Hot Time in the Old Town

The Great Heat Wave of 1896 and the Making of Theodore Roosevelt

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By Edward P. Kohn

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One of the worst natural disasters in American history, the 1896 New York heat wave killed almost 1,500 people in ten oppressively hot days. The heat coincided with a pitched presidential contest between William McKinley and the upstart Democrat William Jennings Bryan, who arrived in New York City at the height of the catastrophe. As historian Edward P. Kohn shows, Bryan’s hopes for the presidency began to flag amidst the abhorrent heat just as a bright young police commissioner named Theodore Roosevelt was scrambling to mitigate the dangerously high temperatures by hosing down streets and handing out ice to the poor.

A vivid narrative that captures the birth of the progressive era, Hot Time in the Old Town revives the forgotten disaster that almost destroyed a great American city.
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On Sale
Jul 27, 2010
Page Count
304 pages
Publisher
Basic Books
ISBN-13
9780465022588

Edward P. Kohn

About the Author

Edward P. Kohn is Assistant Professor of American History and Chair of the American Culture and Literature Department at Bilkent University in Turkey. He earned his Ph.D. from McGill University. The author of Hot Time in the Old Town and This Kindred People, Kohn has been named a top young historian by History News Network.

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