Longtime New York Almanack contributor Bruce Dearstyne has edited a collection of essays exploring how New York State understanding of freedom and liberty has evolved, and its relevance in American and world history.
Revolutionary New York: 250 Years of Social Change (SUNY Press Excelsior Editions, 2025) collects essays from several experts focusing on the struggle to fulfill the American Revolution‘s ideals of freedom and equality for all people over the history of New York. The State has often led the nation toward expanding its peoples’ rights.
The book’s chapters cover topics like civil rights, women’s rights, and gay rights, social justice, highlighting New York’s role as a leader in social change through various turning points such as the Oneida and later Anti-Rent Rebellions, from the state’s first constitution to modern crises like 9/11 and COVID-19.
The book shows a New York continuously in revolution through sixteen historical stories about conflict, change and turning points from the initial settlement of the region through the state’s first constitution, and struggles for human rights.
These are inspirational, against-the-odds stories where a determined individual or a group struggled against the status quo to improve social conditions, move toward equality, or effect social justice.
Most are about ordinary New Yorkers who rose to the occasion in their time and achieved extraordinary results. And though drawn from over 250 years of history, these stories resonate today, where some of the same issues linger, though in different form.
New York seems to be always undertaking, in the midst of, or finishing some sort of revolution. Restless New Yorkers rarely accept the status quo but rather are inclined to alter the state of affairs to (hopefully) make things better. In New York, the revolution never ends.
Among the essays are are several addressing the 18th and 19th centuries:
Daniel Koch on The Oneida Rebellions from 1763 to 1784;
Bruce Dearstyne on New York’s First Constitutions;
Thomas Rosenthal on Buffalo War of 1812 leader Cyrenius Chapin;
Brad Utter and Thomas Grasso on the birth of the Erie Canal in 1825;
Nancy Newman writes about the Anti-Rent Rebellions, 1839 to 1846;
Albert Rosenthal on the Lemmon Case and Slavery in New York State, 1852 to 1860;
Kelly Hayes McAlonie about pioneering architect Louise Blanchard, 1885;
The second half of the book deals with the 20th and 21st centuries, including:
Daniel Kornstein writes on the Triangle Factory Fire and the Velvet Revolution in workplace safety;
Anthony Gerro writes about Black New Yorkers in World War One;
Susan Ingalls Lewis about how women won the right to vote in 1917;
Ellen NicKenzie Lawson on Prohibition in New York City in 1920;
Three essays cover the post-World War Two period:
Dennis Gaffney writes about the rise of the United Federation for Teachers and New York City‘s first teacher strike in 1960; C. R. Roseberry has an essay about the remaking of downtown Albany after the widespread demolition for construction of the Empire State Plaza in the early 1960s; and Ashley Hopkins-Benton write about the Stonewall Uprising and the fight for Gay Rights.
For the modern era Dearstyne offers a second essay on the 9/11 attacks and Kevin Fitzpatrick on COVID-19 and its impacts on New York City Parks.
The book examines these “unfinished revolutions,” detailing how the state has expanded rights and opportunities for marginalized groups over 250 years.
Bruce W. Dearstyne is the author of several books, including The Spirit of New York: Defining Events in the Empire State’s History; The Crucible of Public Policy: New York Courts in the Progressive Era; and Progressive New York: Change and Reform in the Empire State, 1900-1920: A Reader, all published by SUNY Press.
Bruce lives in Albany and is a regular contributor to New York Almanack.
Book Purchases made through this Amazon link support the New York Almanack’s mission to report new publications relevant to New York State.
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