Bibliopedia

A Backward Glance: Firsthand Accounts from Diaries, Autobiographies and Memoirs

April 6, 2013 in Bibliopedia by Barbara Cohen | No comments

“St. George’s” by Gene Schermerhorn

In 1888, Gene Schermerhorn, a member of an old New York family, ended a series of letters to his young nephew in the finest spirit of personal recollections:

Now my dear Phil I have tried to tell you what this great city was like when I was a boy but little older than yourself, and I hope I have succeeded in interesting you somewhat. I have begun with my earliest recollections of New York and I will leave it now about 1856 when the population was only 629,810…It is estimated now at over 1,500,000.

I cannot help looking forward and wondering, if it can possibly be that you can tell of as great changes. It is my firm belief that you will be able to do so and that you will live to see the entire island as thickly built as it is now below 59th St. and perhaps the district above the Harlem also. Or it may be that you will see changes that I don’t even dream of, although my faith in the future of New York is unbounded…I hope you will sometimes enjoy reading what has given me so much pleasure to write for you.

Your loving Uncle Gene

First hand accounts like these are sparks of New York life.  Many writers, including Charles Dickens, William Thackeray, Herman Melville, Edith Wharton, E.B. White and Joseph Mitchell, have illuminated the city, but the words of New Yorkers outside of literary circles, people like Gene Schermerhorn, are often equally eloquent and distinctive. Unlike histories, contemporary diary entries, letters, and other eyewitness accounts offer a view of New York life that is umblemished by the sensibilities of a later time. Read the rest of this entry »

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The Federal Writers’ Project (FWP): The Gift to New York City That Keeps on Giving

July 14, 2012 in Bibliopedia by Barbara Cohen | No comments

The Works Progress Administration (WPA), President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s plan to put millions of unemployed Americans back to work, initially focused on modernizing and building the country’s roads, highways, dams, bridges, and government offices.  Responding to pressure from artistic groups that also wanted to be included in the plan, a program called Federal One was set up to fund people in the arts to work in their craft. Federal One had five divisions—writing, art, music, theater, and a historic records survey.  The writing division was called The Federal Writers’ Project (FWP). Read the rest of this entry »

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New York in the 1850′s

March 9, 2012 in Bibliopedia by Barbara Cohen | 5 comments

View of Wall Street, from the corner of Broad Street, 1850 (from The Historical Atlas of New York City)

Question:  I am writing a novel set in New York in the 1850’s.  Can you suggest books and other resources to use in my research?

The transformation of New York City during the first half of the nineteenth century was both rapid and dramatic.  A visitor to New York after the Revolutionary War would find a close-knit settlement at the southern tip of Manhattan rebounding from the devastating British occupation. A visitor returning in the 1850’s would discover a new metropolis comparable to London or Paris. The legendary heartbeat of the city was now palpable.

…the wharfs…are a scene of indescribable bustle from morning to night, with ships arriving and sailing, ships loading and unloading, and emigrants pouring into the town in an almost incessant stream…. (Isabella Byrd, 1854, in Mirror for Gotham, p. 159)

…Nothing and nobody seems to stand still for half a moment in New York, the multitudinous omnibuses which drive like insane vehicles from morning till night appear not to pause to take up their passengers…. (Travels in the U.S. during 1849 and 1850)

Here, was a quarter of a mile of ‘hardware’ warehouses; here, as great a length of ‘cassimeres and woolen good stores; here a few hundred yards of ‘straw-bonnet stores’; and there, a whole street devoted to ‘leather stores’ and leather findings.’  It seemed as if almost every kind of supply had its chief quarter in the city. … New York is not merely a “ commercial city” …she is largely engaged in manufactures of various kinds,—indeed more so than any other city in America.  (Mirror for Gotham, pp132-133) Read the rest of this entry »

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Knife and Fork in New York

January 21, 2012 in Bibliopedia by Barbara Cohen | No comments

Two of the restaurants participating in New York’s 2012 Winter Restaurant Week (which actually spans three weeks from January 16 through February 10), have stood the test of time and are celebrating numerous decades of serving food to hungry New Yorkers, namely, Delmonico’s and the “21″ Club.  An obsession with dining in our fair city, however, is a tradition that dates much farther back in our history, to the early days of Dutch settlement, before New York was a city at all or was even called such. Read the rest of this entry »

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Ask Barbara: Why are there two series of books called “Valentine’s Manuals”?

January 7, 2012 in Bibliopedia by Barbara Cohen | 1 comment

David T. Valentine and a cover from the second series of his manual, edited by Henry Collins Brown (image: gvshp.org)

The volumes in this series are officially titled The Manual of the Corporation of the City of New York, but commonly called “Valentine’s Manuals” for David T. Valentine, the clerk of the Common Council.  Valentine was instructed to compile the volumes that included the city’s annual reports and directories.  Valentine thus became the first person to preserve New York City’s records.  The manuals were published from 1841/2 until Valentine’s death in 1866.  There was no volume for 1867 and the following year, the manuals resumed publication for a few years under successive clerks—Joseph Shannon (1868 and 1869) and John Hardy (1870). Read the rest of this entry »

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A Backward Glance: Firsthand Accounts from Diaries, Autobiographies and Memoirs

December 10, 2011 in Bibliopedia by Barbara Cohen | No comments

"St. George's" by Gene Schermerhorn

In 1888, Gene Schermerhorn, a member of an old New York family, ended a series of letters to his young nephew in the finest spirit of personal recollections:

Now my dear Phil I have tried to tell you what this great city was like when I was a boy but little older than yourself, and I hope I have succeeded in interesting you somewhat. I have begun with my earliest recollections of New York and I will leave it now about 1856 when the population was only 629,810…It is estimated now at over 1,500,000.

I cannot help looking forward and wondering, if it can possibly be that you can tell of as great changes. It is my firm belief that you will be able to do so and that you will live to see the entire island as thickly built as it is now below 59th St. and perhaps the district above the Harlem also. Or it may be that you will see changes that I don’t even dream of, although my faith in the future of New York is unbounded…I hope you will sometimes enjoy reading what has given me so much pleasure to write for you.

Your loving Uncle Gene Read the rest of this entry »

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Question: What is the Stokes Iconography?

November 1, 2011 in Bibliopedia by Barbara Cohen | No comments

Answer:

The Iconography of Manhattan Island is considered the single most important work on New York by many historians.  Its full title is The Iconography Of Manhattan Island 1498 to 1909 compiled from original sources and illustrated with photo-intaglio reproductions of important maps, plans, views and documents in public and private collections.  I.N. Phelps Stokes in six volumes, folio-size, and published by R.H. Dodd. Read the rest of this entry »

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Bottoms Up!: Drinking (and one hiccup) in Old New York

October 25, 2011 in Bibliopedia by Barbara Cohen | No comments

Contoits Garden, opened in 1858, was one of the popular “pleasure gardens” of New York City that served refreshments of all kinds, including, of course, alcoholic beverages.

The release of Ken Burns and Lynn Novick’s new documentary Prohibition that recently aired on PBS has served as a reminder to Americans how deeply rooted the consumption of  alcoholic beverages has always been in our social and political history.  The culture of drinking in pre-Volstead Act New York is well documented in writings that go as far back as the first European settlers in our great city. Read the rest of this entry »

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