Noonan 1

Gregory Noonan
EN 3600
Dr. Arthur
6 May 2015
New York City: How Americas Greatest City was Founded on a Lie and Built by a Poet
As a city never meant to be built on a hill, New York has become synonymous with
greatness. Unlike her neighbors of New England, so full of a rich and complex history, New York
has a certain blankness in its past. While the rest of New England was founded with a certain
vision of Puritan life and utopia, New York was founded on business. Though it suffered a
blank history, New York is seen as a different kind of city on a hill today that is directly
opposing to the New Englands city on a hill that originated the entire Puritan movement with
John Winthrops sermon. Even though New England has an extensive and complete history since
its founding, it is unable to create a lasting city that can rival that of the Capital of the World
that has a false history. By examining both Washington Irvings creation of New York Citys
history and Walt Whitmans continual building of New York City, it can be explained how New
York City was built on the back of literature.
A Land of Business Opportunity
The area that is known as the island of Manhattan was once owned by the Lenape people,
a group of Native Americans, until the Dutch arrived on the ship Halve Maen in September 1609.
The man Henry Hudson, leader of the Halve Maen crew, bought a large part of Manhattan from
the Lenape people and built New Amsterdam as a dock for the beaver trade. Thus began New

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Yorks strange history. It was unprecedented before Hudson for anybody to actually buy land
from the natives, but for the Dutch, this was business not religious or colonial. When John
Winthrop landed in April of 1630 at the Massachusetts Bay, he had a dream of a city on a hill
meant to showcase to the world the superiority of living ecclesiastically. The line between the
two areas was already drawn between business and religious. Already twenty years after Hudson
had bought a large portion of Manhattan, New York was still nothing but a convenient harbor as
the Puritans laid out their history.
Even after the time historians claim as its end in 1660, the Era of Puritanism dominated
the New England coast well into the 18th and 19th century. It still dominated the writing styles of
authors in the area for decades later, the most famous example of giving material for Nathanial
Hawthornes Scarlet Letter. Winthrop and the original settlers of the Massachusetts Bay Colony
in Salem had set up a culture centered on the pure religion. Puritans wrote and rooted a culture of
God, focusing on the irresistible grace that influenced the culture and started witch trials in the
later years. As New Amsterdam was selling beaver fur, New England was going through a
movement of exile and execution, creating the Puritan literary genre. Though New York had a
history involving a few battles and bloodshed, it was minimal in comparison to the Puritan reign
in New England. The Puritans wrote extensive diaries and narratives focused on finding spiritual
meaning in everyday life as well as on the condemnation of the damned (Reuben). Throughout
Puritan writings, there is a focus on sermons and historical narratives, both extremely popular
across the colonies. Even in the entertainment, Puritanism dominated. From Anne Bradstreets
poetry to William Perkinss The Art of Prophesying, the Puritan way of life was the filling that
made New Englands history. Years after the Puritan movement ended, writers in New England
continued to draw sources from their Puritan predecessors. Even transcendentalists were greatly

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influenced by the Puritan roots, as they felt institutional religion dominated their world
(Strickland).
During the rising and complicated time that became known as the Era of Puritanism, New
Amsterdam continued to be a center of trade and commerce and would continue to be so even
after the Dutch surrendered the dock to the British in 1664 (and again, permanently, in 1674) to
which it was named New York. This exchange between the two nations led to New York
becoming a mixed city one with Anglican ties and the other with Dutch ties. New York would
continue to be under British control until 1783 at the end of the American Revolution when
George Washington finally returned to the city.
Even though New York was founded before the Puritan movement and the Massachusetts
Bay Colony, it lacks a strong literary movement until Romanticism. New York Citys purpose
only as an economic tool made it devoid of the Puritan movement which focused on God
above money. As the Dutch before them, New Yorkers were not interested in pragmatism or
idealism. Washington Irving even mentioned shock at his discovery that most New Yorkers did
not even know about the citys former name of New Amsterdam (Irving). Unlike the New
Englanders, New Yorkers could not trace their history all the way back to its founding or include
events that happened until the common time. So while Puritans had roots back to William
Bradford and the Plymouth Colony, New York could only trace themselves back as far as Dutchtranslated texts (which were few). This meant New Yorks defining image was next to nothing.
The Founding of Knickerbocker
The same year that the first president made his triumphant return, Washington Irving was
born. Named so after the hero of the Revolution, Irving would let his name influence his writing

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until the end of his life when he finished his five-volume autobiography of George Washington.
Irving even claims that at age six he even met the president, who blessed him. Though now an
American city, Irving grew up in a divided New York City that gave the Anglican priority over
the Dutch. This divide gave Irving a chance to generate a history. Though there was a high Dutch
population, New Yorkers knew little or nothing about the citys past as New Amsterdam. The
only text that mentions the citys Dutch rule was William Smiths History of the Province of New
York (1757), with only nine pages dedicated to the half century (Burrows 418).This brevity in
content revealed an absence of a substance behind the citys existence. There was no filling to its
empty existence as a well-placed dock. Irvings first act in changing that (unwittingly) was his
creation of the Lads of Kilkenny in 1806. The Lads were a group of men who represented the
New York literary life (416). Irving, along with his brother William and good friend James Kirke
Paulding, were all a part of this group and experienced literati in growing forms such as
Shakespeare and Old English style buildings. Together these three collaborated together on a
work known as the Salmagundi, a collection of essays about current events. It was in this work
that New York got its first nickname Gotham (416). The commentaries that the three men
worked on were meant to present a striking picture of the town; and as everybody is anxious to
see his own phiz on canvas, however stupid or ugly it may be, we have no doubt but that the
whole town will flock to our exhibition. (416). This began the creation of what Paulding would
describe as a National Literature, as to both he and Irving would create. Both Irving and Paulding
would write together (more so Paulding than Irving) about the British snobbery and eventually
participate in the paper war between America and Britain leading up to the War of 1812 (again,
more Paulding than Irving). Though both writers wrote in a way that separated America from
Anglican ways, both authors went their separate ways in style and Irvings method became

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known as the Knickerbocker (417). While Paulding wrote in a way that emphasized America
as greater than Britain (even going as far as to say that Noah could very well have landed there in
his Stranger at Home,) Irving wrote in a way that exploited the American (specifically New
York) speech, character, scenery, and history (417).
As Irving was starting out, there was a huge movement by the New York Historical
Society to recover the history of the first fifty years of New Yorks existence as New Amsterdam.
The scholars in New York at the time knew that there was no substantial history available about
New York during its time as New Amsterdam and began putting out notices for anybody with
information on Dutch governors or influential people from the Dutch Era. They found hope in a
small newspaper ad and on October 26, 1809, the Evening Post put out a notice that began the
mythology of New York:
Left his lodgings some time since, and has not since been heard of, a small elderly
gentleman, dressed in an old black coat and cocked hat, by the name of
Knickerbocker. As there are some reasons for believing he is not entirely in his
right mind and as anxiety is entertained about him, any information concerning
him left either at the Columbian Hotel, Mulberry-street, or at the Office of this
paper will be thankfully received. (Burrows 417).
Following this post, the proprietor of the Columbian Hotel announced the finding of a very
curious kind of a written book in Knickerbockers room which would be sold off if the bill
was not paid (417). This announcement created a self-advertising and the people of New York
were said to have scrambled in their search for Knickerbocker. Not finding him, the book was
published on November 28 in 1809 and it was called A History of New York from the Beginning

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of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty by Diedrich Knickerbocker. The New York
Historical Society seemingly found an answer to their searches.
Written as a mocking of Samuel Latham Mitchills Picture of New-York, Knickerbockers
History generated a mythology and interest in New York that was unprecedented. Irving invented
history as he gave the Dutch buyer of Manhattan, Hudson, the famous line See! There! in and
furthered the generated interest in New Yorks history (Irving, 30). With very little history
actually written in, Irvings work focused on the satirical representation of the New York people
actually avoiding much comment on events that took place in the city during its Dutch time.
Though humorously written, Irving had to publish a second edition with a note declaring it a
satirical work, but the damage was done and Knickerbocker was famous. Before claiming it as a
satirical work, Irving takes on Knickerbockers voice and claims his reason for writing. He states
that he writes To rescue from the oblivion the memory of former incidents, and to render a just
tribute of renown to the many great and wonderful transactions of our Dutch progenitors,
Diedrich Knickerbocker, native of the city of New York, produces this historical essay. (Irving
16).
Irving further writes in his second edition as a statement of apology:
I hailed my native city as fortunate above all other American cities in having an
antiquity thus extending back into the regions of doubt and fable; neither did I
conceive I was committing any grievous historical sin in helping out the few facts
I could collect in this remote and forgotten region with figments of my own brain,
or in giving characteristic attributes to the few names connected with it which I
might dig up from oblivion. (Irving, 5).

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In the line having an antiquity thus extending back into the regions of doubt and fable Irving is
making a claim: it is a good thing that New Yorks history is founded on doubt and fable. By
inventing a past for his city, he also chose to focus on the everyday life of the people as opposed
to the carnage that had often visited the city with the constant skirmishes between the Dutch and
Indians as well as the Dutch and Anglicans. His Knickerbocker method invented a lively,
humorous outlook on the city and its people as Irving used satire and foolery to make fun of
current events and peoples, such as his portrayal of Thomas Jefferson and his foreign policy
through the character William the Testy (Burrows 418). New York was based on the people,
not the events. Knickerbocker became so famous that it even changed the dynamic of its citizens:
no longer called Anglican and Dutch, but now Yankee and Knickerbocker.
Though a satirical work, Irvings work did succeed in creating a mythology and history of
New York and American life. It was even through Knickerbockers work that America received
the family-focused, commercial Christmas that it celebrated today. Burrows devotes an entire
section in his work towards Irvings accomplishment. Irving names St. Nicholas as the patron
saint of New Amsterdam. In some of his other works Irving speaks of Christmas, the Catholic
holiday, as a cozy holiday related with genteel family life and good-will (463). Using Irvings
popularity, his friend John Pintard decided to make New York more domestic by selling St.
Nicholass Day on December 6th. Even though St. Nicholass Day already existed and had been
celebrated by the Dutch in the same festivity that Irving describes, the image of Sancte Claus
given by Irving was new and Pintard took advantage of it. Pintards friend, Clement Clarke
Moore, even wrote a poem titled A Visit from St Nicholas in celebration of this new Sancte
Claus. The only difference was that Moores Sancte Claus visited on December 24th, coinciding
with the Catholic holiday on December 25th (463). Though one example of Irvings influence, it

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shows how powerful the Knickerbocker style of writing was on the people of New York it
invented and manipulated New York in a way that created a city with a special substance to it.
Irvings success is largely due to the scarcity of New Yorks history. New Englanders
were condemned to use Puritan influences in their works and were deeply tied to that history, but
Irving had no such obligation or need. In a post-Revolutionary America, history had reset for
the people of the New World. Irving simply had to ink his pen and New York had a history that
was accepted as if it was always true. Simply because Irving was not constrained by the Puritan
ideals or history, he was able to write humorously setting the foundation for New York as not
only a business center, but a lively place. New York was a place where business people could
thrive economically while not being miserable. Irving set a foundation that New York could be
built upon. On this foundation, poet Walt Whitman built an image and culture that glorified the
Big Apple. As a city separate from the rest of the East coast in terms of culture, it was a surprise
that New York caught onto the popular philosophy that would ultimately inspire Whitman.
Transcendentalism and the Poet
In the late 1820s and 30s of the East coast, a new American movement began called
transcendentalism. Transcendentalism was a movement that focused on the natural world and
peaceful living. Transcendental thought soon became popular and many writers mimicked their
philosophies. This was a movement that was opposing to the urban population: instead of
working as a cohesive unit, there was a focus on the individual soul. It became popular to be
repulsed by the New York life and was even criticized by some writers of the time, called by
Lydia Maria Child as a prison in her Letters from New York (Child 191). Though opposite of
what most New Yorkers would consider the norm, there was something about the movement that

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sparked an interest in the urban powerhouse. In his intensive studies, Burrows speaks about how,
as the transcendentalist movement progressed, many well-to-do New York families bought
summer houses to escape to mainland New York State (Burrows 524). Citizens were following
the desire to live in isolation. In a sense it was ironic that only the affluent New York families
were capable of satisfying this transcendental desire, as popular transcendentalists such as Henry
David Thoreau advocated for a minimalistic living. It seemed that New York City did not have
the ability to fully accept the transcendental lifestyle. There was too much a focus on the citylife, a connectedness of the people. Nevertheless, transcendentalism played an important part in
designing the image of New York City through the words of its greatest poet Walt Whitman.
Whitman was born into a turbulent time in 1819, the same year Missouri applied for
statehood, an act that sparked interest on the slave debate how was a state to be decided
whether it would be free or not? Though born in a free state, Whitman was still affected by the
rising tensions between the Northern and Southern territories. In his research on Whitman, David
Reynolds looked into what would influence Whitmans work wholly and found the shift from an
agrarian household economy in America into a capitalistic market system which created big
business and further divided social class, would dominate Whitmans perspective on urban
culture. It was this same shift that would further the divide between free and slave state. The
panic of 1819 was the first of several massive depressions in a boom-and-bust cycle that would
destabilize Whitmans early years. Much of Whitmans poetry would try to come to terms with
the dislocations resulting from rapid urbanization and the market revolution. (Reynolds 25).
Growing up on Long Island, Whitman had a close connection with his family heritage
and seemed to be a personified offspring of New York Citys past populations his mother was
from a Dutch family of old while his father was from the English side. Reynolds suggests that

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Whitman thought he derived a Hollandisk firmness from his mother and an English
willfulness from his father. (28). Whitman grew up believing that the ancestral Whitman family
was essentially once the rulers of Long Island through their land occupation and he was proud of
it (29). The Whitman family history and its relationship to Long Island would influence
Whitmans poetry in several aspects, especially the Battle of Brooklyn during the Revolutionary
War, where one of Whitmans granduncles died fighting for the Americans. This eventful battle,
though years later, would follow the young Whitman and create a fascination of the citys history
as he would sometimes find bones of prison-ship victims capture after the battle that were never
collected (35). Whitman grew up learning about his ancestry and associating his family with a
connection to New Yorks own history and further identifying himself as an inheritor of
American values in the face of British occupation that his ancestors experienced. This obsessive
connection with the island helped Whitman sketch poetry associated with his beloved
environment, such as his never-published work Long Island Character. Though never
completed, Long Island Character relates a vision that Whitman had of the New Yorker.
Whitman noted, Long Island Character Draw the Long Island character different from the
New England the Middle states or any of the Southern states (qtd. Reynolds 39). He
describes the Long Island character as gruff, odd, independent, genial queer folk with strong
personalities (39). When Whitman finally arrived in Manhattan, he did so in the 1840s when the
city hit its lowest depression. Even with the rise of new printing technology, because of the
depression, American printing companies were refusing to print newer American works, instead
safely placing their funds in foreign works (133). Reynolds states that this competition stirred a
sense of nationalistic literature that would bring Ralph Waldo Emerson to the front of American
writing as he urged even further for an American Poet in his essay, The Poet. Emerson states

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the Poet is, the man without impediment, who sees and handles that which others dream of,
traverses the whole scale of experience, and is representative of man, in virtue of being the
largest power to receive and to impart. (Emerson). Emerson calls for an idealized man and
further exemplifies what it means to be a poet. Whitman responds to Emersons call with
Leaves of Grass, which was partially a result from Whitman being directly exposed to this mix of
fierce nationalism and pride (which he was naturally drawn towards) and that of the depression.
Emerson would write a letter congratulating Whitman on his book, which Whitman would
scandalously print in his second edition. This influence by Emerson would give Whitman a
greater attention to what the land could offer. Whitman mentioned, [Leaves of Grass] arose out
of my life in Brooklyn and New York from 1838 to 1853, absorbing a million people, for fifteen
years, with an intimacy, an eagerness, an abandon, probably never equaled... [Ive produced] the
idiomatic book of my land, (qtd. Reynolds 134). In this quotation, Whitman is describing his
own poetry as representative of the city around him; it is reflective of the New York society. This
action is greatly influenced by the transcendentalists and their way of thinking: as reflective of
social reform. Not only was he writing for the mass people of New York he was also writing
with himself in mind as a New Yorker. Whitman states in A Song for Occupations, that the
popular tastes and employments taking precedence in poems or anywhere, (stanza 6). In a New
York that had an environment exhibiting constant urban growth, Whitman had plenty to write
about. In the excerpt from A Song for Occupations, Whitman speaks about his own writing and
its adjacency to New Yorks growth as New York grows, Whitmans poetry grows with it in a
side-by-side connection. As the city grew and as transcendentalism grew, so did Whitmans
poetry. What makes Whitmans poetry different, however, is not that fact that it is influenced by

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New Yorks growth and transcendentalism, but rather his work influenced the city and the
philosophies of the time.
Ultimately Walt Whitman is a different kind of transcendentalist writer in the fact that he
is also not a transcendentalist writer. Much like Emerson, Whitman was not a systematic thinker,
and his conceptions of the world he lived in (as well as mans place in it) came from internal,
spiritual sources that worked together to build up the individual person (Allen 173). There was
this intent focus on people, but Whitman took it one step further in making New York the
culmination of transcendental thought. What Whitman explores, especially in his poems Song
of Myself and Crossing Brooklyn Ferry (Sun-down poem), is the universal connectivity of
individuals to make community. Taking the philosophies transcendentalists believed, Whitman
explored the possibility that the best society was compiled of people who gained spiritual
knowledge and transcended to what Emerson called the Oversoul (Gura). For Whitman,
New York was a prime example of what a society can become similar to Emersons oversoul
idea. Whitman argues, in Crossing Brooklyn Ferry, that there is immortality to New York and
that immortality is the pathway to transcendence. Whitman implies that, by seeing what he sees,
there is a revelation of the universe (Marsh 35). Whitman writes,
Just as any of you is one of a living crowd, I was one of a crowd,
Just as you are refreshd by the gladness of the river, and the
bright flow, I was refreshd
Just as you stand and lean on the rail, yet hurry with the swift
current, I stood, and yet was hurried, (2 Whitman lines 21-25).
In this excerpt of Crossing Brooklyn Ferry, Whitman states a connection with the other
passengers of the ferry, a connection determined by the layout of the city. His opening passage in

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the poem, Flood-tide below me! I see you face-to-face immediately connects him with the
reader. Whitman is facing New Yorkers, which could be considered the same as the city. I loved
well those cities, loved well the stately and rapid river, the men and women I saw were all near to
me, (2 Whitman lines 50). Whitman acknowledges in 1882 that he can still remember the faces
of the other passengers on the Brooklyn Ferry that he wrote about, even if the next year ended
those ferry trips with the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge in 1883 (Marsh 36). In New York there
appears, to Whitman, a collection of discrete individuals who all belong to the same universal
scheme (Marsh 39). This brings the theory of transcendentalism to an entirely different level
New York environment is not the bane of individual thought, it is the culmination of it. Simply
because a reader sees what Whitman sees, they are experiencing the New York that Whitman
experienced. Whitman is showing reading how he sees New York and is consequently building
an image of the city.
By experiencing New York the same way Whitman did, there is a creation of immortality
for New York it is a city that has fixity in its own motion. A city focused on constant growth,
New York is stuck in a stereotype as the city that never sleeps. In Whitmans eyes, no matter
how many years and physical changes go by, New York will never change. Looking back onto
the previous passage, the immortality that Whitman is presenting his readers with becomes even
clearer at the start of stanza 3:
It avails not, time nor place distance avails not,
I am with you, you men and women of a generation, or ever so many generations
hence,
Just as you feel when you look on the river and sky, so I felt,
Just as any of you is one of a living crowd, I was one of a crowd,
(2 Whitman lines 20-23).

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It avails not the time nor place. Whitman purposely points puts in the word place. The reader
must not ask, How is the place different? The poem revolves around a singular location, the
Brooklyn River, so why would Whitman put in the word place? He uses the word place as an
indicator that it even the physical area that he is experiencing will change, but it will not make a
difference. There is a fixation and enforcement of the Long Island Character that Whitman
stereotyped the people to be. As readers experience what Whitman experiences, the image and
feelings he sees lives on. By putting those experiences and feelings to paper, to poetry, Whitman
is successfully creating permanence to New York City. What Whitman is doing in his works is
building an image of for his readers. Whitman is engraving (he creates a concrete stereotype) an
image of New York into the readers minds as an urban society bustling with people connecting
with each other. As mentioned before, this is Whitmans new way of looking at transcendentalist
thought. Through his very action of writing he is glamorizing the city of New York. Though New
York is not the ideal city for transcendentalists such as Emerson or Thoreau or for writers similar
to Child, Whitman transforms the city into a distinct place that is capable of transcending into a
city of grand purpose. Similar to what Irving did, Whitman is building up an image to associate
to New York City. As one of Americas most popular poets (some would say even the greatest
American poet), his words have no small impact.
Considered the greatest city on Earth, New York City and the surrounding area is
representative of something distinctly American. Settled by Dutch buyers, occupied by the
British (last to be relieved from the Revolution), first capitol of America, our largest city, a hub
for culture and literature New York City is the new Rome. But New York City was not built
just out of concrete and steel it was built on a clever lie crafted by Americas first humorist and
the fame of Americas greatest poet. The world surrounding both Irving and Whitman captivated

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the young men and they desired to show off their New York swagger in any way they could.
Irving gave New York a foundation for the city to begin and build itself and Whitman gave it the
fame and attention he felt it deserved. New York was growing and probably would have grown
without these two men, but they each gave the city character that could never be replaced.
Through the works of both Washington Irving and Walt Whitman, New York City became
something more than a Dutch bought island it became a symbol of a certain stereotype that
proudly proclaimed itself to be the best. The city on a hill that America so definitely offered
and that the transcendentalists sought, was created through the works of these two men.

Works Cited:
Burrows, Edwin G., and Mike Wallace. Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898. New York:
Oxford UP, 1999. Print.
Child, Lydia Maria. Letters from New York. Baym, Nina, and Robert S. Levine. Norton
Anthology of American Literature. 8th ed. Vol. B. New York: W.W. Norton, 2012. 180210. Print.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. The Poet. Essays: Second Series (1844). Updated: September 3, 2009.
Date of access: May 4, 2015.
Gura, Philip Transcendentalism and Social Reform The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American
History. New York. 2009. 15 April 2015.
Hazlett, John. Literary Nationalism and Ambivalence in Washington Irvings The Life and
Voyages of Christopher Columbus University of New Orleans. 1983. Etext.

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Irving, Washington. Knickerbockers History of New York. Chicago. W.B. Conkey Company
Publishers. 2004. Kindle
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Reynolds, David. Walt Whitmans America: A Cultural Biography. Knopf Doubleday Publishing
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Whitman, Walt. Leaves of Grass. New York. Oxford UP. 2005. Etext.
2 Whitman, Walt. Crossing Brooklyn Ferry. Baym, Nina, and Robert S. Levine. Norton
Anthology of American Literature. 8th ed. Vol. B. New York: W.W. Norton, 2012 (13831387)
Wynn, Thomas M. New York City The Walt Whitman Archive. Web. 29 Apr. 2015