Monday, December 26, 2011

early-modern science

It's generally pretty easy to distinguish fantasy from reality. We can tell the difference between intuited knowledge and knowledge gained through observation and careful measurement. We know that magicians perform tricks without aid from (probably diabolical) higher powers. Astrology and astronomy are to us two very different things; so too alchemy and chemistry, numerology and mathematics. But a few hundred years ago these distinctions were fuzzier.

As late medieval merged into early modern times, European men (almost always just men) started to correct serious mistakes that earlier generations had made about the natural world around them and the celestial bodies above. Some of these mistakes stemmed from religious beliefs, others from the writings of the ancient Greek philosophers and their successors. By questioning received authority, carefully examining natural phenomena, making complex mathematical calculations, and faithfully recording their findings these men transformed a scholastic philosophy into a new natural philosophy. The intellectual freedom achieved by this practice of scientific demonstration (as some of them were beginning to call it) was revolutionary in its magnitude, but not in the speed with which it took place.

Just as the transition from scholasticism and faith-based cosmology was evolutionary, so too the transition from belief in astrology, alchemy, and an ability to communicate with supernatural powers as legitimate tools for interacting with the natural world. Surprisingly, this second transition — scientists' rejection of hermetic beliefs — was even more gradual than their rejection of received truth from ancient authorities and of religious superstition (the "vain religion" of the schoolmen, as one of them put it).[1]

The men whom we now call scientists would study the real world using careful observation and rigorous measurement, but they would also, for example, use astrology to cast one another's natal charts. And the men and women who paid the bills — aristocratic or even royal patrons, wealthy merchants, and large land owners — expected their scientist clients to produce marvels — things out of the ordinary — to show off to their friends. Or, just as likely, they expected predictions of future events that might be advantageous to them.

On the sheet of paper I've reproduced below Galileo Galilei sketched the beginnings of a birth chart for a patron, Cosimo II, which Galileo used to show that Cosimo's future was an auspicious one. At the bottom of the page he drew the moon in its waxing phase at it appeared on January 19, 1609.

{Galileo’s sketch of the waxing Moon, as viewed on 19th January 1609 through his x20 telescope, on the same sheet as his first draft of the Cosimo II de Medici nativity; source: The Inspiration of Astronomical Phenomena, Proc. of 4th INSAP Conference, Oxford, Ed. N. Campion, Bristol 2004}

There are other instances of this service of natural philosophers to those they wished to flatter. For example Johannes Kepler created horoscopes for the Holy Roman Emperor, Rudolf II, and Tycho Brahe made annual charts for the Danish king, Fredrik, and the royal princes. Here is one of the birthday charts that Tycho Brahe made for Prince Christian in 1577.

{source: tychobrahesverden.dk}

Early modern natural philosophers and mathematicians would also prepare genitures for themselves and their friends. Without at first recognizing what they were, I encountered these tables when working in manuscript collections containing correspondence among Isaac Newton and other prominent mathematicians of the late seventeenth century. I also noticed that a writer of brief biographies, like the gossipy John Aubrey, might inquire about the exact moment of a man's birth, not having reason to do so except the making of an accurate birth chart for him.

{Detail from the entry for John Collins in "Brief lives", chiefly of contemporaries by John Aubrey, ed. by Andrew Clark, Andrew, Volume: 1 (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1898)}

The Elizabethan magus, John Dee, presents an extreme example of a mathematician and astronomer who was also a self-proclaimed astrologer, alchemist, and practitioner of magic arts. Dee, among many other similar works, cast a horoscope to determine a favorable day for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth.[2] Here's a chart that John Dee made for himself.

{Natal chart made for himself by John Dee; source: C.U.R.A. The International Astrology Research Center}

Here's a final example of belief in astrology, astronomy, and magic persisting alongside the new natural philosophy. In the mid-1650s a man named John Webster (not the famous author but a chaplain of Parliamentarian forces in the English Civil War) wrote a book criticising the archaic curriculum of the English universities. In it he said the subjects taught were hopelessly — indeed dangerously — out-of-date and devoid of usefulness. Rather than forcing students to learn dead languages or memorize the writings of Aristotle and other ancient and more recent scholastic authors, he says they should be taught mathematics and experimental science.[3]

Webster says "Surely natural Philosophy hath a more noble, sublime, and ultimate end, than to rest in speculation, abstractive notions, mental operations, and verball disputes: for as it should lead us to know and understand the causes, properties, operations and affections of nature..." He acclaims applied mathematics — which, he points out, benefits merchants, mariners, surveyors, mechanics and others — and he condemns theoretical mathematics as merely speculative and abstract.[4] He heaps praise on chemistry, physics, and medicine as subjects of study that are "sublime, and never sufficiently praised."

But he gives as much in the way of accolades to the esoteric subjects of magic, alchemy, and astrology. He calls magic a "noble, and almost devine Science." To him, alchemy is "the most admirable and soul-ravishing knowledge of the three great Hypostatical principles of nature." And astrology is "high, noble, excellent, and useful." As you see in this extract, he lets himself be carried away on the subject.

{transcription: "What shall I say of the Science or art of Astrology, shall the blind fury of Misotechnists, and malicious spirits deter me from giving it the commendations that it deserves? shall the Acadamies who have not only sleighted and neglected it, but also scoffed at it, terrifie me from expressing my thoughts of so noble and beneficial a Science? shall the arguments of Picus Mirandula, and others, who have bitterly inveighed against it, fright me from owning the truth? shall the thundering Pulpit men, who would have all mens faith pinned upon their sleeves, and usually condemn all things they understand not, make me be silent in so just a cause? No truly, I must needs defend that which my judgment evidences to me to be laudable, and profitable; not but that I utterly condemn the ignorance, knavery, and impostorage of many pretending Sciolists, that abuse the same; but shall the art of medicine or Chymistry be condemned, and rejected, because many ignorant Empericks and false Alcumists do profess them? Surely no, let the blame be upon the protestors, not upon the profession it self. For the art it self is high, noble, excellent and useful to all mankind, and is a study not unbeseeming the best wits, and greatest Scholars, and no way offinsive to God or true Religion. And therefore I cannot, without detracting from worth and vertue, pass without a due Eulogy in the commendation of my learned and industrious Countrymen, Mr. Ashmole, Mr. William Lilly, Mr. Booker, Mr. Sanders, Mr. Culpepper, and others, who have taken unwearied pains for the resuscitation and promotion of this noble Science, and with much patience against many unworthy scandals have laboured to propagate it to posterity, and if it were not beyond the present scope I have in hand, I should have given sufficient reasons in the vindication of Astrology." [Acad. Examen, p. 51]; source: Academiarum examen, or the examination of academies wherein is discussed and examined the matter, method and customes of academick and scholastick learning by John Webster (Calvert, 1654)}

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Some sources:

"Celestial Offerings: Astrological Motifs in the Dedicatory Letters of Kepler's Astronomia Nova and Galileo's Sidereus Nuncius" by H. Darrel Rutkin in Secrets of nature: astrology and alchemy in early modern Europe ed. by Anthony Grafton (MIT Press, 2001)

Galileo's Astrology by Nick KIollerstrom on skyscript.co.uk

How Galileo Dedicated the Moons of Jupiter to Cosimo II de Medici by Nick Kollerstrom, The Inspiration of Astronomical Phenomena, Proc. of 4th INSAP Conference, Oxford, Ed. N. Campion, Bristol 2004, pp. 165-181.

Tycho Brahe och Astrology

John Dee's "Mathematicall Praeface": A Sixteenth Century Classification of the Mathematical Arts and Sciences by Charles St. Clair, Norman

The Mathematicall Praeface to Elements of Geometrie of Euclid of Megara by John Dee from Sir Henry Billingsley's first English version of Euclid's Elements, 1570

Isaac Newton and the Transmutation of Alchemy An Alternative View of the Scientific Revolution by Philip Ashley Fanning (North Atlantic Books, 2009)

Academiarum examen, or the examination of academies, wherein is discussed and examined the matter, method and customes of academick and scholastick learning by John Webster (London, Printed for Giles Calvert, 1654)

"Education" by J.W. Adamson in The Cambridge history of English literature , in 18 Volumes (1907–21) Volume IX, From Steele and Addison to Pope and Swift ed. by Adolphus Ward and Alfred Waller (Cambridge, the University Press, 1912)

"Brief lives", chiefly of contemporaries by John Aubrey, ed. by Andrew Clark, Andrew, Volume: 1 (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1898)

"Brief Lives" by John Aubrey, ed. by Andrew Clark (Oxford, At the Clarendon Press, 1898)

Biographies in John Aubrey's Brief Lives

Only 26 and already a professor! in Renaissance Mathematicus

"Scientific Studies in the English Universities of the Seventeenth Century" by Phyllis Allen, Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 10, No. 2 (Apr., 1949) Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2707416

"John Dee" by Thompson Cooper in Dictionary of national biography ed. by Leslie Stephen and Sidney Lee (Smith, Elder, & co., 1888)

"John Dee and His Supplication to Queen Mary" by P. Evans Lewin, Woolwich Public Libraries in The Library world, Vol. 5 (Library Supply Co., 1903) Extract: 'Whilst at Cambridge he only slept four hours every night, and spent eighteen hours of the day in study. So great was his knowledge, that his acquaintance was eagerly sought by such men as Gemma Frisius, Mercator, and Gaspar a Mirca, all of whom he visited in his twentyfirst year. Even at this period he was looked on askance, for he relates that in 1547 he "sett forth" at Trinity College a Greek comedy of Aristophanes, " with the performance of the Scarabaeus, his flying up to Jupiter's palace with a man and his basket of victuals on her back, whereat was great wondering and many vain reports spread about." This, probably, was only a piece of stage mechanism suitable to the crude ideas of the time and in keeping with Greene's instructions in "Tamburlaine "—" exit Venus; or if you can conveniently let a chair come down from the top of the stage and draw her up."'

"The Mistaking of 'the Mathematicks' for Magic in Tudor and Stuart England" by J. Peter Zetterberg in The Sixteenth Century Journal, Vol. 11, No. 1 (Spring, 1980), pp. 83-97. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2539477

"Science and Education in the Seventeenth Century: The Webster-Ward Debate" by G. Allen; reviewed by Theodore M. Brown in Isis, Vol. 64, No. 3 (Sep., 1973), pp. 422-424. (The University of Chicago Press) Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/229755

Hermeticism in wikipedia

John Aubrey in wikipedia

Brief Lives in wikipedia

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Notes:

[1] The quote comes from Academiarum examen, or the examination of academies, wherein is discussed and examined the matter, method and customes of academick and scholastick learning by John Webster (London, Printed for Giles Calvert, 1654)

[2] "John Dee" by Thompson Cooper in Dictionary of national biography ed. by Leslie Stephen and Sidney Lee (Smith, Elder, & co., 1888)

[3] Webster's diatribe was criticized by scholars who pointed to instances where the universities were teaching the new subjects. But as Phyllis Allen and others have pointed out the chief emphasis of education at Oxford and Cambridge remained as it had been. Mathematics and natural philosophy were emphatically secondary subjects of education. "As a rule, the tutor rather than the college had the greatest influence upon the student's work. A good tutor could do much for his pupil by making wise choices in the question of reading matter. Most tutors were not interested in the new experimental sciences, and some even overlooked the work of ancient scientists. One Cambridge tutor insisted that 'Mathematics and Natural Philosophy [were] not to be hurried.' Judging by the small amount of either that the average student seems to have learned, most tutors must rarely have found time to pursue these studies in an unhurried manner. ... Aside from these classics [Aristotle, Ptolomy, Euclid, ...] there were a few modern texts available. In algebra, the more advanced undergraduate could read Thomas Hariot's Artis Analyticae Praxis (London, 1631), in which he introduced Francis Vieta's methods to England. In arithmetic, a popular text was Edmund Wingate's Arithmetique Made Easie (London, 1630). For geometry, Henry Billingsley's translation of Euclid was used, together with Christopher Clavius' commentaries upon the same author, and John Speidell's Geometrical Extraction (London, 1616), which John Aubrey says "made young men have a love to geometry." -- "Scientific Studies in the English Universities of the Seventeenth Century" by Phyllis Allen, Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 10, No. 2 (Apr., 1949) Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2707416

[4] Webster cites John Dee as a main source for his comments on the value of applied mathematics and praises him as "that myrror of manifold learning." -- Academiarum examen, or the examination of academies, wherein is discussed and examined the matter, method and customes of academick and scholastick learning by John Webster (London, Printed for Giles Calvert, 1654)

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Mrs. Collins

I've been studying the life and works of a man who lived in the middle half of the seventeenth century. He was sufficiently well known to have been written up by a succession of biographers, but their sources of information are paltry and all their accounts are necessarily brief. This late example can stand for all: Collins, John (1625-1683) by Agnes Mary Clerke in the Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 11.

Collins rarely wrote about himself and his family. This paragraph in the draft of a lengthy letter on mathematical topics is one of only a few brief accounts.

{Extract from a letter of John Collins to Dr. John Beale, August 20, 1672. Beale was one of the earliest fellows elected to the Royal Society in the early 1660s. Transcription: "I married the younger daughter of two only children of Mr. Wm. Austin, who, being one of his Majesty's cooks, when P. of Wales, was, by Dr. Wilkins' means, made and continued master cook of Wadham college in Oxford, during the late troubles, and is now master cook, to his Majesty, of the Lord s k[itchen]. I live at my said father-in-law's house in Petty [France], W[estminster], over against the Adam and Eve. He is now in Cheshire with his other daughter, and may return, if God please, a little after Michaelmas. Whilst in Oxford he was much esteemed for his great skill in simpling, gardening, planting trees, flowers, &c. which I mention, as understanding your good knowledge and delight therein."}

He fathered seven children, about whom nothing is known. He numbered them only once, in a letter dated May 23, 1677, to a parish priest whose skill in mathematics he admired. Five years later he said that even in 1672 he had "a great family to maintain," meaning wife and children.[1]

This latter statement was a report of a request he made that the government pay him arrears in salary and pension that were owed. Here's the relevant section in the clerk's "secretary" hand.

{Source: Manuscripts of Lord Montagu of Beaulieu at Beaulieu House. Transcription: "In June 1670 Collins was employed as chief Clerke in the Councill of Plantations under Mr Slingesby as Secretary, who promised to procure the said Collins a Salary of 200£ per annum, but a Committee of the Councill would agree to allow no more than 150£, and was so ill paid that at Michaelmas 1672 there was about 300£ due to him, he having a great family to maintain, was necessitated to coame that and seeke other employments for obtaining a livelyhood, and happy it was he then lost it, in regard others so employed, have been so ill paid, and Collins hath yet owing to him on that account 150£. Moreover whilst Collins was there employed he kept most of the Bookes, which are many, his hand Writing being better liked that others."}

We don't know the date of his wedding, but if Collins had a great family to maintain in 1672 he must have been married some years before then. He can't have married while serving on shipboard in the Mediterranean (1642-49) so it's reasonable to suppose the event took place in the 1650s. Still, I think the early 1660s are a better guess.

We know for sure that the event took place before April 23, 1663, because on that date a mathematical practitioner wrote to Collins and in closing he sent his "respects to yourself and Mrs. Collins." I think it would have taken place after the summer of 1660. That was when her father was appointed a chief cook to the King. That job brought him and his family to London from Oxford and Collins was then in London and had been for some time.

Regardless of their wedding date, we can be sure that Collins and his wife were happily married because the correspondent goes on to style her as his "second self." The phrase suggests that the author, Michael Dary, perceived an unusually close relationship between man and wife. It was used by others in Collins' time (and later) but as between friends not marriage partners. You can see this in the examples given in the Oxford English Dictionary. And you guess how infrequently such closeness was apparent between man and wife in reading the forceful admonition of William Penn, speaking out against the usual practices of his time: "But in Marriage do thou be wise; prefer the Person before Money, Vertue before Beauty, the Mind before the Body: Then thou hast a Wife, a Friend, a Companion, a Second Self; one that bears an equal Share with thee in all thy Toyls and Troubles."[2]

At the time Collins married, both he and his fiancée were modestly well off, "middling" in the terminology of the time. Afterwards his personal finances advanced and declined in a pattern similar to the fluctuations of the finances of the royal court and, at the time of his death in 1683, he was owed quite a bit in suspended pension and other deferred government payments.[3]

His wife's name was Bellona. As he says in the letter quoted above, she was the younger of two daughters, born into a small family that was headed by a master chef, William Austin. During her youth William Austin was, first, the chief cook in the kitchen of the Prince of Wales — Charles, eldest son of king Charles I — and then, during the years of the Civil War and Commonwealth, chief cook in the kitchen at Oxford's Wadham College.[4] When Charles became King Charles II, Austin was appointed his chief cook of the "household" kitchen. The household kitchen was "below stairs" and it fed not the King and those who dined at his table, but rather all others who ate at the king's expense: staff, courtiers, hangers-on, and even members of the House of Lords when they gathered in Parliament.[5]

By the time of her father's appointment to serve the king Bellona was probably of an age at which she have been expected to seek a husband and start a family. We don't know when she met John Collins. It's likely they encountered one another in the late 1630s, during her father's service to the Prince of Wales. Then in his teens, Collins was employed as a "servant's servant" to help John Marr, who was clerk in the kitchen where Bellona's father was master cook. If not Bellona herself, Collins certainly was acquainted with William Austin at that time. Whether or not they met when young, they're likely, as I say, to have bonded sometime after August 1660 when Austin returned from Oxford to London on his appointment as head of the new King's household kitchen.[6]

Not long after the time I suppose the two to have begun courting, Bellona sought and received appointment as a laundress for the intended wife of King Charles. The treaty of marriage was signed June 23, 1661, but the royal wedding did not take place (in three ceremonies) until the following spring. Bellona received her appointment in between, on November 14, 1661. It was no menial position. She was "laundress of the board" and her job was both to supervise and to some degree carry out the cleaning and pressing of the queen's table linen. There were two other laundresses of the board: one of the king's "privy" table and another of the household. The three had help from at least four pages, probably more, as well as a yeoman and a couple of grooms. Since meals consumed at the queen's table were smaller than at the household table and both smaller and less elaborate than at the king's table, Bellona would have needed less of this help than the other two.[7]

Not surprisingly, the salary of the laundress of the queen's board was a few pounds lower than that of the two others. It does not seem like very much money at all — £18 5s a year — but it was supplemented by "board wages," or money paid out in lieu of room and board and these board wages may have enhanced her income quite a bit. The amount of her board wages isn't recorded, but when in 1685 the board wages of the laundress to the household table were stopped, her salary was increased to £120. If Bellona's total income from her job was even approaching £100 a year she was doing quite well by standards of the time. In fact she would be doing very well whether she was then a single woman living at home or a newly married one setting up her own household.[8]

Competition for the position was intense. After Charles was crowned he and his court officers were inundated with requests from people who had suffered by their adherence to the royal cause during the Civil War and Commonwealth period. This extract from the Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, for May 1662, shows three formal requests for the job.[9]


The three were occasioned by the wedding of Charles and Catherine in Lisbon by proxy in April 1662. The petitioners evidently did not know (or did not care) that Bellona had received her appointment half a year before. The record of her appointment is laconic.[10]


As a child of the royal household Bellona would have grown up with many of the people with whom she now served. However she would not have been personally known to any of the high officers of the court, and their reference to her as "Mary, jun." shows that they did not know her given name (presumably in their ignorance they used her mother's name — hence the "jun.").

Although most single women were in the workforce, few had jobs as well paying as Bellona's. No matter how much her family connection may have helped her, she herself must have both vigorously pursued the job and shown herself worthy of holding it.[11]

We don't know what Bellona looked like, but this Dutch painting probably gives a reasonably good idea of her clothing and the work she performed.


{Washerwoman by Gabriel Metsu, ca. 1660s; source: wikipedia (National Museum, Warsaw)}

In Bellona's time one laundered table linen by boiling and washing with soap. The laundresses used lye to remove stains and sunlight or bluing to whiten. They hung or spread linens to dry and then used either "smoothers" or heated irons to flatten the fabric and give it a pleasant sheen. Once smoothed, the linens would be placed in a press such as the one shown below. The press would impart attractive folds.

{This press is in collections of the Wawel Royal Castle, Cracow.}

Not an ordinary meal, this shows the coronation banquet for James II, the successor of Charles II. You can see the folds in the linen at table ends.


This enlarged detail shows the folds more plainly.


Here are, at left, a glass English linen smoother and, at right, a detail from a medieval painting showing linen folds in a more ordinary meal at the king's table.[12]

{The right hand image is a detail from a medieval painting (Histoire d'Olivier de Castille et d'Artus d'Algarbe, Paris, BnF). I couldn't find an example from Bellona's time. Source of both images: oldandinteresting.com}

These two images also give a general idea of Bellona's appearance. The first shows an English housewife in the time of Bellona's childhood and the second shows a Dutch servant of the time when she'd become an adult. She may have looked something like the first when she dressed at her best and something like the second when at work.

{On the left: Drawing of an Englishwoman by Wenceslaus Hollar, circa 1645; source: English Costume Painted & Described by Dion Clayton Calthrop (Adam & Charles, London, 1907). On the right: Detail from A Woman Reading a Letter by Gabriel Metsu, ca. 1662 (Dutch); source: Nicole Kipar's Late 17th Century Clothing History}

Of the clothes worn by working women in the reign of Charles II, one source says: "The poorer classes were not, of course, dressed in hooped skirts, but the bodice and gown over the petticoat, the apron, and the turned back cuff to the short sleeve were worn by all. The orange wench laced her gown neatly, and wore a white cloth tied over her head; about her shoulders she wore a kerchief of white, and often a plain frill of linen at her elbows."

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Some sources:

An introduction to merchants accounts : containing five distinct questions or accounts by John Collins (London, Printed by James Flesher for Nicholas Bourn, 1653, 2d ed 1664)

Report on the manuscripts of Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, Great Britain. Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts (Printed for H. M. Stationary off., by Mackie & co. ld., 1900) and the MSS original from Beaulieu

The Personal Rule of Charles I by Kevin Sharpe (Yale University Press, 1996)

The Later Stuart Royal Household 1660–1714 in 'Chronological Survey 1660-1837: The Later Stuart Household, 1660-1714', Office-Holders in Modern Britain: Volume 11 (revised): Court Officers, 1660-1837 (2006), pp. LXXVI-XCVIII. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=43757 Date accessed: 09 December 2011

'Introduction: Administrative structure and work', Office-Holders in Modern Britain: Volume 11 (revised): Court Officers, 1660-1837 (2006), pp. XX-XXXVII. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=43751 Date accessed: 09 December 2011.

The King's Servants: the Civil Service of Charles I, 1625–1642, by G.E. Aylmer (London, 1961)

The Database of Court Officers 1660-1837 R. O. Bucholz, Project Director. The Database of Court Officers is an online computer database providing the career histories of every remunerated officer and servant of the English royal household from the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660 to the accession of Queen Victoria in 1837.

Calendar of state papers / Domestic series / Reign of Charles II, 1661-1662 ed. by Mary Anne Everett Green (Longman, Green, Longman, & Roberts, 1861)

Some fruits of solitude by William Penn (London, Printed for Thomas Northcott, 1693, reprinted: S. T. Freemantle, 1900)

The Life and Times of John Wilkins Warden of Wadham College, Oxford; Master of Trinity College, Cambridge; and Bishop of Chester by P. A. Wright Henderson (William Blackwood and Sons
Edinburgh and London, 1910)

Calendar of State Papers, domestic series, of the reign of Charles II 1660-1685 (Longman, Green, Longman, & Roberts, 1861)

Calendar of state papers, domestic series, of the reign of Charles II: preserved in the state paper department of Her Majesty's Public Record Office, Volume 1 (Longman, Green, Longman & Roberts, 1860)

Correspondence of scientific men of the seventeenth century: including letters of Barrow, Flamsteed, Wallis, and Newton, printed from the originals in the collection of the Right Honourable the Earl of Macclesfield, Vol. 1, compiled by Stephen Jordan Rigaud (Oxford, the University Press, 1841)

Correspondence of scientific men of the seventeenth century, including letters of Barrow [&c.] in the collection of the earl of Macclesfield, Vol. 2, compiled by Stephen Jordan Rigaud (Oxford, the University Press, 1841)

Some fruits of solitude by William Penn (London, Printed for Thomas Northcott, 1693, reprinted: S. T. Freemantle, 1900)

English Costume Painted & Described by Dion Clayton Calthrop (Adam & Charles, London, 1907)

History of laundry on oldandinteresting.com

Prospects and preliminary work on female occupational structure in England from
1500 to the national census
by Jacob Field and Amy Erickson (University of Cambridge). Extract: "The assessments for the 1666 Hearth Tax for the City of London, abstracted by Jacob Field for his doctoral thesis on the Great Fire, illustrates this approach but also show its difficulties. This listing was drawn up by a number of different assessors, not all of whom recorded occupations. The total sample of householders was 11,195, 1,661 of whom were female. Around ten per cent of females had their occupation recorded, representing 177 individuals, compared to around 20 per cent of males, representing 1,888 individuals. As table 1 shows, the data is slightly skewed towards the upper end of the socio-economic spectrum – particularly vastly underestimating the proportion of females engaged in service." (See table p.6)

Identifying women's occupations in early modern London by Amy Erickson. Abstract: "This paper is a preliminary survey of three sources for women's occupations in eighteenth-century London: apprenticeships in the city livery companies; the registers of Christ's Hospital showing apprenticeships; and the records of testimony in the Old Bailey. There is currently only one article in print on the female occupational geography of London in this period (P. Earle, 1989), based on testimony in church court records. In the sources examined here, women worked largely in public, trading and production occupations. This profile is substantially different from the preponderance of domestic service and making/mending textiles which appears in the church court records."

"Never Married: Singlewomen in Early Modern England Never Married: Singlewomen in Early Modern England by Amy M Froide; review by: Retha M Warnicke" Renaissance Quarterly, Vol. 59, No. 2 (Summer 2006), pp. 622-623 Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Renaissance Society of America; Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1353/ren.2008.0342
Froide says that about a third of English women were single during the middle years of the seventeenth century. Many stayed unmarried, but most eventually, like Bellona Austin, did marry. Social norms made it difficult for them to support themselves, but many did nonetheless. Excerpt: "singlewomen, like all women at this time, were considered physically and emotionally inferior to men in a patriarchal society that disadvantaged them in comparison to men of their class or status, especially in regard to wealth, earning power and access to high status public office."

"Singlewomen in the European past, 1250-1800 by Judith Bennett; Amy Froide; review by June Purvis" The English Historical Review, Vol. 115, No. 461 (Apr., 2000), pp. 443-444Published by: Oxford University Press; Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/579115

"Hilda L. Smith. All Men and Both Sexes: Gender, Politics, and the False Universal in England, 1640-1832, review by: Deborah Valenze" The American Historical Review, Vol. 109, No. 1 (February 2004), pp. 251-252 Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the American Historical Association; Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/530280

Catherine of Braganza (Queen) in the Diary of Samuel Pepys

Catherine of Braganza

Catherine of Braganca (1638 - 1705) on h2g2 by Not Panicking Ltd

Catherine of Braganza, in Wikipedia

Queen Catherine of Braganza Website of the Queen's Royal Surrey Regiment

C17th England: Catherine of Braganza on themakeupgallery

Portrait of Catherine of Braganza by Mary Ellyn Kunz on the web site of Pennsbury Manor Volunteers

Catherine of Braganza on Tea at Trianon by Elena Maria Vidal.

Catherine of Braganza (1638-1705) by Heidi Murphy on Britannia.com

Catherine of Braganza by Thomas Frederick Tout in the Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 09
Catherine of Braganza

Early modern England 1485-1714 by R. O. Bucholz and Newton Key (John Wiley and Sons, 2009)

---------

Notes:

[1] The priest was Thomas Baker who held the living at Bishop's Nympton, Devon, and, as an avocation of course, was an excellent mathematician. On May 23 1677 Collins wrote him this. "I have yours of the 23d of April, and have been dilatory in answering. The truth of it is, it hath been my misfortune to be concerned in public employments, as in the Council of Plantations, &c., wherein I have not been paid, and have great arrears due to me, for want whereof I am almost ruined; and having a numerous family to maintain, to wit, a wife, and seven small children, I am forced to undertake such occasional business as offers, and by consequence to neglect a correspondence with the learned, which, though unworthy, I much covet. Sir Jonas Moore being a surveyor of the Stores and Ordnance, and now naval preparations going on, he is much in journeys and absent, so that I can give you no account as yet of your labours going to the press, though I much wish I could, and shall omit no endeavours to hasten." -- Correspondence of scientific men of the seventeenth century: including letters of Barrow, Flamsteed, Wallis, and Newton, printed from the originals in the collection of the right honourable the Earl of Macclesfield : In two volumes, Volume 2 compiled by Stephen Jordan Rigaud (Oxford, at the University Press, 1841)

[2] Christoph J. Scriba's article on Collins in the DNB says "About 1670 he married Bellona, laundress of the table linen to the queen, and the younger daughter of William Austen, head cook to Charles II; they had seven children." It's strange he gets the wedding date wrong, though all else right. Regarding second self, here is what the OED says:
second self n. a friend who agrees absolutely with one's tastes and opinions, or for whose welfare one cares as much as for one's own.
1586 T. Bowes tr. P. de la Primaudaye French Acad. I. 150 The mightie and inuiolable bond of friendship, as of a second-selfe did constraine him to lend his eare to his friend.
1665 R. Brathwait Comment Two Tales Chaucer (1901) 93, I will offer to your choice two things, wherein please your self, and you shall please me who am your second self.
1778 F. Burney Evelina I. xxvi. 215 As to Miss Mirvan, she is my second self, and neither hopes nor fears but as I do.
1851 E. Bulwer-Lytton Not so Bad i. i. 6 Ha, Softhead! my Pylades—my second self!
transf.
1609 Shakespeare Sonnets lxxiii. sig. E4, Blacke night..Deaths second selfe that seals vp all in rest.
Penn's admonition comes from Some fruits of solitude by William Penn (London, Printed for Thomas Northcott, 1693, reprinted: S. T. Freemantle, 1900). Here is the closing sentence of the letter to Collins by his mathematical practitioner friend, in full:
Not to trouble you further, but my respects to yourself and Mrs. Collins, your second self, I shall only tell you, that if there be any thing wherein I may serve you at Bristol, it shall be endeavoured by
Your engaged friend, Mich. Dary

Bristol, the 23rd
April, 1663.
-- Correspondence of scientific men of the seventeenth century compiled by Correspondence of scientific men of the seventeenth century (Oxford, the University Press, 1841)


[3] Regarding his status as someone "middling" Collins wrote of himself that he was "but a mean person," mean and middling connoting the same standard of living. Regarding money owed him, he was not alone in being stiffed by the government. The court always paid out more than it took in, but periodically the imbalance became so great that economies were necessary and it was these bouts of financial retrenchment that made government employment perilous. Collins did eventually receive some payments that the government owed him but not nearly what was owed. The phrase "but a mean person" appears in: "Narrative of John Collins, 1682," Report on the manuscripts of Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, Great Britain. Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts (Printed for H. M. Stationary off., by Mackie & co. ld., 1900)

[4] William Austin's association with John Wilkins is an interesting one. I suspect they were linked by friendship with John Marr. Wilkins was a scholar at Oxford. Marr was clerk, that is accountant and purchasing officer, in the same royal kitchen where Austin was chief chef. Wilkins and Marr were both eminent mathematicians and, when the royal court was in Oxford they very likely formed an acquaintance. When the position of chef at Wadham College became vacant, it's reasonable to suppose Marr proposed that Wilkens, then head of Wadham, hire the man for the job. It's interesting that Marr had employed Collins as "servant's servant," in this case clerk's assistant, because, though still in his teens, Collins may have met both Bellona Austin as well as John Wilkins at this time. He later wrote: "In my Youth-hood I was employed in Clerk-ship under, and received some Mathematical Knowledge from Mr. John Marr, one of the Clerks of the Kitchin to His Present MAJESTY, when Prince of Wales, the said Mr. Marr being very Eminent for his Mathematical Knowledge, some testimony whereof' may be evinced, from those excellent Dyals, wherewith the Gardens of our Late SOVEREIGN were adorned." -- An introduction to merchants accounts: containing five distinct questions or accounts by John Collins (London, Printed by James Flesher for Nicholas Bourn, 1653, 2d ed 1664)

[5] 'The household below stairs: Household Kitchen', Office-Holders in Modern Britain: Volume 11 (revised): Court Officers, 1660-1837 (2006), pp. 502-509. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=43871 Date accessed: 25 November 2011.

[6] Here's a record of William Austin's appointment as master cook to King Charles II. The date of appointment is only a few weeks after Charles' return from exile.

{source: The Database of Court Officers 1660-1837 R. O. Bucholz, Project Director, an online computer database providing the career histories of every remunerated officer and servant of the English royal household from the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660 to the accession of Queen Victoria in 1837}

This table gives some idea of the extent and varied functions of the ca. 300 staff members "below stairs":

{source: The King's Servants: the Civil Service of Charles I, 1625–1642, by G.E. Aylmer (London, 1961)}

[7] See my list of sources for information about Catherine of Braganza, the royal laundry, and related topics. Bucholz provides a succinct description of the laundry's functions: The Database of Court Officers 1660-1837 R. O. Bucholz, Project Director, an online computer database providing the career histories of every remunerated officer and servant of the English royal household from the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660 to the accession of Queen Victoria in 1837

[8] See the Bucholz database for amounts paid laundry staff members.

[9] Calendar of state papers, domestic series, of the reign of Charles II: preserved in the state paper department of Her Majesty's Public Record Office, Volume 1 (Longman, Green, Longman & Roberts, 1860)

[10] Calendar of state papers, domestic series, of the reign of Charles II: preserved in the state paper department of Her Majesty's Public Record Office, Volume 1 (Longman, Green, Longman & Roberts, 1860)

[11] On single women in the workforce, see entries for Amy Ericson and Amy Froide in the sources list.

[12] Here is this interesting painting in full.

The BnF's caption reads: "Festin d'apparat. Histoire d'Olivier de Castille et d'Artus d'Algarbe, Paris, BnF, Département des manuscrits, Français 12574 fol. 181v. La table d'honneur est isolée sous un dais, tandis que le gros des convives se répartit le long d'une table, dont ils n'occupent qu'un côté. Le ballet des serviteurs est mené par le maître d'hôtel, tandis qu'au buffet et près du prince veillent d'autres officiers de bouche, prêts à répondre à ses moindres désirs. Des musicicens égayent le repas."

Thursday, November 17, 2011

a fire on Reade Street

From time to time I've written about the many occupations of my great-grandfather, Louis Windmuller.[1] During his long life he helped found and manage a surprising number of business ventures — fire insurance, title insurance, banks, and land companies. Despite all this activity (and somewhat more[2]) he never abandoned his first enterprise as a "commission merchant" in an office called Louis Windmuller & Roelker at 20 Reade St. in Manhattan.[3]

Here you see the firm name and a signature on a back check he signed while the business was still young.

{source: stampwants}

The other day a reader left an interesting comment on a post I'd written a year ago about the commission merchant business. Using the handle "codepic," this person wrote:
Hi, I bumped into your blog post because I'm trying to track where my antique trunk is made. I found a parts catalog in here http://www.thisoldtrunk.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=7&products_id=112 from which I found the crystallized tin being described and I guess it's the same type of tin my trunk is made of. Interestingly the parts catalog dates to 1889 and has the address "20 Reade Street, New York". Have you seen any reference to Campfield or Wood family during your research?
The short answer to the question is "no" I do not know of any links between my great-grandfather's commission agent business and the firm of Campfield & Wood. Intrigued by the question I've done some online searching and come up with some interesting finds.

Campfield & Wood was in the business of supplying parts to manufacturers of trunks. Alexander Campfield held a patent for a zinc plating process used in the 1870s on metal trunk coverings like the one you see here with its interesting stamped pattern.

{Small trunk (27 x 14 x 12 in.) having a tin cover over pine wood. The tin is zinc plated by a patterned processing that was (probably) the one patented by Alexander Campfield in 1876; source: Collectors Weekly}

Here are the cover and a couple of pages from the source which codepic cites.


{1889 Campfield and Wood Trunk Parts Catalog, 29 pp, containing illustrations and descriptions of trunk locks, rollers, catches, handles, clamps, stamped metal, etc. Includes tools, trunk tacks, wood, and lining paper.}

Campfield & Wood show up in city directories of the 1870s, including these three.

{Wilson's New York City Copartnership Directory (The Trow City Directory Company, 1879)}


{Gouldings New York city directory (Lawrence G. Goulding., 1877)}


{This entry in a copartnership directory of 1874 shows a couple of silent partners who had lent money to the business; Wilson's New York City Copartnership Directory, John F. Trow, Publisher, H. Wilson, Compiler (Trow City Directory Co., 1874)}

It's interesting that in the 1830s there was a firm called Campfield & Wood & Co., carriage-makers, located not far from 20 Reade St.


I'm sure there's more to be learned about Campfield & Wood, and I'm also sure that that firm and my great-grandfather's occupied offices at 20 Reade St. by coincidence and not from any connection between the two. Apart from street address there's nothing I can find that associates the one with the other.

New York City directories list the two businesses and many of their neighbors, both in the building at 20 Reade Street and in the buildings on either side of them.

The other businesses in their building include a supplier of wrapping paper, a merchant, an individual, one E. B. Higgins, who did not choose to have his occupation listed, and these three:



{source: Trow's Directory, 1872}

Next door at 18 Reade you can find a representative of the San Francisco firm of Murphy, Grant, & Co., the "largest and oldest wholesale dry-goods house on the Pacific Coast."[4] This is an 1896 trade card of Murphy, Grant, & Co. showing that they made the best overalls in the world.

{source: Harmer-Schau Auction Galleries}

Two doors to the east, at 16 Reade, were a manufacturer of pool tables[5] and two agents for the Thomas Manufacturing Co., which made mowers, rakes, and "tillage implements" in Springfield, Ohio. This is an ad for one of the Thomas Mfg. Co.'s seed drilling machines.[6]

{source (as you can see): an eBay auction}

A photoengraver, the National Photo-Engraving Co., occupied space in both 16 and 18 Reade. The firm's specialty was in printing stationery and books rather than the usual reproductions of drawings and paintings. Here is one of their ads, along with a (low-quality) reproduction of the work sample that the ad cites.


On the west side of 20 Reade the occupants were just as various. At 22-26 Reade were a print shop belonging to William P. Atkin, a bookbinder named Louis Gilbert, a purveyor of paper[7], a perfume manufacturer, and manufacturers of water meters and hydraulic power implements. In addition, the Dutch Reformed Church in America had its "Domestic Offices" and a shop at 26 Reade Street. R. Brinkerhoff, the Business Agent, was member of a family which had made its home at that address since the 18th century.[9]

The perfume manufacturer was Theodore Ricksecker who is credited as the first American perfumier.[8] This souvenir comes from the 1884 World Industrial and Cotton Centennial Exposition in New Orleans.

{source: eBay auction}

The water meter and hydraulic power vendors were the same business.[10]



Also at 26 Reade Street was the Baldwin & Gleason Co., makers of celluloid pins and buttons.


There's a lot to be learned about 20 Reade and its neighbors from accounts of a fire that consumed the building next door. The Times gave the event extensive coverage, as you can read here: PERFUME-LADEN SMOKE CHOKES FIRE FIGHTERS; Five Also Badly Hurt at Fierce Blaze on Reade Street. Exploding Celluloid Spreads the Flames Which Burn Out a Five-Story Building and Damage Adjacent Property (New York Times, December 23, 1901). You can read the story here. The City's own fire report is more succinct. It says that on December 22, 1901, a fire destroyed the six-story brick building at 22-26 Reade Street. The fire stared in the sub-basement and extended upwards to the top floor by means of vertical belt shafts (used for powering manufacturing equipment) and the building's elevator shaft.[11] The Times' reporter wrote that the fire caused explosions when it reached the Baldwin & Gleason workshop. "These sounded like the bursting of big firecrackers, but were not of sufficient force to endanger the firemen and others inside the danger lines." The report also says that when the fire reached the Ricksecker establishment on the top two floors, "the odor of perfumes cold be discerned all the way down the block, and the firemen said afterward that ordinary smoke was nothing by comparison to that laden with the sickening smell of musk or even of high-priced colognes."

The Times man found that a man had been working in the sub-cellar early the same morning as the fire and it was presumed he had inadvertently left behind a cigarette stub or burning match behind.

As the fire progressed, he said, "the scene in the alley [behind the building] was probably the most remarkable of the whole fire. This alley is only 25 feet wide. From the fire escapes of buildings on one side it almost possible to reach to those on the other. Firemen swarmed up the escapes, but by the time they reached their positions of vantage the smoke was so dense that they could not be seen a few yards away. To an onlooker at the lower end of the alley it appeared as though they must all be suffocated, but they were not, and relatively few had to stop their work. In a saloon at the corner of the alley and Elm Street the celebrated belt given to John L. Sullivan by popular subscription when he was champion prizefighter of the world was on exhibition. The owners of the place heard of the fire and rushed down town to get out the treasure, which contains 365 diamonds and 15½ pounds of gold."

The Times reporter assures his readers that "the well-known landmark called Cobweb Hall, which has been standing since the memory of the oldest inhabitants began,... was not hurt except by having its walls and interior saturated with the thick smoke." Chances are, the smoke added to the ambience of this hangout. Another Times article described the place: "Rusty silverware, ceilings dusty with cobwebs, bar furniture, tables, and chairs of remote date, old prints on the walls, and Pattullo's name [that of the founder] in silver letters, on the front windows of the hostelry." (NYT, November 16, 1902)[12]

This detail from a panoramic map of Manhattan, made about 1900 shows the block where 20 Reade Street could be found. The building at 22-26 is shown out of scale (much narrower than it actually was). I've marked it in red. In addition I've identified the building at 20 Reade and also put white circles around the locations of "Cobweb Hall" and the saloon where the extravagant John L. Sullivan belt was being displayed.

{Bird's-eye-view of Manhattan and adjacent districts, New York City, New York, ca. 1900, Not drawn to scale; source: Library of Congress}

This detail from a fire insurance map of 1897 shows the block where the fire took place. I've outlined 22-26 Reade in blue and shown the rough locations of the saloon and "Cobweb Hall."

{Insurance maps of the City of New York. Borough of Manhattan. Volume 3. Published by Sanborn Map Co., 11 Broadway, New York. 1904. Source: NYPL Digital Gallery}

------

Some sources:

Collectors Weekly, Small Herringbone tin Trunk with Wood Handles. "Herringbone style tin in great shape. Measures 27" long, 14" wide 12" deep. Pine under the metal. Wooden runners on the bottom are offset, appears to be hand made."

Bird's-eye-view of Manhattan and adjacent districts, New York City, New York, ca. 1900, Not drawn to scale; source: Library of Congress

The Bay of San Francisco, the metropolis of the Pacific Coast and its suburban cities, a history (Lewis Publishing Co., 1892)

Index of wills, inventories, etc. in the office of the Secretary of State prior to 1901 (New Jersey. Dept. of State, 1912)

PERFUME-LADEN SMOKE CHOKES FIRE FIGHTERS; Five Also Badly Hurt at Fierce Blaze on Reade Street. Exploding Celluloid Spreads the Flames Which Burn Out a Five-Story Building and Damage Adjacent Property. New York Times, December 23, 1901. Extract: "Reade Street was the scene of all the excitement that the intricate machinery of the New York Fire Department can arouse at a dangerous conflagration yesterday afternoon. The building at 22, 24, and 26 was completely gutted from its sub-cellar to its roof. Chief Edward F. Croker estimated the losses to be at least $75,000, and the police said that the damage would not be far short of $100,000."

Report of the Fire Department of the City of New York (1902)

Safety Maintenance & Production , Volume 11 Insurance Engineering, Record for the Year 1905 (January 1906)

The Southeastern reporter, Volume 19 (West Pub. Co., 1894)

Index of wills, inventories, etc. in the office of the Secretary of State prior to 1901 (New Jersey. Dept. of State, 1912)

Home furnishing review, Volume 12 (Andrew J. Haire, 1897)

American printer and lithographer (Moore Publishing Co., 1895)

Annual report of the Commissioner of Labor, Issue 11, Part 1 (State Dept. of Labor, 1913)

The International harvester co (United States. Bureau of Corporations, Govt. Print. Off., 1913)

The Pharmaceutical era (New York, D. O. Haynes & Co., 1877)

The Sun. (New York, November 12, 1908)

The book of New York; forty years' recollections of the American metropolis (The Book of New York company, 1912)

The Mission field, Volume 1 (Boards of the Reformed Church in America, 1888)

Bragaws, my blog post dated November 20, 2010

The family of Joris Dircksen Brinckerhoff, 1638 compiled by Richard Brinkerhoff (New York, R. Brinkerhoff, 1887)

Pressure Lamps International

Ricksecker's Perfumes

Report of the Fire Department of the City of New York (1902)

http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/id?1996607

The Trow City Directory Co.'s, formerly Wilson's, copartnership and corporation directory of New York City (Trow, 1874)

The Trow City Directory Co.'s, formerly Wilson's, copartnership and corporation directory of New York City (Trow, 1879)

Gouldings New York city directory (Lawrence G. Goulding., 1877)

The Trow (formerly Wilson's) copartnership and corporation directory of New York City (Trow, 1901)

The Trow (formerly Wilson's) copartnership and corporation directory of New York City (Trow, 1909)

1897/98 LAIN'S DIRECTORY Brooklyn

Wilson's New York City Copartnership Directory, John F. Trow, Publisher, H. Wilson, Compiler (Trow City Directory Co., 1874)

Gouldings New York city directory (Lawrence G. Goulding., 1877)

Wilson's New York City Copartnership Directory (The Trow City Directory Company, 1879)

Longworth's American almanac: New-York register and city directory (T. Longworth, 1837)

------

Notes:

[1] For my posts on the man click the "Louis Windmuller" link in the panel at right. Here are links to the LW&R ones:

[2] His obituary in the Evening Post gave a pretty full run down of his many activities. You can read it here: Louis Windmuller Dead, New York Evening Post, October 20, 1913.

[3] He helped found and manage the Title Guarantee and Trust Company, the German-American insurance Company, the Hide and Leather National Bank, the German Alliance insurance Co., the Maiden Lane Safe Deposit Co. and Maiden Lane Savings Bank, the Bond and Mortgage Guarantee Company, the South Manhattan Realty Co., and the Newtown Savings Bank. Two years before his death Who's who in Finance, Banking, and Insurance (N.Y. 1911) gave the tersest possible summary of his public life:
Windmuller, Louis

Merchant, banker; born Münster, Westphalia, Germany, 1835; educated Gymnasium Carollnum, Münster; came to the United States, 1863; since then resident of New York City; married, New York City, Nov. 23, 1859, Annie Eliza Lefman.

Successfully engaged in business in New York City as a merchant; senior member of the firm of Louis Windmuller & Roelker of New-York and Frankfort-on-the-Main, Germany; president Maiden Lane Savings Bank; first vice-president and director Maiden Lane Safe Deposit Co.; director and one of the founders German- American Insurance Co., Title Guarantee and Trust Co., German Alliance Insurance Co., South Manhattan Realty Co.

Independent; supported Cleveland on tariff issue, and in campaign of 1892, with Carl Schurz and others, formed the German-American Cleveland Union, contributing effectually to the Cleveland success of that year. Supported McKinley on financial issue, 1896; chairman German American Hughes Alliance, aiding in election of Governor Hughes 1908.

Member New York Chamber of Commerce, New York Board of Trade and Transportation (managing director); treasurer Legal Aid Society, giving gratuitously legal aid to helpless strangers. Life member New York Historical Society; member Germanistic Society, Germanic Museum Ass'n of Cambridge, Mass, (vice-president); vice-president Heine Monument Ass'n, Arion Society.

Recreations: Long walks; art and book collector.

Clubs: Merchants', Lotos, Press, Underwriters, New York Athletic, National Arts, Reform (treasurer since 1889).

Contributor on Economic, civic, and financial questions to North American Review, The Forum. Outlook, New York Times, New York Evening Post, New Yorker Staats Zeitung. Meyer's Konversations. Lexicon, the Berlin Nation and other periodicals.

Residence: Woodside, Queens Borough. Office: 20 Reade St., N. Y. City.
[4] This shows the Murphy, Grant, & Co. building in the 1870s.

{From a panorama engraving showing San Francisco by Frederick Hess, 1875}

For more on Murphy, Grant, & Co. see The Bay of San Francisco, the metropolis of the Pacific Coast and its suburban cities, a history (Lewis Publishing Co., 1892)

[5] Wallie Dorr, pool tables. "The sole manufacturer of the Doré [pool] tables is Wallie Dorr, 16 and 18 Reade street, New York, who is also the manufacturer of the novel and fascinating parlor game Loo-Wese, which in a brief period has become one of the best sellers and leaders in the higher class of toy lines." -- Home furnishing review, Volume 12 (Andrew J. Haire, 1897). See also: Wallie Dorr Co., 16-18 Reade st. (George S. Van DeWater, partner) -- Annual report of the Commissioner of Labor, Issue 11, Part 1 (State Dept. of Labor, 1913)

[6] The Thomas Manufacturing Co. also made razors like this one.


And early in the 20th century became known for its "pressure lamps" like this "kerosafe" model.



[7] The Vernon Paper Company were general paper dealers specializing in wrapping papers. See Lockwood's directory of the paper and allied trades, Volume 31 (Vance Pub. Corp., 1905) and Printing trades blue book (A.F. Lewis & Co., 1918) " Wrapping Papers, Vernon, Paul E., &Co. 22-24-26 Reade; tel. Worth 4725"

[8] Here's an ad for Ricksecker perfumes.

{source: vintagefeedsacks.blogspot}

"He is credited to have been the first American to establish a perfumery company, launching his first fragrance in 1868. Over the decades, he became renowned for his rich spice and floral fragrances in perfumes and colognes. His use of pottery and glass, in a variety of shapes, colors, techniques, and sizes were part of the appeal -- then, as is now for collectors." -- Ricksecker's Perfumes

[9] Some of the Brinkerhoff family were neighbors of the Louis Windmuller family in Woodside, Queens. George Brinckerhoff owned a farm a few hundred yards south of the Windmuller land as shown in this property map. George Brinckerhoff was connected to Louis Windmuller's wife, Annie, via Magretia Brinckerhoff who married Theodorus Van Wyck in 1693. Their daughter, Altje Van Wyck married Richard Thorne from whom Annie was directly descended. -- Bragaws on my blog, November 20, 2010.

[10] "The Standard Water Meter Company, successors to the Tuerk Hydraulic Power Company, manufacturers of Water Meters and Motors, are now situated at 22 to 26 Reade street, New York City. Their former place of business was 23 Vandewater street, and It is at the latter address that the factory Is yet situated. The Standard Disk Meter which they are putting upon the market has been approved by the Municipal Water Works Commissioner. It has the very latest improvements, and for accuracy and fine mechanical work they claim it cannot be excelled." -- Sanitary and heating age (Sanitary and Heating Publishing, 1901)

[11] Report of the Fire Department of the City of New York (1902)

[12] Cobweb Hall was popular among actors, professional people, sporting men, and politicians. "Mayor Grant and Mayor Gilroy used to drop in there frequently to discuss city affairs with the other celebrities who frequented the place" and its' second owner himself served as a city alderman at one time (New York Sun, February 18, 1919). A contemporary account says Cobweb Hall was
an aged and dust-encrusted structure, hedged in by the massive growths of a recent day. On a gray November afternoon, when snow threatens, let us enter the "snug," which is reached by a passage in front of an unembellished bar; the absence of all pretension is its charm; and if the tumblers of hot whisky-toddies which subdue the chill in the air with their aroma, are vicious on so cold a day, then here, at least, the vice is in its naked ugliness, without a speck of tinsel to gild it. Cobwebs are stretched across the walls and the ceiling; gauzy seas of them have veiled every object — the pyramids of ale-casks, and the demijohns at the bars. From every corner and crevice the eye meets them depending by their silken threads; but, notwithstanding their plenitude, it would appear less sacrilegious to the custodian to rob an altar of its plate than to destroy one of the finely-spun nets that have given his establishment its name. No one comes here or should come seeking luxury, for it does not exist. The tables and chairs are of plain deal, without cloths or cushions; albeit, they are as strong as the steaming Lochinvar and Dublin punches, that are served to you in glasses, not such as you have been used to, but plenary crystals that hold a generous half-pint. ... Genial sobriety is the rule at "Cobweb Hall," however. Men come through its dingy portals, and while away whole afternoons in sipping the hot toddies, and recalling the past with old friends and acquaintances. The atmosphere itself has an effect in giving the mind a retrospective turn, and in its yellow haze evolve the teeming figures of old times which have seemed almost lost to memory. -- "English Haunts in New York," Appletons journal , Volume 10 (D. Appleton and Co., 1873)

Friday, November 11, 2011

A Veterans' Day remembrance: July 1-3, 1863/1913

This photo shows two survivors of the Battle of Gettysburg. They're attending a massive reunion to commemorate the event, held on the 50th anniversary, July 1-3, 1913.

{Caption: GETTYSBURG REUNION: G.A.R. & U.C.V. (Grand Army of the Republic, United Confederate Veterans); source: Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division}


{Veterans Enrolling Their Names, Commands, and Camps and Home Addresses in One of the Thirty Register Books Located Throughout the Camp; source: Fiftieth Anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg}


{GETTYSBURG REUNION: VETERANS OF THE G.A.R. AND OF THE CONFEDERACY, AT THE ENCAMPMENT; source: Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division}


{Old Time Martial Music For Their Departing Comrades; source: Fiftieth Anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg}

This looks like it shows a reporter preparing a dispatch from the field.

{GETTYSBURG REUNION: G.A.R. & U.C.V.; source: Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division}

There's no information about this photo. I like how, being the same age, the men seem to represent a broad cross section of society — urban & rural, well-dressed & shirt-sleeved, well-preserved & bent with age.

{GETTYSBURG REUNION: G.A.R. & U.C.V.; source: Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division}

This shows Lindley Miller Garrison, the Secretary of War, with Hunter Liggett, then head of the Army War College.

{GETTYSBURG REUNION: G.A.R. & U.C.V. SEC. GARRISON AND COL. LIGGETT, U.S.A.; source: Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division}

Local Boy Scouts served as escorts, aides, and orderlies.

{Boy Scouts - Gettysburg. Photo shows Boy Scouts at the Gettysburg Reunion (the Great Reunion) of July 1913, which commemorated the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg. Source: Flickr Commons project, 2009}


{Helping Their Own Comrade -- "To Rise in the World." (Sometimes Practiced in '61-'65.); source: Fiftieth Anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg}

This photo shows a ceremonial hand shake near the Bloody Angle, which was the culmination of Pickett's Charge.[1]


The Reunion at Bloody Angle[2]

{The reunion at "Bloody Angle" - Pickett's men in for[e]ground; Union men lined against wall. Photo shows the Gettysburg Reunion (the Great Reunion) of July 1913, which commemorated the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg. Source: Flickr Commons project, 2009}

Pickett's Charge

{"Pickett's Charge of July 3, 1913; source: Fiftieth Anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg}

The stone wall at the Bloody Angle.

{The Blue and Gray Side-by-Side on the "Stone Wall"; source: Fiftieth Anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg}

Authentic reënacters of 1913.

{Two Survivors in the Identical Uniforms of Blue and Gray They Wore There in the Battle of July 3rd, 1863; source: Fiftieth Anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg }

Pickett's Men at Bloody Angle

{Pickett's men at Bloody Angle. Photo shows the Gettysburg Reunion (the Great Reunion) of July 1913, which commemorated the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg. Source: Flickr Commons project, 2009 }

Detail:


Union Men at Bloody Angle

{12th Pa. Volunteers at Bloody Angle. Photo shows the 12th Pennsylvania Volunteers at the Gettysburg Reunion (the Great Reunion) of July 1913, which commemorated the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg. Source: Flickr Commons project, 2009}

Detail:


Here's an eye-witness account:
It is fitting that the side of the private soldiers who fought in the ranks on those three bloody days of July, 1963, should be heard. Below is the narrative of Simon Hubler, a soldier in the 143d Pennsylvania Infantry, who was in the great battle from start to finish. ...
WE were lying at White Oak Church, south of Falmouth, Va., when we received orders to march. We did not know where we were going, but our course took us to Bealton Station, thence along the Orange Alexandria Railroad in a northerly direction, and presently we arrived at Berlin's Ford, near Harper's Ferry', where we crossed the Potomac River about June 27 and proceeded to Middletown, Md. We arrived at this place Sunday. ... During the night of [July] second I heard some one cry for water out in front of our position. The boys told me I'd get plugged, but I took risk and proceeded with a canteen of water out in front of the line in the direction of the cry. Presently I came across the object of my search and found him to be a Confederate soldier mortally wounded. I gave him all the water that I had in my canteen. He asked me who I was, and I told him I belonged to the Pennysylvania Bucktail Brigade, whereupon he remarked, "Even though you are a Yank, you have a good heart in you." The next morning our skirmishers found him dead.

There was very little fighting and comparatively little excitement until about 1 o'clock in the afternoon. ... Suddenly a cannon roared over on our left, and then another boom sounded from the right. Immediately all the Confederate batteries in our front opened fire, and the famous cannonade of the third day's fight had begun. ... I was looking toward the lines of the enemy when I suddenly saw a line of the Confederates advance over a rise in the ground. I said: "Hello boys, here comes a charge!"

The Confederates came on as though on dress parade, directly toward our position. ... When they came within about 600 yards we directed two or three volleys of musketry into them, and almost at the same time they filed obliquely toward the left, and soon struck our lines to the right of our position.

The din was awful. We could see the fighting only indistinctly, because of obstructions in the way and because of the powder smoke. We soon saw small bodies of Confederate retreating, and then large masses which hurried back, broken and disorganized. ... Pickett's charge was over about 4 o'clock in the afternoon, and during the remaining hours of daylight the firing was desultory. We maintained the position we had occupied during the day and slept on our arms during the night of July 3.
-- JUST THE PLAIN, UNVARNISHED STORY OF A SOLDIER IN THE RANKS; Exactly What a Corporal in the 143d Pennsylvania Infantry Did, Thought and Saw During the Three-Days' Battle, New York Times, June 29, 1913.
Gettysburg, July 3, 1863. This dramatic lithograph comes from a painting -- The Battle of Gettysburg: Pickett's Charge, by Peter Frederick Rothermel, 1869.

{From Rothermel's Great Painting for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in the Museum at the Capitol, Harrisburg; source: frontspiece in Fiftieth Anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg}

You can view a photograph of the painting here.
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Some sources:

GETTYSBURG ONE OF THE GREATEST BATTLES IN HISTORY; Sixteen Hundred Fell or Were Captured Every Hour of the Thirty That the Fight Lasted -- 153,000 Men Engaged, by Francis Trevelyan Miller, New York Times, June 29, 1913, Magazine Section. Extract: "MORE than 200,000 people, from all parts of the country, according to the estimates, are now on their way or are about to begin the journey to America's greatest battleground."

Editorial on the Gettysburg Reunion, New York Times, July 1, 1913. Extract: "Whether or not it was judicious, or even justifiable, to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the battle of Gettysburg by collecting on that tragic field great numbers of the men who took part in the dreadful and magnificent conflict -- that is a question to be answered affirmatively only if the results of their presence there are great enough to compensate for the swift thinning of the veteran ranks that is sure to follow."

JUST THE PLAIN, UNVARNISHED STORY OF A SOLDIER IN THE RANKS; Exactly What a Corporal in the 143d Pennsylvania Infantry Did, Thought and Saw During the Three-Days' Battle, New York Times, June 29, 1913.

Memoirs of Gettysburg Simon Hubler, 1st Sgt., 143rd PA Vol. Inf., Co. I

Fiftieth Anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, report of the Pennsylvania Commission, presented to His Excellency, John K. Tener, Governor of Pennsylvania, for transmittal to the General Assembly (Harrisburg, Pa., Wm. Stanley Ray, State Printer, 1914)

Gettysburg Reunion (the Great Reunion) of 1913 By: Callie Oettinger Date: June 30 , 2011

Yesterdays Heroes Reunite during The 50th Anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg

Rare Motion Pictures Show Civil War Veterans at the 75th Gettysburg Battle Anniversary Reunion, National Parks Traveler site

The Great Gettysburg Reunion of 1913

1913 Gettysburg reunion in wikipedia

Grand Army of the Republic in wikipedia

United Confederate Veterans in wikipedia

List of G.A.R. Grand Army of the Republic and U.C.V. United Confederate Veterans links

Dr. Simon HUBLER, 1913

BIO: Simon HUBLER, Centre County, PA

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Notes:

[1] Quoting Wikipedia: "Pickett's Charge was an infantry assault ordered by Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee against Maj. Gen. George G. Meade's Union positions on Cemetery Ridge on July 3, 1863, the last day of the Battle of Gettysburg during the American Civil War. Its futility was predicted by the charge's commander, Lt. Gen. James Longstreet, and it was arguably an avoidable mistake from which the Southern war effort never fully recovered psychologically. The farthest point reached by the attack has been referred to as the high-water mark of the Confederacy."

[2] Bloody Angle -- "The ceremonies incident to the hand-shake over the Stone Wall at "Bloody Angle" on the afternoon of July 3rd, in which one hundred and eighty survivors of the Philadelphia Brigade Association (Webb's Brigade), Comrade Thomas Thompson, Commanding, and John W. Frazier, Adjutant, and one hundred and twenty survivors of Pickett's Division Association, President, Major W. W. Bentley, Commanding, and Comrade Charles J. Loehr, Secretary, participated, were of intense interest. The two lines were formed one hundred feet apart, the Philadelphia Brigade on the North and Pickett's Division on the South side of the Stone Wall, over which they had fought with such desperate valor just fifty years ago to the hour — the former with their Division Battle Flag and the latter with their "Stars and Bars" they had carried over the wall behind their brigade commander, who fell between the guns of Cushing's Union battery, and besides the body of its youthful commander." -- Fiftieth Anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, report of the Pennsylvania Commission, presented to His Excellency, John K. Tener, Governor of Pennsylvania, for transmittal to the General Assembly (Harrisburg, Pa., Wm. Stanley Ray, State Printer, 1914)