Focuses on the personalities and events instrumental in shaping the political, economic, and social development of the state from Colonial times

A History of New York State

History

Ellis, David Maldwyn

Americas

NCROL

The remarkable diversity of New York State emerges in this panoramic overview written by a distinguished historian. David Maldwyn Ellis covers the highlights of the state's history and explores the major themes, enlivening his narrative by referring to local events and important personalities.While emphasizing developments in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Mr. Ellis does not strictly adhere to chronological boundaries, sometimes moving backward and forward in time within a chapter to shed light on the rise and fall of agriculture, for example, or the development of commerce and industry. In broad strokes and in an informal style, he explores such topics as the endless parade of ethnic and social groups, the tradition of a regional literature begun by James Fenimore Cooper and Washington Irving, and the role of New York politicians in national politics.Artfully interweaving New York City's history and that of the state, he succeeds in keeping the two in balance. Upstate New York receives its due when he discusses, among other subjects, the development of cities in the nineteenth century and the literary and cultural contributions of the region. The city's financial crisis, racial problems, and recurring difficulties with upstate are treated with understanding and good sense.This refreshingly personal account will appeal to New Yorkers everywhere-in upstate cities like Buffalo, in small towns like Greene, and in the very center of Manhattan. It will also attract other readers who want to know more about the Empire State.

New York: State and City

Reference

Cornell University Press

The transition from a predominantly self-sufficient economy to one primarily dependent on the market in the first half of the nineteenth century was to effect changes in the United States fully as far-reaching if not as spectacular as those accompanying the industrial revolution. Farming as a way of life was yielding place to the concept of farming as a means of profit. Few farmers in the country felt the impact of these revolutionary forces more directly than those of eastern New York State. Indeed, discontent over these changes contributed to the violent Anti-Rent War (1839–1846) centered in the Catskills.How New York farmers met these challenges is the central theme of Landlords and Farmers in the Hudson-Mohawk Region, 1790–1850. Focusing on twenty-one counties in eastern New York, David Maldwyn Ellis describes the process of settlement, the growth of population, and the characteristics of pioneer agriculture; traces the rapid shifts from grain culture to sheep raising and dairying; and points out the variety of individual and local adjustments caused by differences in soil, topography, accessibility to market, cultural legacies, and individual enterprise. Ellis also contrasts the forces leading to rural decline with the beginnings of scientific husbandry and agricultural education; evaluates the role of roads, canals, and railroads, and outlines the land pattern and the effect of leasehold upon the region's agrarian development.In short, this classic work of American agricultural history and the history of New York State―originally published by Cornell in 1946―chronicles the transformation of the pioneer farmer into the dairyman.

Landlords and Farmers in the Hudson-Mohawk Region, 1790–1850

Business & Money

Economics

Fall Creek Books

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Books by Ellis, David Maldwyn