Discover America’s Founding Era anew through the lives of the Schuyler sisters, two women as formidable as the famous men they loved, married, and mothered.

Angelica and Elizabeth Schuyler, born into privilege in the latter half of the eighteenth century, were raised to make good marriages and supervise households. Instead, embroiled in the turmoil of America's insurrection against Great Britain, they rebelled. Glamorous Angelica eloped at twenty with a war profiteer and led a luxurious life, first in Paris, then in London, charming Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and the Prince of Wales. Eliza, one year younger and uninterested in influence or intrigue, married a penniless illegitimate outsider, Alexander Hamilton, and devoted herself to his career. But after her husband’s appointment as America’s first Treasury Secretary, Eliza had to face his controversies—including the attraction that grew between him and the sister she adored. Drawing on deep archival research, including never-published records and letters, Amanda Vaill interweaves this family drama with its historical context, creating a narrative with the sweep and intimacy of a nineteenth-century novel.

Amanda Vaill worked on Pride and Pleasure: The Schuyler Sisters in an Age of Revolution during her 2018-2019 Fellowship at the Library’s Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers. She will discuss her book with biographer and critic Bill Goldstein.

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ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Amanda Vaill is the author of Hotel Florida, Somewhere, and the bestselling Everybody Was So Young, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. She is an Emmy-nominated screenwriter, and her journalism and criticism have appeared in many publications, including the New York Times Book Review, the Washington Post, Town & Country, and New York. The recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and NYU’s Center for Ballet and the Arts, she lives in New York City.

Bill Goldstein reviews books for NBC's Weekend Today in New York and was the founding editor of the New York Times books website. A graduate of the University of Chicago, Goldstein received a PhD in English from the City University of New York Graduate Center. He is the author of The World Broke in Two: Virginia Woolf, T. S. Eliot, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, and the Year that Changed Literature. Currently, he is writing a biography of Larry Kramer, which he worked on as a Cullman Center Fellow in 2019-2020. He was awarded a 2024-2025 Public Scholars grant by the National Endowment for the Humanities to support his continuing work on the book.

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ACCESSIBILITY

In-Person | Assistive listening devices and/or hearing loops are available at the venue. You can request a free ASL (American Sign Language) interpretation or CART (Communication Access Real-Time Translation) captioning service by emailing your request at least two weeks in advance of the event: email accessibility@nypl.org or use this Gmail template. This venue is fully accessible to wheelchairs.

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The Cullman Center is made possible by a generous endowment from Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman in honor of Brooke Russell Astor, with major support provided by Mrs. John L. Weinberg, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, The Estate of Charles J. Liebman, The von der Heyden Family Foundation, John and Constance Birkelund, and The Samuel I. Newhouse Foundation, and with additional gifts from Helen and Roger Alcaly, The Rona Jaffe Foundation, The Arts and Letters Foundation Inc., William W. Karatz, Merilee and Roy Bostock, and Cullman Center Fellows.