Episode 180: Larry Samuel and Making Long Island
The Long Island History Project
Release Date: 09/24/2023
Episode 201: Isle of Ever w Jen Calonita
The Long Island History Project
Isle of Ever is Jen Calonita’s newest middle grade novel, a story grounded in the history of Long Island’s North Fork. On today’s episode, Jen discusses growing up on Long Island and spending many summers at her grandparents’ house in Mattituck. It was here, in between trips to Greenport, that she first heard tell of Captain Kidd’s lost treasure. She tried digging up the local beach, came up empty, but the idea buried itself in Jen’s mind. Now she has worked her experiences into the tale of Benny Benedict, a young girl caught up in a race to solve a puzzle and claim an...
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Episode 200: The 1975 Babylon High School Panthers w Tom McKeown
The Long Island History Project
Tom McKeown lived and breathed basketball throughout junior and senior high school in Babylon. As an eighth grader in 1974-1975, he got to experience the thrill of watching the varsity team win their league and the Suffolk County championships. As fate would have it, this was also the first year that New York State allowed county champions to play each other, setting up a showdown between Babylon’s Panthers and Nassau County’s champs, the South Side Cyclones of Rockville Center. It was an epic season that engaged Tom so deeply that he has written his version of the story as This Is...
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Episode 199: Dr. Angela Fernandez and Pierson v Post
The Long Island History Project
When Jessie Pierson and Lodowick Post argued over a fox in early 19th century Southampton, they probably didn’t think the resulting court case would echo down the ages. Yet here we are 220 years later talking with legal historian Angela Fernandez about the odd, improbable history of Pierson v Post. A professor of law and history at the University of Toronto, Fernandez has delved deep into the case. Her “legal archaeology” uncovered important, presumed-lost information on the early phases of the proceedings. Her 2018 book Pierson v. Post, The Hunt for the Fox: Law and...
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Episode 198: Mark Torres: Long Island and the Legacy of Eugenics
The Long Island History Project
The science of genetics took a wrong turn in the early 20th century and it ran through Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island. Here overlooking a former whaling port, Dr. Charles Benedict Davenport created the Eugenics Record Office and served as director of the Carnegie Institution’s Station for Experimental Evolution. From these posts he promoted and pushed the Eugenics Movement in the US and throughout the world. Historian and attorney Mark Torres has explored the far reaching and sinister influence of Davenport’s activities in his new book Long Island and the Legacy of Eugenics: Station...
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Episode 197: Riverhead Stadium with Fabio Montella
The Long Island History Project
Memorial Day 1949 was an auspicious day in Riverhead as it saw the inaugural game at the brand new Wivchar Stadium on Harrison Ave. The brainchild of Tony Wivchar, a local entrepreneur and owner of an earth-moving company, the venue soon came to be known as Riverhead Stadium. Although it only existed for a few brief years, the stadium was alive with excitement. To help drum up interest, Wivchar formed the Riverhead Falcons baseball team out of local talent to play in exhibition games. Their opponents ranged from Negro League stalwarts such as the Black Yankees to barnstorming attractions like...
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Episode 196: Dutch Language in New York with Kieran O'Keefe
The Long Island History Project
The Dutch held on to their New Netherland colony for some forty years. They lost it to the English twice, at gunpoint in 1664 and by treaty in 1674. But although officially gone, the Dutch were not forgotten. In addition to their cultural legacy, the Dutch language held on stubbornly across the region for a long time. How long? That’s the question Dr. Kieran O’Keefe answers in “When Did New York Stop Speaking Dutch? The Persistence of the Dutch Language in Old New Netherland” (New York History journal, 2024). He tracks the long history of Dutch-language speakers across the...
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Episode 195: Dr. James R. Wright and Walt Whitman's Brain
The Long Island History Project
The science of the brain was changing throughout the 19th century. Medical researchers were peering ever deeper into cerebral mysteries and one question piqued their interest more than any other: who has the biggest brain? On today’s episode we turn for answers to Dr. James R. Wright, medical historian and retired professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at the University of Calgary. He introduces us to brain clubs, mutual autopsy societies and above all, the American Anthropometric Society of Philadelphia. The AAS had a particular interest in collecting and studying the brains of...
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Episode 194: The Art of Edward Lange with Lauren Brincat and Peter Fedoryk
The Long Island History Project
Edward Lange was a German artist who started his career on Long Island in the late 19th century. He meticulously captured the landscape and built environment across the island from Flushing to Sag Harbor in water color paintings rich in detail and charm. Preservation Long Island has just published Promoting Long Island: The Art of Edward Lange, 1870-1889 by chief curator and director of collections Lauren Brincat and former curatorial fellow Peter Fedoryk. The book features over 100 color reproductions of Lange’s work along with essays from Brincat, Fedoryk, and contributors...
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Episode 193: Associated Public Historians of New York State conference
The Long Island History Project
The Association of Public Historians of New York State held their annual conference at Danford’s in Port Jefferson this year, gathering public historians from all corners of the state to discuss resources, projects, and to provide a great opportunity for people to talk history. The Long Island History Project was there to hold a workshop, “How to Be a Podcast Guest.” Today’s episode features the brave individuals who sat down at the mics and told us a little bit about their work, the challenges they face, and where exactly “upstate” begins. Further Research Ross Lumpkin ...
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Episode 192: Broadway to Jones Beach w Richard Arnold Beattie
The Long Island History Project
Robert Moses had a vision for Jones Beach in the 1920s that included a theater to bring high quality entertainment to the people. That theater on Zachs Bay went through a number of iterations but reached its height from 1954-1977 when it was under the direction of Guy Lombardo. Along with his brothers Carmen and Lebert, the Canadian-born band leader/impresario brought Broadway shows and original productions to the beach. Their stage was an 8,200-seat amphitheater with a host of spectacular additions including icebergs, waterfalls, showboats, and floating mansions. Richard Arnold Beattie got...
info_outlineLarry Samuel is an author and historian whose latest book looks at the development of Long Island throughout the 20th Century. It was a time of land speculation and rapid growth as real estate developers and their syndicates turned the fields and farms of Nassau and Suffolk Counties into residential neighborhoods. We discuss the role of Robert Moses in abetting this transformation as well as the high (and low) water mark of William Levitt's Levittown that attracted crowds of white homeowners while excluding Blacks in the 1950s.
Throughout the book, Larry tracks the Island's social and economic landscape with photographs, statistics, and contemporary accounts. A complex picture emerges of a place so successfully marketed as an idyllic countryside that it was almost developed out of existence.
Further Research
- Making Long Island: A History of Growth and the American Dream (History Press) by Larry Samuel
- James Trunslow Adams: Dreaming up the American Dream (JSTOR)
- Dividing Lines, Visible and Invisible (Newsday)
- Audio Footnotes from past episodes
- Sandy Brewster-walker, whose father poured cement for "old man Levitt."
- Murray Barbash, Fire Island-based, environmentally friendly home builder