Settled in 1640 by a group of Puritans from Massachusetts, Southampton, NY, changed very little until the railroad line from New York City reached the village in 1870. Then, with daily trains traveling east, wealthy New Yorkers were amazed to discover a bucolic backwater just hours away. By the turn of the century, Southampton was ranked among the most fashionable resorts on the East Coast. Over 200 photographs, many rare and previously unpublished, illustrate the changes that came to agrarian Southampton as successive waves of summer residents arrived, first to stay in farmhouses refurbished as boarding houses, then building their own sprawling summer “cottages.” Drawn from local historical archives and private collections, these images will show how small-town life continued over the years in a place now world-renowned for its exclusive clubs, grand mansions, and celebrity residents. ...

The 1938 hurricane, the most severe and terrifying storm to hit Long Island in living memory, struck on September 21, a day that had dawned bright and fair in the seaside communities between Westhampton Beach and Montauk Point. Unaware of the storm whipping itself into a frenzy just miles away, village residents were going about their normal tasks when it struck, killing more than 30 and wreaking unprecedented destruction before nightfall. In Hurricane in the Hamptons, 1938, the story is told in more than 150 photographs, most of them taken by stunned residents in the immediate aftermath of the storm....