New York and the founding of the United states
New York Rising
On April 30, 1789, at Federal Hall on Wall Street, George Washington was inaugurated the
first president to which New York served as both host and witness. After suffering seven
years of British occupation, the city emerged from the Revolution riding a wave of
confidence in the prospects of the new American nation.
As the first capital of the United States, New York was the epicenter of intellectual debate,
and citizens of every description flocked to the city. The port surged with activity.
Coffeehouses were abuzz with the latest commercial news and political maneuvering, and
the streets were electric with possibility, ambition, and talent. Even as it rebuilt an
infrastructure that had been reduced to rubble and restored a populace decimated by war,
the city quickly developed into the leading center of maritime commerce, information, and
an expanding political culture.
In this climate, members of the Revolutionary generation founded an organization that
would “collect and preserve whatever may relate” to the history of the United States, and
of New York particular. The aims of the New York Historical Society were national, its
inspiration local. Its collection would tell the story of the city’s role in the new nation and
of its founding fathers; it also would come to celebrate American Indian leaders,
abolitionists, pioneering women, and a city of free New Yorkers, who together forged and
American civilization and its most exemplary metropolis.
Revolution
For most of the Revolutionary War, New York was occupied by the British Army and the
