New York History Spring 2015© 2015 by The New York State Historical Association 164 Editors’ Introduction Thomas D. Beal, William S. Walker Looking back over a long career of teaching, researching, and writing about New York State, Milton M. Klein recalled that one of his greatest joys was bringing “history to a wider audience.”1 Klein was a regular contributor to New York History; it published some of his most significant works on the eighteenth century, including “New York Lawyers and the Coming of the American Revolution,” which won the New York State Historical Association’s Kerr Prize.2 The Editors share Klein’s passion for expanding the public’s interest in the past, and they publish only scholarly essays that are accessible to anyone (from high school students to professional historians) with an interest in New York State’s history. New York History does not publish brief, uninformed and easily forgotten blog posts. Rather, it offers well-researched, scholarly essays that are accessible to anyone and that will, like Klein’s essays which appeared in its pages beginning in the late 1950s, withstand scholarly scrutiny and the test of time. This issue of the journal offers readers four essays exploring unique aspects of New York State’s rich history. In the lead essay, “Roscoe Conkling’s Cotton Speculation,” Jeffrey D. Broxmeyer uncovers a group of New York politicians, manufacturers, and merchants who made a 1. Milton M. Klein, “The Pleasures of Teaching and Writing History,” The William and Mary Quarterly 52:3 (1995): 483–487. 2. See, Milton M. Klein, “New York Lawyers and the Coming of the American Revolution,” New York History 55 (1974): 383–408. The New York State Historical Association Awards the Kerr Prize to the best essay published in each volume of New York History. See also, Milton M. Klein, “John Jay and the Revolution,” New York History 81 (January 2000): 19–30; Milton M. Klein, “An Experiment that Failed: General James Robertson and Civil Government in British New York, 1779–1783,” New York History 61 (July 1980): 229–254; Milton M. Klein, “Origins of the Bill of Rights in Colonial New York,” New York History 72 (October 1991): 388–405. Milton M. Klein, “Why did the British Fail to Win the Hearts and Minds of New Yorkers,” New York History 64 (October 1983): 357–375; Milton M. Klein, “Clio Ascendant: The Writing of American History in the Eighteenth Century,” New York History 68 (January 1987): 4–26; Milton M. Klein, “New York in the American Colonies: A New Look,” New York History 53 (April 1972): 132–146; Milton M. Klein, “From Community to Status: The Development of the Legal Profession in Colonial New York,” New York History 60 (1979): 133–156; Milton M. Klein, “Democracy and Politics in Colonial New York,” New York History 40 (July 1959): 221–246. Editors’ Introduction 165 good deal of money in the cotton market during the American Civil War. Before 1860, the American South produced over seventy-five percent of the world’s cotton supply, but the war disrupted production, leaving merchants and manufacturers, from New York to England, desperate for new suppliers . At the heart of Broxmeyer’s essay is an examination of newly discovered evidence—primarily tax records—that details how much money clever and well-connected politicians, with the blessing of President Abraham Lincoln, made during the war. Jeffrey A. Marx’s essay, “Philadelphia Comes to New York,” explores the history of cream cheese. In the nineteenth century, New York became a leader in the dairy industry, and this journal has published a number of articles on the history of milk and dairy products. But Marx’s essay is the first to examine the development of the cream cheese market and the methods manufacturers used to promote this product. Both essays enhance our understanding of New York’s place in America’s burgeoning economy in the late nineteenth century. In “The Heiress Victoria Gone with Her Father’s Coachman,” Carolee Klimchock narrates the captivating tale of Victoria Morosini, the Gilded Age heiress who scandalized the country when she eloped with her family’s coachman. Klimchock does not simply spin a good yarn. She illustrates the...