THE HUDSON RIVER VALLEY REviEW A Journal of Regional Studies MARIST Publisher Thomas S. Wermuth, Dean of Liberal Arts, Marist College Editors Reed Sparling, former Editor in Chief, Hudson Valley Magazine Christopher Pryslopski, Program Director, Hudson River Valley Institute, Marist College Editorial Board Art Director Myra Young Armstead, Professor of History, Richard Deon Bard College Business Manager Col. Lance Betros, Professor and Deputy head, Ann Panagulias Department of History, U.S. Military Academy at West Point The Hudson River Valley Review (ISSN 1546-3486) is published twice Susan Ingalls Lewis, Assistant Professor of History, a year by the Hudson River Valley State University of New York at New Paltz Institute at Marist College. Roger Panetta, Professor of History, James M. Johnson, Executive Director Fordham University H. Daniel Peck, Professor of English, Research Assistants Vassar College Jessica Friedlander Robyn L. Rosen, Associate Professor of History, Amanda Hurlburt Marist College RJ Langois David Schuyler, Professor of American Studies, Maria Zandri Franklin & Marshall College Hudson River Valley Institute Thomas S. Wermuth, Dean of Liberal Arts, Advisory Board Marist College, Chair Todd Brinckerhoff, Chair David Woolner, Associate Professor of History Peter Bienstock, Vice Chair & Political Science, Marist College, Franklin Patrick Garvey & Eleanor Roosevelt Institute, Hyde Park Marjorie Hart Sarah Olson, Superintendent, Roosevelt- Maureen Kangas Vanderbilt National Historic Sites Barnabas McHenry Alex Reese Denise Doring VanBuren Copyright ©2007 by the Hudson River Valley Institute Tel: 845-575-3052 Post: The Hudson River Valley Review Fax: 845-575-3176 c/o Hudson River Valley Institute E-mail: [email protected] Marist College, 3399 North Road, Web: www.hudsonrivervalley.org Poughkeepsie, NY 12601-1387 Subscription: The annual subscription rate is $20 a year (2 issues), $35 for two years ( 4 issues). A one-year institutional subscription is $ 30. Subscribers are urged to inform us promptly of a change of address. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Hudson River Valley Institute, Marist College, 3399 North Road, Poughkeepsie, NY 12601-1387 ii From the Publisher While not a formally themed issue, we have the pleasure of including three arti- cles on women’s history. Moving chronologically, we begin with a reexamination of the role of women in seventeenth-century New Netherland and New York. We continue with an article on the 1895 Woman Suffrage Convention in Newburgh. This topic is rounded out with a discussion of municipal reform in Poughkeepsie at the turn of the twentieth century. The same women who spearheaded that campaign went on to found the influential Women’s City and County Club. Our fourth article is an illuminating look at the political and economic factors that led to the beginning of banking in nineteenth-century Newburgh. (Which means the great Orange County city is another mini-theme of this issue.) We also present two Regional History Forums, one highlighting Thomas Cole’s Cedar Grove, the other Clermont State Historic Site’s upcoming Steamboat Bicentennial exhibi- tion. We finish with four book reviews and a listing of new and noteworthy titles about the valley. Thomas S. Wermuth iii This issue of The Hudson River Valley Review has been generously underwritten by the following: Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corporation www.chenergygroup.com Peter Bienstock Shawangunk Valley Conservancy Conservation • Preservation • Education iv The mission of the Hudson River Valley National Heritage Area Program is to recognize, preserve, protect, and interpret the nationally significant cultural and natural resources of the Hudson River Valley for the benefit of the Nation. For more information visit www.hudsonrivervalley.com • Browse itineraries or build your own • Search 90 Heritage Sites • Information on dining & lodging establishments— recommended by professional committees • Upcoming events & celebrations To contact the Hudson River Valley National Heritage Area: Mary C. Mangione, Acting Director Capitol Building, Room 254 Albany, NY 12224 Phone: 518-473-3835 v Call for Essays The Hudson River Valley Review is anxious to consider essays on all aspects of the Hudson Valley—its intellectual, political, economic, social, and cultural history, its prehistory, architecture, literature, art, and music—as well as essays on the ideas and ideologies of regionalism itself. Submission of Essays and Other Materials HRVR prefers that essays and other written materials be submitted as two double- spaced typescripts, generally no more than thirty pages long with endnotes, along with a computer disk with a clear indication of the operating system, the name and version of the word-processing program, and the names of documents on the disk. Illustrations or photographs that are germane to the writing should accompany the hard copy. Otherwise, the submission of visual materials should be cleared with the editors beforehand. Illustrations and photographs are the responsibility of the authors. No materials will be returned unless a stamped, self- addressed envelope is provided. No responsibility is assumed for their loss. An e-mail address should be included whenever possible. HRVR will accept materials submitted as an e-mail attachment (hrvi@marist. edu) once they have been announced and cleared beforehand. Since HRVR is interdisciplinary in its approach to the region and to region- alism, it will honor the forms of citation appropriate to a particular discipline, provided these are applied consistently and supply full information. Endnotes rather than footnotes are preferred. In matters of style and form, HRVR follows The Chicago Manual of Style. vi Contributors Michael E. Gherke is assistant professor of history at Glenville State College in West Virginia. His current research and interests include colonial American women, the Revolutionary War, and Confederate General James Longstreet. His presentations and publications include work on women in New Netherland as citizens, wives, and merchants, as well as “elite women” in eighteenth-century Virginia. Clyde Griffen is professor emeritus of history at Vassar College. His research on nineteenth-century labor in Poughkeepsie as a co-recipient of a Ford Foundation grant was published in Natives and Newcomers: The Ordering of Opportunity in Mid-Nineteenth Century Poughkeepsie. He contributed to Full Steam Ahead in Poughkeepsie: The Story of Coeducation at Vassar, 1966-1974, and is collaborating on the forthcoming Main Street Re-Visited: Two Centuries of Landscape and Social Change in the Poughkeepsie Urban Region. Lucien Mott is an adjunct history instructor at Mount Saint Mary College in Newburgh. Recently he has published an article on the early history of the Bank of Westfield. In addition to early banking, he is researching the transformation of pre-modern financial arrangements in a global context. Shannon M. Risk, former executive director of the Putnam County Historical Society & Foundry School Museum in Cold Spring, is currently working on her Ph.D. in history at the University of Maine. Her research focuses on the woman suffrage movements of Maine, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia. vii viii THE HUDSON RIVER VALLEY REVIEW Vol. 23, No. 2, Spring 2007 Toward a More Inclusive History of Early American Women: The Example of Married Women in New Netherland and New York in the Seventeenth Century Michael Gherke. ....................................................................................................... 1 The Republic May Wear a Crown of True Greatness; The 1895 New York State Woman Suffrage Association Convention Shannon M. Risk .............................. 17 Pursuing Municipal Reform in Poughkeepsie: From Lucy Salmon to the Women’s City and County Club Clyde Griffen .................................................... 33 Banking in Early America; The Mid-Hudson Valley, The Banks of Newburgh Lucien Mott ........................................................................................................... 49 Regional History Forum Mastering the Hudson: a study of Thomas Cole and his lasting impression on the Hudson River Valley; (Thomas Cole’s Cedar Grove) Jessica Friedlander, Marist ’07 ................................................................................ 73 Clermont State Historic Site’s Steamboat Bicentennial Exhibit Maria Zandri, Marist ’07 ....................................................................................... 82 The Great Hudson River Paddle By Theresa Keegan ................................................................................................. 87 Book Reviews Jim Heron, Denning’s Point: A Hudson River History ............................................91 Carol J. Singley, editor. Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth: A Casebook ......... 93 Jason K. Duncan, Citizens or Papists: The Politics of Anti-Catholicism in New York, 1685-1821 ........................................................................................ 94 Nancy L. Todd, New York’s Historic Armories; An Illustrated History .................96 New and Noteworthy Books Received ................................................................98 On the cover: Johann Hermann Carmiencke’s The Hudson River at Hyde Park, New York, 1856 , Oil on canvas, 36 x 50 inches. Friends of American Art Purchase, 2005 . Reproduction courtesy of The Orlando Museum of Art, which owns the painting. Photograph ©The Orlando Museum of Art. ix HISTORIC HUDSON VALLEY,