FREE ESSAY ON NEW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY

NEW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY

New York Historical Society:
Construction: The cornerstone of the NYHS building at 170 Central Park West was laid on 
Nov. 17th 1903. Members and guest of the society gathered at the American Museum of
Natural History and proceeded to the NYHS building site, a temporary scaffold and viewing
stand had been erected for the day's events. After an invocation by the Rev. Charles E.
Brugler, Pres. Samuel Verplank Hoffman, reviewed the society's history and listed the
articles and publications sealed in a copper box in the corner stone. Hon. Seth Low Mayor
of New York City then put the cornerstone into place.
Manhattan Purchase: Legend has it that Manhattan Island was purchased from Lenape by
Peter Minuit for $24. This account implies that the Dutch shrewdly got the best of the
Indians who did not realize the potential value of their land. But it neglects the fact
that the Dutch intended to perform a legitimate land deal. Their trading partners the
Lenape, could hardly participate in a real estate deal of the type described, as the very
concept of land ownership was alien to them. 
The Great Migration: In one of the largest population transfers of the modern era,
millions of southern ans eastern Europeans poured into NY from 1880-1920. Alone the first
were Italian men who traded poverty stricken villages for promises of labor recruiters
known as padroni.Family and friends came eventually through intricate networks of village
paesani, making an ardous journey to relocate to NY neighborhoods that would become
Little Italies of the roughly 5 million Italians who arrived at Ellis Island by the early
20th century more than 1 million remained in NY. Today passports, immigration papers, and
wooden trunks have passed through their families are a silent testimony to that immense
human drama. 
Bibliography
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