽  
Gilded Age ◽  
Welfare Work ◽  
History Of ◽  
Fresh Air Fund ◽  
New Yorkers

In 1877, a Congregational pastor started a modest effort to send New York City tenement children on two-week summer vacations in country homes. The pastor's Fresh Air Fund grew, in the following decades, into a hugely popular program and a celebrated cause. The charity thrived in part because its simple project adapted well to several different reform environments. The fund made a place for itself in the evangelical child-saving efforts of the Gilded Age, the civic-minded reforms of the Progressive Era, and the more individualistic pursuits of the 1920s. In each era, fund leaders cast country vacations as simple means to address middle-class New Yorkers' fears about their changing city, from the influx of immigrants to the spread of disease to rising class tensions.Tracking the Fresh Air Fund over fifty years reveals the sea changes in child-welfare work between 1877 and 1927, but it also calls attention to continuities often overlooked in the history of child welfare. Throughout the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, the fund tapped supporters' constant and deep-seated beliefs in children's potential, the restorative power of the outdoors, and a child's right to play.

scholarly journals New York Public Library Volunteers

2021 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-53
Author(s):  
Maura Muller
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Public Library ◽  
Support Staff ◽  
Volunteer Program ◽  
York Public Library ◽  
New York Public Library ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Yorkers

Abstract From the early 1970’s to the present, this article explores the history of the New York Public Library volunteer program and explains how past volunteer initiatives have not only continued to support the Library’s mission but have created many staff led departments that still exist today. Volunteers help the library to support staff efforts to serve New Yorkers and the larger world.

scholarly journals “New York is Dying”: Policing Outdoor Sex Workers in the Era of AIDS and Urban Renewal, 1981-88

2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
David Helps
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Urban Renewal ◽  
Sex Work ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
Urban Decline ◽  
Medical Studies ◽  
Counter Narrative ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Yorkers ◽  
Selling Sex

While the history of scapegoating sex workers in times of heightened moral anxiety is well-studied, work remains to be done on how the co-occurring crises of AIDS and “urban decline” in New York City inspired a renewed crackdown on street-based sex work. Though after 1978 New York State’s prostitution statute prohibited purchasing and selling sex, arrests continued to disproportionately affect women performing sex work, especially those based on the street. Three forces interacted to put “streetwalkers” at the centre of fears about the city’s moral and physical health. First, New Yorkers seized on an image of their city since the mid-1970s as a dangerous and vice-ridden metropolis to denigrate sex workers. Metaphors of disease—including the language used to describe AIDS—were readily deployed against sex work to “explain” New York’s state of sickness. Second, medical studies, which were decontextualized and disseminated in newspapers, posited sex workers as an epidemiological missing link between the gay and straight populations. Third, as part of a larger campaign to “clean up” blighted areas marked for “urban renewal,” the NYPD became increasingly aggressive towards outdoor sex workers. Sex workers met an array of popular assumptions about them by organizing conference meetings, educating each other on HIV/AIDS, and attempting to forge a counter-narrative to scapegoating. Their pursuit of self-representation was not always successful, but they used the resources available to them to mount moments of resistance and share strategies for survival within their ranks.

The Freethinker, the Jews, and the Missionaries: George Houston and the Mystery of Israel Vindicated

AJS Review ◽  
1980 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 101-114
Author(s):  
Jonathan D. Sarna
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
York City ◽  
Minority Groups ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
History Of ◽  
American Society ◽  
First Time ◽  
New Evidence ◽  
New Yorkers

In 1820, a volume entitled Israel Vindicated, written by "An Israelite," was published in New York City. It was the first Jewish polemic composed in response to the founding of a missionary society, the American Society for Meliorating the Condition of the Jews, and it remained influential throughout the nineteenth century. The author of this work, however, has never been identified. Nor has the volume itself received the attention it deserves. This article attempts to fill both of these lacunae.Section one describes and analyzes Israel Vindicated. It places the work within the context of its times, and compares it to other, more traditional anti-Christian polemics. Section two outlines the postpublication history of Israel Vindicated. Soon after it appeared, some New Yorkers attempted to have the work banned, and its author exposed and punished. Later, the work was variously invoked by Jews and Judeophobes alike, though, of course, for different purposes. In section three, the author of Israel Vindicated assumes center stage. A review of old and new evidence leads to the conclusion that the work flowed from the pen of freethinker George Houston, assisted probably by his Jewish printer, Abraham Collins. Finally, section four analyzes the motivations of George Houston and his Jewish supporters. As is shown, this was far from the first time that Jews joined forces temporarily with other, sometimes hostile minority groups in pursuit of self-interest. Adversity makes strange bedfellows.

Messy, Energetic, Intense: A Roundtable Conversation among New York's Asian American Experimental Filmmakers of the Eighties with Roddy Bogawa, Daryl Chin, Shu Lea Cheang, and Rea Tajiri

2020 ◽  
Vol 73 (3) ◽  
pp. 66-78
Author(s):  
Vince Schleitwiler ◽  
Abby Sun ◽  
Rea Tajiri
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
Asian American ◽  
York City ◽  
American Film ◽  
The Sixties ◽  
History Of

This roundtable grew out of conversations between filmmaker Rea Tajiri, programmer Abby Sun, and scholar Vince Schleitwiler about a misunderstood chapter in the history of Asian American film and media: New York City in the eighties, a vibrant capital of Asian American filmmaking with a distinctively experimental edge. To tell this story, Rea Tajiri contacted her artist contemporaries Shu Lea Cheang and Roddy Bogawa as well as writer and critic Daryl Chin. Daryl had been a fixture in New York City art circles since the sixties, his presence central to Asian American film from the beginning. The scope of this discussion extends loosely from the mid-seventies through the late nineties, with Tajiri, Abby Sun, and Vince Schleitwiler initiating topics, compiling responses, and finalizing its form as a collage-style conversation.

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