Edward Kohn'S "Hot Time in the Old Town" Recalls the New York Heat Wave of 1896

Edward Kohn ’90, a historian at Bilkent University, shows how the crisis influenced the political careers of Theodore Roosevelt and William Jennings Bryan.

Most of us enduring this summer's heat waves will feel lucky after reading this book. Edward P. Kohn ’90's Hot Time in the Old Town: The Great Heat Wave of 1896 and the Making of Theodore Roosevelt is concerned with the political ramifications of one of the worst natural disasters in American history, 10 horrifying days in New York City in August 1896 that left almost 1,500 people dead.

Kohn does not pass over the squalid, pitiable details of the disaster—dead horses piled up at street corners, human victims who fell to their deaths because they slept on roofs—but he focuses on two figures, Theodore Roosevelt, A.B. 1880, LL.D. 1902, and William Jennings Bryan. The 37-year-old Roosevelt was then president of New York's Board of Police Commissioners, and his efforts to provide ice for the city's poorest and most vulnerable residents were crucial to building his political reputation. For Bryan, however, the crisis provided no such opportunity: his speech accepting the Democratic nomination for president was supposed to be a spectacular launching pad for his national campaign, but the heat proved too oppressive for his audience, which left in droves.

The disaster, Kohn argues, was "a potent catalyst for change... [T]he philanthropists of the Progressive Era called for reform on all levels: of working conditions and work hours, of housing conditions, of sanitary conditions, of government conditions that allowed corruption, and of economic conditions that had made New Yorkers of August 1896 so susceptible to death and disease in the first place."

Kohn currently chairs the department of American culture and literature at Bilkent University, in Ankara, Turkey.

You might also like

Bringing Korean Stories to Life

Composer Julia Riew writes the musicals she needed to see.

Being Undocumented in America

Karla Cornejo Villavicencio’s writing aims to challenge assumptions. 

Harvard Summer Reading Picks | 2025

The wealth gap, shamanism, the life of David Nathan, and more

Most popular

Two Years of Doxxing at Harvard

What happens when students are publicly named and shamed for their views?

A New Narrative of Civil Rights

Political philosopher Brandon Terry’s vision of racial progress

How MAGA Went Mainstream at Harvard

Trump, TikTok, and the pandemic are reshaping Gen Z politics.

Explore More From Current Issue

James Muller in white lab coat leaning on railing in hospital hallway.

Free Speech, the Bomb—And Donald Trump

A Harvard cardiologist on the unlikely alliances that shaped a global movement to prevent nuclear war

Catherine Zipf smiling, wearing striped shirt and dark sweater outdoors.

Preserving the History of Jim Crow Era Safe Havens

Architectural historian Catherine Zipf is building a database of Green Book sites.  

Johnston Gate

Your Views on Harvard’S Standoff, Antisemitism, and More

Readers comment on the controversial July-August cover, authoritarianism, and scientific research.