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Westchester: History of an Iconic Suburb is the 400-year story of New York City's famous suburb to the north and the remarkable events and residents that shaped it.

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Westchester County stretches well over 500 square miles and contains some 52 cities, towns and villages. But in historical accounts, the county often takes a back seat to the city that never sleeps. In Westchester: History of an Iconic Suburb, journalist and historian Robert Marchant puts it firmly center stage, revealing a richly layered narrative biography of the county from the time of Native American and European settlement to the present day.

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Using a wide range of primary sources, Marchant draws a complex and vivid portrait that upends conventional ideas about the suburb and threads its tale through engaging stories about Westchester's visionaries, outsized personalities, pioneers, artists, rebels and everyday citizens. Connecting the county's past with seminal moments in American history, the book highlights the significant role women, African-Americans and successive waves of immigrants played on both a local and national level. 

 

The book also uncovers many darker chapters in the county's history, including the mass murder of an entire Native American village, slavery, Jim Crow segregation, cross burnings, a Nazi rally at The Westchester County Center, the prevalence of anti-Semitism, a fatal bare-knuckle boxing match watched by hundreds of spectators, violent crime, jailbreaks and the extensive influence of mobsters like Dutch Schultz, whose criminal associates once pumped a stream of beer under the streets of Yonkers during Prohibition.

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Illustrated throughout with contemporary engravings and photographs, some never before published, this popular history is essential reading for anyone who has ever lived in Westchester or wants the real story behind the picket-fence facade.

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247 pp., Softcover, Illustrated.

Published by McFarland Books

ISBN: 978-1-4766-7324-0

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