News and Blog
(The World According to Carp?)
David Grim's Fairy Tale
Here’s another article—just published today! “David Grim’s Fairy Tale: The New York City Fire in Myth,” Gotham: A Blog for Scholars of New York City History (Feb. 15, 2023)
Playlist for the Great New York Fire of 1776
Happy book release day, everyone! I’ve put together this music playlist for readers to enjoy while reading The Great New York Fire of 1776: A Lost Story of the American Revolution. The book has an introduction, fourteen chapters, and a conclusion, so the playlist has sixteen songs, one to go with each of those parts of the book. Click through and enjoy! Track list below.
Introduction, Was It Just the Wind?: “September,” Earth, Wind & Fire
Chapter 1, A Small City Still Standing: “Welcome to New York,” Taylor Swift
Chapter 2, Destroying Towns in a Civil War: “Fire,” Beth Ditto
Chapter 3, The Armies Approach New York: “Ain’t No Love in the Heart of the City,” Bobby “Blue'“ Bland
Chapter 4, The Rankled Rank and File: “MUTINY,” Neoni
Chapter 5, General Washington’s Bad Options: “Across 110th Street,” Bobby Womack
Chapter 6, The Loss of New York City: “Nowhere to Run,” Martha Reeves & The Vandellas
Chapter 7, The Great Fire: “Welcome to the Party,” Diplo, French Montana, Lil Pump, Zhavia
Chapter 8, Firebrands: “Fire Woman,” The Cult
Chapter 9, Surveying the Wreckage: “Ashes,” Céline Dion
Chapter 10, The Commandant’s Conundrum: “Fire for You,” Cannons
Chapter 11, The Story of the Fire Takes Shape: “Burn,” Bruce Cockburn
Chapter 12, The Fates of Three Captains: “Capital Punishment,” Big Pun, Prospect
Chapter 13, A War of Devastation and Restraint: “Setting Fires,” The Chainsmokers, XYLØ
Chapter 14, The Unresolved War: “My City of Ruins,” Bruce Springsteen
Conclusion, Forgetting the Fire: “Wake Me up When September Ends,” Green Day
New piece on Santa Claus and 1776!
Hey everyone, the semester has made it tough for me to keep up with blogging on the site, and I owe everyone a post about all the events I have scheduled in 2023. But to whet your appetite in the meantime, here’s a piece I wrote that the great folks at Age of Revolutions have posted, just in time for the holidays: “Mythmaking in Manhattan: Stories of 1776 and Santa Claus.” Not suitable for children under 10!
Some quotes that others have pulled from the piece:
"Santa Claus was born as the fiftieth anniversary of 1776 approached, and we can learn from the entwined myths that arose in New York City at this moment.”
“We should take a closer look at the patrician writers who formulated such an untroubled story of the Revolution, because they included the same men who crafted another myth: the existence of Santa Claus.”