Tin Horns and Calico
Henry Esmond Christman
Read by Maria Kasper
In the early 19th century, in the Hudson Valley of New York State, hundreds of square miles of land were still the feudal domains of large landowners known as patroons. Such families as the Van Rensselaers, Livingstons, and Schuylers owned the farms and towns in which hundreds of thousands of ordinary people lived and worked. Even the capitol city of New York State, Albany, was encompassed in the private fiefdom of a patroon. On July 4, 1839, in the mountain town of Berne, New York, a mass meeting of tenant farmers issued a declaration of independence, promising: "We will take up the ball of the Revolution where our fathers stopped it and roll it to the final consummation of freedom and independence of the masses." The Anti-Rent War consumed the Catskill Mountain region through the 1840's, leading in the end to the downfall of the patroon system and the democratization of land ownership in New York State. - Summary by Maria Kasper (14 hr 30 min)
Chapters
Acknowledgements and Introduction | 14:54 | Read by Maria Kasper |
A Landed Aristocracy | 37:11 | Read by Maria Kasper |
Call to Rebellion | 32:02 | Read by Maria Kasper |
Seward Takes the Helderbergs | 47:09 | Read by Maria Kasper |
They Could Not Stand Idle | 33:56 | Read by Maria Kasper |
Justice For Sale | 15:28 | Read by Maria Kasper |
Storms and Tempests | 19:37 | Read by Maria Kasper |
Big Thunder | 48:32 | Read by Maria Kasper |
Political Infiltration | 16:02 | Read by Maria Kasper |
A Price on His Head | 36:20 | Read by Maria Kasper |
Law and Order | 37:22 | Read by Maria Kasper |
King Silas | 14:54 | Read by Maria Kasper |
The Bastard War | 40:08 | Read by Maria Kasper |
In the Good Cause | 42:39 | Read by Maria Kasper |
''For the Land is Mine'' | 23:32 | Read by Maria Kasper |
Lead Penetrates Steele | 55:49 | Read by Maria Kasper |
''Brimful of Wrath and Cabbage'' | 15:52 | Read by Maria Kasper |
Packed Court | 41:40 | Read by Maria Kasper |
Delhi Justice | 54:10 | Read by Maria Kasper |
''November Ides'' | 49:18 | Read by Maria Kasper |
The Goose is Plucked | 45:54 | Read by Maria Kasper |
''The Prisoners! They Come!'' | 26:14 | Read by Maria Kasper |
The End of Manor Aristocracy | 41:24 | Read by Maria Kasper |
Deep in the Land | 39:02 | Read by Maria Kasper |
Songs and Ballads | 41:30 | Read by Maria Kasper |