Books like When the Astors Owned New York by Justin Kaplan

Discover how the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam on Manhattan shaped America’s founding, from 17th‑century trade to the clash between Peter Stuyvesant and Adriaen van der Donck.

In Lily Dale, New York, a community of spiritualists believes the dead never truly leave, offering mediums as living to connect with spirits and glimpse the future. Journalist Christine Wicker explores the town’s history, visitors, and the power of belief.

Mark Kurlansky traces New York City's rise through the story of its storied oyster industry, blending history, cuisine, and environmental change into an engaging narrative.

A family history of the Astors from the first patriarch John Jacob Astor and his creation of the Astor fortune to the time of publication.

A graphic‑novel telling the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire in New York City, examining its impact on labor laws, workplace safety, and the working class.

"Mrs. Astor, undisputed queen of New York society in the decades before the First World War, used her prestige to create a social aristocracy in the city; an invitation to one of her parties was a coveted mark of social acceptance, and exclusion meant social banishment. Mrs. Astor's story, which reads like a novel by Edith Wharton, sheds important new light on the origins, extravagant lifestyle, and social competitiveness of this aristocracy, and it is told here with vigor and elegance by Eric Homberger.". "Homberger argues that the arrival in New York of a tidal wave of new wealth after the Civil War pushed the city's old families into a redefinition of the practices and responsibilities of aristocracy. The public wanted to know more about the neighborhoods, clothes, marriages, entertainments, scandals, and divorces of the wealthy, so during the 1880s, Mrs. Astor presided over a revolution in their social visibility. With Ward McAllister she created the Patriarchs, whose annual balls were the most sought after social events of the era. She also established the "Four Hundred," the definitive list of the socially acceptable, ordaining which families could be accepted and which must remain in social exclusion. Homberger describes the festivities of this social elite, their homes and neighborhoods, and their social struggles. His diverting account of lives of discreet and not-so-discreet excess vividly recaptures New York's high society and shows how its members were transformed into America's first celebrities."--BOOK JACKET.