his section provides suggested reading lists on specific topics of American history. Distinguished members of the Gilder Lehrman Advisory Board prepare the lists with teachers, students, and history lovers in mind. As an addendum to each list, readers add their own favorites. Contribute your suggestions by emailing resources@gilderlehrman.org


History of New York City


Professor Kenneth T. Jackson's Reading List

Kenneth T. Jackson, Jacques Barzun Professor of History and the Social Sciences at Columbia University, is an expert on the history of New York City. Ken is a longtime Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History advisory board member and the editor of The Encyclopedia of New York City, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1995.


Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898, Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace, Oxford University Press, New York, 1999

The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York, Robert A. Caro, Vintage Books, New York, 1974.

Terrible Honesty: Mongrel Manhattan in the 1920s, Ann Douglas, The Noonday Press, New York, 1995.

Working-Class New York: Life and Labor Since World War II, Joshua B. Freeman, The New Press, New York, 2000.

A Pickpocket’s Tale: The Underworld of Nineteenth-Century New York, Timothy J. Gilfoyle, W.W. Norton & Company, 2006.

Power and Society: Greater New York at the Turn of the Century, David C. Hammack, Columbia University Press, New York, 1987.

722 Miles: The Building of the Subways and How They Transformed New York, Clifton Hood, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1993.

Empire City: New York Through the Centuries, Kenneth T. Jackson and David S. Dunbar, Columbia University Press, New York, 2002.

Fiorello H. LaGuardia and the Making of Modern New York, Thomas Kessner, Penguin Books, 1989.

The Great Bridge: The Epic Story of the Building of the Brooklyn Bridge, David McCullough, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1972.

The Chief: The Life of William Randolph Hearst, David Nasaw, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 2000.

The Madonna of 115th Street: Faith and Community in Italian Harlem, 1880-1950, Robert Anthony Orsi, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1985.

Building Gotham: Civil Culture and Public Policy in New York City, 1898-1938, Keith D. Revell, The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 2003.

The Park and the People: A History of Central Park, Roy Rosenzweig and Elizabeth Blackmar, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 1992.

The Devil’s Own Work: The Civil War Draft Riots and the Fight to Reconstruct America, Barnet Schecter, Walker and Company, New York, 2005.

American Moderns: Bohemian New York and the Creation of a New Century, Christine Stansell, Metropolitan Books, New York, 2000.

Chants Democratic: New York City and the Rise of the Working Class, 1788-1850, Sean Wilentz, Oxford University Press, New York, 1984.

Readers' Suggestions

Up in the Old Hotel, Joseph Mitchell, Pantheon, 1995.
(contributed by R. B. Bernstein)

The Alienist, Caleb Carr, Bantam, 1994.

Angel of Darkness, Caleb Carr, Ballantine Books, 1998.
(both contributed by Bill O'Flanagan and Haley Clark)

New York Burning, Jill Lepore, Vintage, 2005.

The Island at the Center of the World, Russell Shorto, DoubleDay, 2004.
(both contributed by Melinda Luke)

The Columbia Historical Portrait of New York, John A.Kouwenhoven, Dodd Mead, 1953.

As You Pass By, Kenneth Holcomb Dunshee, Hastings House, 1952.

New Amsterdam and its People, J. H. Innes, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1902.

The series "Valentine's Manual of the City of New York," edited by Henry Collins Brown, published 1916-1928.
(contributed by Clarence G. Anspake, Jr.)

Somewhat More Independent: The End of Slavery in New York City, 1770-1810, Shane White, University of Georgia Press, 1995.
(contributed by Matthew Mason)

The New York City Draft Riots, Iver Bernstein, Oxford University Press, 1990.

Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940, George Chauncey, Basic Books, 1995.

Cheap Amusements: Working Women and Leisure in Turn-Of-The-Century New York, Kathy Peiss, Temple University Press, 1986.

To Stand and Fight: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Postwar New York City, Martha Biondi, Harvard University Press, 2003.

Canarsie: The Jews and Italians of Brooklyn Against Liberalism, Jonathan Rieder, Harvard University Press, 2005.

Blackout, James Goodman, North Point Press, 2003.
(contributed by C. Morris)

Mrs. Russell Sage: Women's Activism and Philanthropy in Gilded Age and Progressive Era America, Ruth Croker, Indiana University Press, October 2006.
(contributed by Ruth Croker)

Empire City: The Making and Meaning of the New York City Landscape, David M. Scobey, Temple University Press, 2002.
(contributed by Sollace Mitchell)

102 Minutes: The Untold Story of the Fight to Survive Inside the Twin Towers, Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn, Times Books, 2004.
(contributed by Tom Goetz)

Battle for Manhattan, Bruce Bliven, Jr., Henry Holt and Company, 1955.

The Hone & Strong Diaries of Old Manhattan, Louis Auchincloss, ed., Abbeville Press, 1989.

AIA Guide to New York City, Norval White and Elliot Willensky, Three Rivers Press, 2000.
(contributed by Ed Strauss)

A Covenant with Color, Craig Steven Wilder, Columbia University Press, 2001.
(contributed by Garth Wolkoff)

Black Manhattan, James Weldon Johnson, Da Capo Press, 1991.
(contributed by William C. Hine)

The Angel of Hell’s Kitchen, Bernice Offenberg, Geis Associates, 1962.
(contributed by Alex Kimmelman)