Speaker

Selected Lectures

“A Seaport at War With Itself,” Hoboken Historical Museum, June 29, 2017

An illustrated lecture on German Americans, Irish Americans, American Jews, and African Americans in the Greater New York City area (including Hoboken, New Jersey) during World War I. The presentation underscores how U. S. entry into the war in 1917 allowed members of each group to prove their heroism and assert their right to recognition as Americans. But it also shows how the war simultaneously stirred up bigotry, suspicions of disloyalty, and political tensions that affected each group.

“New York at War,” book talk, Lower East Side Tenement Museum, C-Span, May 22, 2012

A book talk on New York at War focusing on how New Yorkers experienced war’s threats, traumas, and opportunities from the Civil War to the onset of World War II. The setting for the talk at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum is appropriate, since between 1863 and 1935 several generations of immigrants lived in the museum’s now-preserved tenement house at 97 Orchard Street.

Selected Media, Radio and Podcast Appearances

NYC Epicenters 9/11 - 2021 1/2, directed by Spike Lee, HBO Max, August 2021

I discuss New York City’s long history as a target for military and terrorist attack as one of about 200 “talking heads” in Spike Lee’s HBO miniseries on the city’s resilience in the years from 9/11 to BLM, Trump, and COVID-19.

”New York: Capital City of Social Activism,” with Sarah Seidman, Midday on WNYC, July 25, 2018

D. W. Gibson of Midday on WNYC interviews curator Sarah Seidman and me about the meanings and contours of social activism over the 400-year course of New York City’s history, as captured in the Museum of the City of New York exhibition Activist New York and the book of the same name. We touch upon a range of topics and movements, from New York’s pre-Civil War abolitionists and 19th-century Cuban revolutionaries to anti-Vietnam War agitation, Women’s Liberation, and AIDS activism.

“New York City as the Capital of Capital,” with Jessica Lautin, The Brian Lehrer Show, June 4, 2014

Jessica Lautin and I speak with WNYC’s Brian Lehrer about Capital of Capital, the Museum of the City of New York’s exhibition and book exploring New York City’s 200-year history as the center of the American banking industry, the source of the recurrent financial “booms and busts” that shaped the modern world economy.

“City of Workers, City of Struggle,” Law and Disorder Radio, May 27, 2019

A chat with Michael Steven Smith and Heidi Boghosian of WBAI’s Law and Disorder Radio about two exhibitions at the Museum of the City of New York—Activist New York and City of Workers, City of Struggle—and how New York City became the great seedbed and incubator of movements for change, continuing into the 21st century with Black Lives Matter, the struggle for transgender rights, and the fight to unionize Amazon workers.

“New York at its Core,” New Netherland Praatjes, New Netherland Institute, July 8, 2018

A conversation with the New Netherland Institute’s Steve McErleane and Russell Shorto, author of The Island at the Center of the World, surveying how the Museum of the City of New York’s long-term exhibition New York At Its Core brings to life the Dutch colonial origins of New York City. We also discuss the complex interactions between 17th-century Europeans, native Lenape people, and enslaved Africans in the outpost of New Amsterdam.