Hoopla on the Hudson

Hoopla on the Hudson: An Intimate View of New York’s Great 1909 Hudson-Fulton Celebration brings readers to the Hudson-Fulton Celebration, a two-week event held from September 25 to October 9, 1909 that commemorated the 300th anniversary of Henry Hudson’s discovery of the Hudson River and the 100th anniversary of Robert Fulton’s steamboat, the Clermont. The celebration, which stretched along the entire length of the Hudson River, featured a naval parade, a replica of Hudson’s Half Moon, a replica of Fulton’s Clermont, public flights by Wilbur Wright, and elaborate parades in cities along the river.

In the September 1909 a young freelance reporter for Europe’s leading financial daily filed his first of a series of cabled articles written during the Hudson-Fulton Celebration. The reports made front-page news. It was a remarkably optimistic moment in New York City’s history, well into the new century, and the reporter and his readers were witnesses to all of it.

Now almost a century after the event, the reporter’s son has translated his father’s articles with an illuminating and engaging commentary on the city in 1909. Included are biographical sketches of Henry Hudson and Robert Fulton, numerous photographs, and an epilogue on the fate of the replicas of the two vessels at the center of the celebration.