“The Great Nelson Lake Train Wreck” occurred on May 9, 1903, between the McKeever and Minnehaha Stations on New York Central Railroad’s Adirondack line, also known as the Mohawk and Malone. [Read more…] about The Great Nelson Lake Train Wreck
Telegraph
Hello, Operator? The Galway Telephone Company 1903-1932
On December 13, 1882, Nicholas Shaul’s store in Barkersville, Town of Providence, Saratoga County was destroyed by fire. While the contents were a total loss, it was noted in the Daily Saratogian that 20-year-old Charlie Steele took time away from fighting the fire to save the store’s telephone.
Today we would scratch our heads if this made the news, but 140 years ago it was vital information as this was the only telephone for miles around this isolated hamlet. [Read more…] about Hello, Operator? The Galway Telephone Company 1903-1932
Communities Cut Off: The Blizzard of 1888
This photograph of an unidentified boy shows the enormous drifts of snow deposited in the streets of New York City by the blizzard of March 11-14, 1888.
The storm stretched from the Chesapeake Bay to Canada and left devastation in its wake, disrupting rail, telegraph, and mail service and causing hundreds of deaths and tens millions of dollars in property damage. [Read more…] about Communities Cut Off: The Blizzard of 1888
Asher Durand’s Painted Puzzle of Progress
What Thomas Carlyle in 1829 called the Age of Machinery – later renamed the Industrial Revolution – radically altered conventional modes of being and marked a turning point in man’s relationship with his environment. New production systems delivered an abundance of goods for consumption, but in the process natural resources were depleted, water and soil polluted, whilst fumes contaminated the air. [Read more…] about Asher Durand’s Painted Puzzle of Progress
Wall Street History: Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, Gould, and Morgan
The period after the Civil War was one of significant economic and technological expansion in the nation and one in which corporations headquartered in Lower Manhattan and Wall Street would obtain a significant hegemony over the American economy.
This was a time in which individual entrepreneurs were running private businesses located on Wall Street. [Read more…] about Wall Street History: Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, Gould, and Morgan
Wall St History: 19th Century Growth of Investment Banking
With the demise of the Philadelphia based Bank of the United States, the financial center of the country shifted to the privately owned state chartered financial firms on Wall Street.
As the nation recovered from the severe depression in the Panic of 1837, President James K. Polk’s policy of Manifest Destiny took root and significant westward settlement of Indigenous land expanded in the 1840s. Fortified by the Erie Canal and its Canal Fund, Wall Street financial institutions became strongly influenced by four factors: the invention of the telegraph; the development of railroads; the discovery of gold and other precious minerals in the West (particularly the California Gold Rush of 1849); and the arrival of significant numbers of Jewish and Irish immigrants in the city of New York. [Read more…] about Wall St History: 19th Century Growth of Investment Banking
Saratoga’s Charles Dowd & The Origin of Eastern Standard Time
Time is often referred to as a human construct, but time zones are definitely man-made, and they have a direct connection to Charles Dowd of Saratoga Springs and the month of November, when standard time began in 1883, and 21 years later when time ran out for Charles.
Local time once was set by the noon mark. Noon was defined to be the time at which the sun was directly overhead. This meant, for every approximately 69 miles traveled west, the moment of noon differed by four minutes. For example, the clocks in Boston were set about three minutes ahead of clocks in Worcester, MA. [Read more…] about Saratoga’s Charles Dowd & The Origin of Eastern Standard Time
David Hochfelder on the Telegraph in America
The latest episode of the Capital District Civil War Round Table Podcast features SUNY Albany professor David Hochfelder discussing his book The Telegraph in America, 1832-1920.
The telegraph was a revolutionary technology that had far-reaching effects on American life. Hochfelder talked about Samuel Morse, the use of the telegraph in the Civil War, the rise of Western Union, and the mode of communitcaion’s decline. [Read more…] about David Hochfelder on the Telegraph in America
Peter Hess: Civil War Reaches Albany
Following his election as President in 1860, Abraham Lincoln undertook a train ride to Washington that would take him through Albany. He arrived here on February 18, 1861 with his wife and three sons. As their train passed the West Albany railroad shops, an electrical switch was turned off at the nearby Dudley Observatory, causing an electromagnet mounted on the roof of the Capitol in downtown Albany to release a metal ball that slid down a pole, signaling to military officials to start a 21-gun salute in Capitol Park. [Read more…] about Peter Hess: Civil War Reaches Albany
The First Days of the Civil War in Albany
Early Sunday morning on April 14, 1861, barely two months after Lincoln left Albany, news arrived there that Fort Sumter had been fired on and surrendered. Fort Sumter was not far from Washington, and this news hit Albany like a shock wave.
New York State Governor Edwin D. Morgan called an emergency meeting of his staff and leaders of the Senate and Assembly that afternoon in the Executive Chamber in Albany. A bill was drafted calling for New York to appropriate $3 million to provision and provide 30,000 New York Militia to support the preservation of the Union. [Read more…] about The First Days of the Civil War in Albany