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Lawrence R. Samuel, a Long Island native and cultural historian, will explore regional history in a lecture on Thursday, November 13, at the Suffolk County Vanderbilt Museum – based on his book Making Long Island: A History of Growth & the American Dream (Arcadia Publishing, 2023). His talk will be in the Vanderbilt Reichert Planetarium Theater from 7:00 to 8:00 pm.
Samuel’s book tells the fascinating story of the development of Long Island’s Nassau and Suffolk counties between the 1920s and 1950s. Long Island served as a primary site of the pursuit of the American dream, as it offered affordable home ownership for the middle class that most compellingly expressed the nation’s core mythology.
“Beginning in the 1960s, however, that dream began to dissolve, as the postwar economic engine ran out of steam and as Long Island became as much urban as suburban,” Samuel said. “Despite all its current economic and social challenges, a new and improved American dream appears to be emerging on Long Island, and the place unarguably remains one of the beautiful places on the planet.”
Samuel holds a Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of Minnesota and was a Smithsonian Institution Fellow. His other books include The End of the Innocence: The 1964-1965 New York World’s Fair (Syracuse University Press, 2007) and Queens: A History of the Most Diverse Place on Earth (State University of New York Press, 2025).
Support for the Vanderbilt lecture series, established in 2022, is generously provided by a grant from the Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation.
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