Sign-In
Cart
New York, 1860
Paperback
General World HistoryRegional: Middle Atlantic
Publisher Price: $30.00
ISBN13: 9780231213271
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: Jan 12 2027
Pages: 552
Language: English
Year of meteors! brooding year! wrote Walt Whitman about the year 1860. New York City was a tinderbox. As the country's trading capital, the city was caught in an unholy alliance with slave-owning cotton planters. Southern sympathizers--the mayor among them--shared the streets with abolitionists like Henry Ward Beecher. Abraham Lincoln began his unlikely march to the presidency in a speech at Cooper Union, and torch-bearing militiamen marched for him while merchants and secessionists organized against him. The city was a place of parades, séances, human trafficking and slavecatching, quack cures, dire poverty, and political fervor, hopelessly riven by the looming presidential election.
This book is a biography of New York City in the year before the Civil War, from the moment the telegraph brought news of John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry in October 1859 to the first shots on Fort Sumter in the spring of 1861. Joshua K. Leon tells this story month by month through the eyes of those who lived it, weaving together the intersecting lives of the giants of the age, forgotten celebrities, and the everyday people in the city's swelling crowds: the obsessive diarist George Templeton Strong, the Queen of Bohemia Ada Clare, the journalist Thomas Butler Gunn as he goes undercover in the secessionist South, the showman P. T. Barnum and his American Museum in downtown Manhattan, the frustrated actor John Wilkes Booth, and many more. New York, 1860 recovers lives led in the shadow of catastrophe, capturing the dreams, romances, laughter, and fears of New Yorkers as history bore down on them. In vivid detail, this book brings their city to life in all its filth and glory.
1 different editions
Also available
Also from
Leon, Joshua K.
Also in
Regional: Middle Atlantic
A Light in Dark Times: The New School for Social Research and Its University in Exile
Friedlander, Judith
Paperback
Chocolate City: A History of Race and Democracy in the Nation's Capital
Musgrove, George Derek
Asch, Chris Myers
Paperback
The Murder of the Century: The Gilded Age Crime That Scandalized a City and Sparked the Tabloid Wars
Collins, Paul
Paperback
History Hiding Around Broadway: Backstage Lore, Secrets & Surprises from New York's Famed Theater District
Dvornik, Teale
Hardcover
Spiritualism's Place: Reformers, Seekers, and Séances in Lily Dale
Handley-Cousins, Sarah
Rhodes, Marissa C.
Earls, Averill
Hardcover
Moses and the Doctor: Two Men, One Championship, and the Birth of Modern Basketball
Epplin, Luke
Hardcover
The Only Plane in the Sky (Revised and Expanded Edition for the 25th Anniversary): An Oral History of 9/11
Graff, Garrett M.
Hardcover
The Water Carriers: A Journey Through Cherokee History and the Secret Life of Rivers
Smithers, Gregory D.
Hardcover
Taking Manhattan: The Extraordinary Events That Created New York and Shaped America
Shorto, Russell
Paperback
The Mayor: One Poor City's Fight to Bring Back Government and Save the Nation's Soul
Alexander, Brian
Hardcover
First Adirondackers: 12,000 Years of Indigenous Peoples in the Adirondack Uplands
Stager, Curt
Fadden, David Kanietakeron
Paperback
Taking Manhattan: The Extraordinary Events That Created New York and Shaped America
Shorto, Russell
Hardcover
The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York
Blum, Deborah
Paperback
Hidden Histories of Jazz Age New York: From the Suppressed to the Strange
Goldman, Jonathan Ezra
Paperback
Spooky Pennsylvania: Tales of Hauntings, Strange Happenings, and Other Local Lore
Schlosser, S. E.
Paperback
The Indispensables: The Diverse Soldier-Mariners Who Shaped the Country, Formed the Navy, and Rowed Washington Across the Delaware
O'Donnell, Patrick K.
Paperback
George Washington's Secret Six: The Spy Ring That Saved the American Revolution
Yaeger, Don
Kilmeade, Brian
Paperback
Pepperpot City: Philadelphia and the Foundation of American Cuisine, an Illustrated History
Weaver, William Woys
Hardcover
The French Connection: A True Account of Cops, Narcotics, and International Conspiracy
Moore, Robin
Paperback
The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America
Shorto, Russell
Paperback
Hannah Mary Tabbs and the Disembodied Torso: A Tale of Race, Sex, and Violence in America
Gross, Kali Nicole
Paperback
Rose Knox: How One Woman Mixed Kitchen and Boardroom to Remold an American Business
Greenfield, Rachel
Hardcover
We're Not Leaving: 9/11 Responders Tell Their Stories of Courage, Sacrifice, and Renewal
Luft, Benjamin J.
Paperback
Blood and the Badge: The Mafia, Two Killer Cops, and a Scandal That Shocked the Nation
Cannell, Michael
Hardcover
City Tavern: The Founding Table--Colonial Dining, Revolutionary History, and the Restaurant at the Center of It All
Diamond, Becky Libourel
Paperback
The Maid and the Socialite: The Brave Women Behind Green Bay's Scandalous Minahan Trials
Drews, Lynda
Paperback
More Punk Than the Public Library: The Adventures of a Little Free Punk Rock Bookstore
Bennett, J. Hunter
Paperback
Into the Night: A Jailbreak and Double Homicide on Maryland's Eastern Shore
Fowler, Stephanie L.
Paperback
Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx Is Burning: 1977, Baseball, Politics, and the Battle for the Soul of a City
Mahler, Jonathan
Paperback
All Roads Lead to Hastings-on-Hudson: A History of the Lower Hudson River Valley and New York City
Lillard, Jonathan Foster
Paperback
Cycling the Erie Canal: A Guide to 360 Miles of Adventure and History Along the Erie Canalway Trail
Parks & Trails New York
Paperback
A Monument of Charity: St. Vincent's Hospital and Catholic Health Care in New York City
Rzeznik, Thomas F.
Hardcover
The Worst Day: A Plane Crash, a Train Wreck, and Remarkable Acts of Heroism in Washington, DC
Goldfarb, Bruce
Paperback
Forty-Four Years, the Life of a Hunter: Being Reminiscences of Meshach Browning, a Maryland Hunter and Trapper
Browning, Meshach
Paperback
Mob and the City: The Hidden History of How the Mafia Captured New York
Hortis, C. Alexander
Hardcover
They Said It Couldn't Be Done: The '69 Mets, New York City, and the Most Astounding Season in Baseball History
Coffey, Wayne
Paperback
The Hudson Valley: The First 250 Million Years: A Mostly Chronological and Occasionally Personal History
Levine, David
Paperback
The Bowery Boys: Adventures in Old New York: Historic Streets, Hidden Spots, and Iconic Neighborhoods in Manhattan
Young, Greg
Meyers, Tom
Paperback
The Sewards of New York: A Biography of a Leading American Political Family
Slaughter, Thomas P.
Hardcover
150 Years of Racing in Saratoga: Little-Known Stories & Facts from America's Most Historic Racing City
Carter, Allan
Kane, Mike
Hardcover
Fighting for New York: Activism for Health and Social Justice Since the 1960s
Freudenberg, Nicholas
Paperback
A Hudson Valley Reckoning: Discovering the Forgotten History of Slaveholding in My Dutch American Family
Bruno, Debra
Hardcover
Brooklynites: The Remarkable Story of the Free Black Communities That Shaped a Borough
Kanakamedala, Prithi
Hardcover
The Divided Ground: Indians, Settlers, and the Northern Borderland of the American Revolution
Taylor, Alan
Paperback
Georgetown's Retail Past: Generations of Shops and Restaurants in One of America's Great Historic Neighborhoods
Peters, Kenneth G.
Paperback
Upstaters: Poets, Pols, Prophets, and Bush-League Heroes of Upstate New York
Kauffman, Bill
Paperback
Historic Maps of Philadelphia: A History of the City of Brotherly Love in Rare Maps
Lane, Chris
Pompilio, Natalie
Hardcover
Cornell '77: The Music, the Myth, and the Magnificence of the Grateful Dead's Concert at Barton Hall
Conners, Peter
Hardcover
111 Places in Women's History in Washington DC That You Must Not Miss
Calogera, Kaitlin
Grawl, Rebecca
Paperback
A Lady in the Lake: The True Story of Death and Discovery in Lake Placid
Ortloff, George Christian
Paperback
A Century of Music Under the Stars: A History of the Mann Center for the Performing Arts and Robin Hood Dell
McCarthy, Jack
The Mann Center for the Performing Arts
Hardcover
Into the Night: A Jailbreak and Double Homicide on Maryland's Eastern Shore
Fowler, Stephanie L.
Hardcover
Your Children Are Very Greatly in Danger: School Segregation in Rochester, New York
Murphy, Justin
Paperback
The Rising Generation: Gradual Abolition, Black Legal Culture, and the Making of National Freedom
Gronningsater, Sarah L. H.
Paperback
Bellevue: Three Centuries of Medicine and Mayhem at America's Most Storied Hospital
Oshinsky, David
Paperback
Blood and the Badge: The Mafia, Two Killer Cops, and a Scandal That Shocked the Nation
Cannell, Michael
Paperback
The Whiskey Rebellion: George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and the Frontier Rebels Who Challenged America's Newfound Sovereignty
Hogeland, William
Paperback
Before New York: The Natural Geography of the City: An Atlas and Gazetteer
Sanderson, Eric W.
Hardcover
Hidden Waters of New York City: A History and Guide to 101 Forgotten Lakes, Ponds, Creeks, and Streams in the Five Boroughs
Kadinsky, Sergey
Paperback
97 Orchard: An Edible History of Five Immigrant Families in One New York Tenement
Ziegelman, Jane
Paperback
The Race Underground: Boston, New York, and the Incredible Rivalry That Built America's First Subway
Most, Doug
Paperback
Rhythms of Resistance and Resilience: How Black Washingtonians Used Music and Sports in the Fight for Equality
Jackson, Maurice
Hardcover
Queen of Bohemia Predicts Own Death: Gilded-Age Journalist Zoe Anderson Norris
Kahn, Eve M.
Hardcover
Spooky New Jersey: Tales of Hauntings, Strange Happenings, and Other Local Lore
Schlosser, S. E.
Paperback
Pennsylvania Sports Hits: Riveting Rivalries, Memorable Moments, and More
Finoli, David
Tom Rooney
Paperback
Main Street to Mainframes: Landscape and Social Change in Poughkeepsie
Griffen, Clyde
Flad, Harvey K.
Paperback
Nights in Fairyland: Gossip, Blackmail, and the Many Lives of "Broadway Brevities"
Straw, Will
Paperback