History, Natural History & the Arts
Pictures of street hawkers with their trade shouts recorded in captions of poetry or prose are known as “Cries.” They first appeared in Paris around 1500. This early creation of an urban iconography included socially marginal people such as vagrants, beggars, prostitutes, and others.
Fifty years later, these images were established as a stylistic category across Europe. Eventually, they would make their way to New York. [Read more…] about Urban Cries: Street Hawkers’ Shouts in New York & London
Driving north on I-787 approaching Troy you can see an iconic building – a tall red brick building with turrets that looks like a fortress.
It’s at 1 Jackson Street. What I like to call the Fortress of Shoddy. [Read more…] about The Hudson River’s Fortress of Shoddy in Troy
Hannah Lord came from a family of doers. Her father, William A. Lord, was a Revolutionary War officer and author of Lord’s Military Tactics.
In 1817, Hannah married Orlando Montague, a blacksmith. Keeping in mind that most people back then didn’t have a lot of clothing, hand washing was tedious and time consuming, especially with everything else a young wife was supposed to take care of.
Throughout most of the 19th century, the attire of most men included a white shirt with starched collar and a knotted tie or cravat. Styles changed, but the need for a good white shirt did not.
[Read more…] about Women’s Labor History: Detachable Fashions & Laundry Work
One of the most prosperous residents in the history of Ballston Spa, NY, was a “Paper Bag King” who once laid claim to the largest manila paper bag operation in the world, also located in Saratoga County.
George West, was born in the English village of Kentisbeare in 1822. He was the sixth of nine children, and as soon as he was old enough West followed in his father’s footsteps and began working at a local paper mill. [Read more…] about Saratoga County Mills Using Manila Hemp Were Home To ‘The Paper Bag King’
Frances Perkins, who served as President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Secretary of Labor in all four terms of his administration, is often credited with designing many of the New Deal’s social welfare programs, including Social Security. As such, she ranks among the most influential women of the 20th Century.
Few however, know that Perkins began her career in the Hell’s Kitchen area of the city of New York, work that as inspired inn part by a chance meeting an Irish Tammany Hall District Leader Tom McManus. [Read more…] about Frances Perkins, One of America’s Most Influential Women, Remains Unrecognized
H. Burden & Sons, also known as the Burden Iron Works, was a marvel of nineteenth century industrial ingenuity. From its foundries and assembly lines in South Troy, the company produced horseshoes that shod the Union Army, railroad spikes for tracks that crossed the continental United States, and rivets, for, well, just about everything.
The inventor of the Ferris Wheel, George Washington Gale Ferris Jr., was an 1881 graduate of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI). He was no doubt influenced by one of Troy’s most impressive industrial monuments – the Burden Water Wheel. [Read more…] about The Burden Iron Works of Troy: A Short History
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We live in an age where big businesses track our shopping habits and in some cases our work habits. But is the age of data new? When did the “age of the spreadsheet” and quantification of habits develop?
In this episode of Ben Franklin’s World: A Podcast About Early American History, Caitlin Rosenthal, an Assistant Professor of History at the University of California, Berkeley and the author of Accounting for Slavery: Masters and Management (Harvard University Press, 2019), leads us on an investigation into the origins of how American businesses came to collect and use data to manage their workers and their pursuit of profits.
[Read more…] about Masters and Management: The Business of Slavery
The Ballston Terminal Railroad in Saratoga County, NY, opened on August 6, 1898.
At 4:05 pm, the George West made its inaugural run from the Village of Ballston Spa to the Pioneer Mill in West Milton. This was a six mile trip. On the return trip to Ballston Spa, the trolley stopped at the Power House in Factory Village to allow the company to review the machinery. Then everyone boarded again to arrive back at Middlebrook Avenue at 5:10 pm. The total round trip took one hour and five minutes. [Read more…] about The Ballston Terminal Railroad: A Short History
When I was growing up in the 1950s, my mother had one of those old Maytags. The washing machine agitated the clothes in the soapy water until she turned it off.
Then each garment would be passed through the wringers to squeeze out as much water as possible. Finally, the damp clothes would be put out on the clothes line, our “solar-powered dryer.” [Read more…] about Dirty Laundry: The Backyard Clothesline In The 1950s
In 1693, Leicestershire-born immigrant William Bradford was appointed public printer for New York. Living in Pearl Street, Manhattan, he published from his offices in Hanover Square the first book with a New York imprint, entitled New-England’s Spirit of Persecution Transmitted to Pennsylvania by Quaker author George Keith.
Between 1725 and 1744, Bradford produced the New-York Gazette, the city’s first newspaper. Lower Manhattan continued to be the center of New York’s printing industry for many years, but by the 1860s the street took on a northern European accent and became known for a different type of leaf – tobacco. [Read more…] about Gompers and Hammerstein: The Cigar Makers Who Transformed Theatre