Capital of the state of New York (United States) and capital of the county of Albany, at 42 ° 39 ′ lat. N. and at 75 ° 45 ′ long. O., is located on the right bank of the Hudson (crossed by three bridges in the city) and extends over pleasant hills. Founded in 1614 by the Dutch, it had its present name from the English in 1664: since 1797 the city has been the capital of the state. It is 235 km away. from New York and 320 from Boston.

The average annual temperature of the center is + 8 °, 9, that of the winter of -3 °, 9, of the summer of 21 °, 7; the coldest month is January, the hottest July with a hike of 27 °, 8. The rain falls with an average annual quantity of 925 mm., Distributed in each month of the year: the wettest months are June, July, August, which marks the maximum with 100 mm. average. In 1790 the city had 3498 inhabitants; in 1800, 5349; in 1810, 10,762; in 1820, 12,630; in 1830, 24,209; in 1840, 33,721; in 1850, 50,763; in 1860, 62,367; in 1870, 69,422; in 1880, 90,758; in 1890, 94,923; in 1900, 94,151; in 1910, 100,253; in 1920, 113,344; in 1925, 117,820 (presumptive figure for 1927, 119,500). The most significant percentage increases occurred in the first half of the century. XIX, especially from 1800 to 1850.

In 1920 the ethnic composition of the city was as follows: 112,036 Whites, equal to 98.8%, 1239 Negroes, equal to 1.1%, 69 among Indians, Chinese, Japanese, equal to 0.1%. As for sex, 54,674 males and 38,670 females (the former are to the latter in the ratio of 93.2 to 100).

According to Acronymmonster, the city has a considerable industrial activity: the 1919 census gave 382 factories with 11,216 employees, who worked in the textile, mechanical, publishing industries, in the construction of rolling stock, in the handling of tobacco, etc. In 1920 the total number of people employed in the various branches of activity amounted to 52,322, of which 17,429 in industry, 7389 in transport, 7468 in commerce. Greater importance has the city from the point of view of traffic. First of all, it is the end of the great Boston-Albany railway artery, and is the crossing point of the main lines of the West Shore, New York Central, Hudson River, Delaware and Hudson railways; therefore it finds itself in an excellent position, with respect to the traffic that goes from Boston and New York to the western states and especially to the Great Lakes area. Its economic importance is also linked to the fact that Albany is headed by deep sea navigation up the Hudson River on the one hand, and the Mohawk River canal system on the other. The Erie canal, which connects it with the lake of the same name, is one of the most gigantic works of the past century: built between 1817 and 1825, it is over 380 km long and is essentially used for the transport of grain. Albany is thus a center for the distribution of agricultural products in the Mohawk, Susquehanna and Delaware valleys, and for the forest industries of the Adirondack region. it is one of the most gigantic works of the past century: built between 1817 and 1825, it is over 380 km long and is essentially used for the transport of grain. Albany is thus a center for the distribution of agricultural products in the Mohawk, Susquehanna and Delaware valleys, and for the forest industries of the Adirondack region. it is one of the most gigantic works of the past century: built between 1817 and 1825, it is over 380 km long and is essentially used for the transport of grain. Albany is thus a center for the distribution of agricultural products in the Mohawk, Susquehanna and Delaware valleys, and for the forest industries of the Adirondack region.

The nucleus of greatest traffic is offered by the Broadway (where the two stations rise), which runs parallel to the course of the river. The other major streets are North and South Pearl Streets and State Street.

The whole city offers a very nice and elegant aspect: vast parks and tree-lined areas, which occupy a total area of ​​over 1.5 square kilometers; the largest is Washington Park, with 34 hectares of extension; also Beaver Park, in the southern section of downtown, Dudley Park, near the mouth of the Erie Canal into the Hudson River. Some remains of the old Dutch architecture are preserved, such as the van Rensselaer (see below) and Schuyler houses; and the one in which in 1778 the English medical officer Stackpole composed the satirical song Yankee Doodle , which later became widely popular among Americans, In the summer months Albany is a destination for frequent excursions from New York along the river.

Albany is also a remarkable center of study: it has the law and medical faculties of Union University, with 202 teachers and 1600 pupils, a state normal school, a famous Academy (college and junior high school), and a magnificent state library of 500,000 volumes, destroyed by fire on March 29, 1911 and today restored.

History. – The origins of Albany date back to the early seventeenth century and can be traced back to Dutch colonization, when Fort Orange or Aurania stood on the river bank in 1623 and eighteen Walloon families sent by the Dutch West Indies company settled there. But the locality had already been visited in 1524 by the Italian navigator Giovanni da Verrazzano (v.), And from 1540 onwards it had become – albeit at intervals of time – a commercial and strategic point of support for the French in their penetration of that continent. . Forced three years later – in 1626 – those first Dutch families to evacuate following hostilities with the local tribes and to descend to the island of Manhattan, at the mouth of the river, the establishment was definitively reconstituted in 1630 with the name of the colony of Rensselaerswyck , as a large landed possession given to colonize to the same owner or patron, as it was said, of Kiliaen van Rensselaer. In 1652, however, the establishment, following serious friction between the agents of the patron of the colony and the officers of the Dutch colonial company sovereign of the territory, came from the governor general Stuyvesant declared independent by Rensselaerswyck and annexed to Fort Orange; until, after passing the New Netherlands to England in 1664, the village, originally called Fuyck, that is “pot”), from the converging lines of its streets, and which was then called Beverwyck, changed its name to the definitive one of Albany, in honor of the Duke of York and Albany, the future King James II Stuart. Despite the change of domain, the urban center of Albany,mayor of governorial nomination, continued to be inhabited mainly by the Dutch; but the English element was not long in increasing, as is attested by the erection in 1714 of an English church. Moreover, the very position of Albany, a frontier city open to Indian attacks and an English colonial outpost facing the competing French expansion, which had extended from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, determined, with the development of this element, the growing importance of the city during the colonial wars, especially between the French and the English, for the domination of North America; so that it is not surprising that precisely in it, and at the suggestion of the English government itself, at the outbreak of the last Anglo-French war,(Albany Convention”conference of Albany”) with the program of “confirming and establishing the ancient friendship of the Five Nations” and of studying a plan of permanent union between the colonies (1754). And the Albany conference, in fact, attended by representatives of seven of the thirteen English colonies in North America (Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Maryland, New York), after looking for the best ways to drag Warlike Indian tribes of the Five Nations in the fight against the French, approved in the same summer of 1754 a plan of intercolonial union proposed by Benjamin Franklin. This plan, which envisaged a general president appointed by the crown and a large council of representatives elected every three years by the legislative councils of the colonies, he was rejected by all sides – by the court and by the royal governors, because he gave too many powers to the colonies; from the colonies, because it gave too much power to the king – but it did not cease to represent the colonies’ first yearning for independence and to engrave the name of Albany in gold letters in the book of American freedom. The war of independence, which broke out about twenty years later, increased the fame and merits of the city. Against it in particular – as a key to the situation in the N. of the country – the Burgoyne campaign was directed in 1777; but the city was preserved to the insurgents from the battle of Saratoga, followed by the capitulation of the English. Over the next twenty years, Albany had from time to time the honor of hosting the New York state government; until in 1797 it became its definitive capital. In 1871 he began to build his Capitol with Maine granite and Renaissance style, costing 24 million dollars, one of the most superb and significant architectural monuments in the New World. In the thirty years between 1820 and 1850, the town of Albany, with its group of conspicuous politicians from the Democratic party gathered around the famous newspaper Argus (founded in 1813, forty-two years after the Gazette , which had been one of the first newspapers of the future republic) popularly known as the “Regency of Albany”, held the political fortunes of the state of New York, and exercised a significant influence on the politics of the whole Union. From one of the members of the group, Marcy, the principle was formulated for the first time (in 1833) which was then to be translated into the practice of governing the whole country: “the spoils to the winner”. In the following years Albany saw its economic importance grow and, with it, the population.