Colonial New York as a Model for Our Nation

On Thursday, October 27, the History Room at the Hudson Area Library and the Jacob Leisler Institute for Early New York History present a special in-person talk with Patricia Bonomi about colonial era New York. The event takes place at 6:00 p.m. in the Community Room at the library, 51 North Fifth Street.

Colonial New York contributed vitally to the formation of the United States, as did New England or the colonial South, although historians have been slow to acknowledge those contributions. The discussion will highlight the special significance of New York’s religious and racial diversity, its unique geography, and its tumultuous politics.

Patricia U. Bonomi is Professor Emerita at New York University, where she taught American history for twenty-seven years, specializing in the colonial and early national periods. She is a Guggenheim Fellow and a Fellow of the Seminar on Early American History & Culture at Columbia University, where she earned her Ph.D. in 1970. Her books include A Factious People: Politics and Society in Colonial New York; Under the Cope of Heaven: Religion, Society, and Politics in Colonial America; and The Lord Cornbury Scandal: The Politics of Reputation in British America.

The Jacob Leisler Library Lectures are made possible in part through the generous support of the Van Dyke Family Foundation and Hudson River Bank and Trust.