Michael Hennessey Higgins and Anne Higgins had a family with eleven children.[1] They had an Irish American background. Ethel and Margaret were two of the children. Her mother preferred Ethel. Margaret did not like this, and it caused problems in their relationship..[2]
Ethel had a short and unhappy marriage to Jack Byrne, a glassworker.[3] They had two children, Jack and Olive. In 1906, Ethel left her children in the care of their paternal grandparents to protect them from their abusive father;[4] Ethel only visited her daughter once in sixteen years. Olive grew up to become an important muse to the creator of Wonder Woman, William Moulton Marston, and more details of Ethel Byrne’s life came to light when Jill Lepore wrote about the superheroine character in 2014.[5]
Ethel Byrne’s background in nursing was very important to her activism. It directly contributed to her desire to make birth control accessible to women of varying backgrounds. She was a trained nurse who assisted immigrant women who needed medical care in the Brownsville area of Brooklyn, New York in 1916.[6]
Birth control activism
Margaret Sanger and her sister Ethel Byrne leaving a courthouse
The two sisters and theatre artist Fania Mindell opened a birth control clinic in Brooklyn in October 1916.[7] They made flyers in different languages, including English, Yiddish and Italian,to advertise their cliniic. Byrne is not widely known today. Despite this, her early activism had a big impact on raising awareness of the importance of access to information about birth control. When Ethel Byrne was arrested, a group of politically active New York women wanted to meet President Woodrow Wilson. They wanted Wilson to undo laws that made distributing bith control a crime.
Arrest and hunger strike
The clinic was highly controversial because the Comstock Laws were enforced. Byrne and Sanger distributed pessaries and would show their clients how to use this method of contraception in direct violation of these laws.[8]
This was the first birth control clinic in the United States.[9] The clinic caused an immediate sensation in the press. It got national attention, and all three women were arrested and tried for “distributing obscene materials”.”The police monitored the Clinic from its opening and sent in a female undercover agent to purchase contraceptive supplies. On October 26 (1916) an undercover police woman and vice-squad officers raided the clinic, confiscated an assortment of contraceptives from pessaries to condoms, along with 20 ‘books on young women’, and arrested Sanger, Byrne and Mindell. After being arraigned, Sanger and Mindell spent the night in the Raymond Street jail, Byrne at the Liberty Avenue station. All were released the next morning on $500.00 bail.”
All three women were found guilty. After some time, the verdicts were overturned, and their campaign was successful in the end. This caused major changes in social policy and to the laws governing birth control and sex education around the world. The clinic closed but later became the basis for what was to become known as Planned Parenthood.
Byrn was arrested for distributing information about bith control. She was sentenced to 30 days in Blackwell’s Island prison.[10] She was jailed at Blackwell Island workhouse on January 22, 1917 for her activism and subsequently went on a hunger strike.[11] Sanger was concerned her sister would die as a result of this hunger strike and Byrne was force fed while serving her sentence after 185 hours without food or water.[12] As historian Jill Lepore reports in The Secret History of Wonder Woman, Ethel Byrne was the first female political prisoner in the United States to be subjected to force feeding.[13] Mrs. Byrne was prepared to starve herself to death in support of her cause. Her case was the first of a group of cases known as the “Sanger cases” to be brought to trial.
Sanger supported Byrne’s activism. Their confinement helped bring national attention to their push for the legalization of birth control.[14] It also hurt their relationship as Sanger’s notoriety grew after this arrest and she was sometimes known to take credit for Ethel’s infamous hunger strike.
Later years
Although her sister went on to become world-famous for her advocacy of birth control, Byrne’s legacy is not well known. This is apparent on the Planned Parenthood website, as it is noted Sanger opened her 1916 clinic with “her sister”.[15] Ethel is not even mentioned by name and unlike her older sister is not well known
Ethel Byrne had a stroke and died in 1955. She did not live to see the legalization of the birth control pill, as she died five years before it received FDA approval.[16]
The ZINE is available at the RIHS Visitor Center Kiosk…$5-.
PART OF TRAM TOWER WAITING TO BE INSTALLED, 2010 JAY JACOBSON, ELLEN JACOBY, ARLENE BESSENOFF, GLORIA HERMAN, ALEXIS VILLAFANE, AND NINA LUBLIN ALL GOT IT RIGHT
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
A likeness of Madame Restell, published in the National Police Gazette, 1847 The Wickedest Woman in New York
VICTORIAN era women experiencing “female trouble” could pick up a daily newspaper, scan the advertisements and translate the euphemisms. A dash of “uterine tonic,” an application of a “female wash,” a brushing of “carbolic purifying powder” or any product with “French” in the title promised to prevent conception, while a “female regulator,” “rose injections” or a dose of “cathartic pills” could alleviate “private difficulties” and “remove obstructions.” They knew the key ingredients—pennyroyal, savin, black draught, tansy tea, oil of cedar, ergot of rye, mallow, motherwort—as well as the most trusted name in the business: Ann Lohman, alias Madame Restell, whose 40-year career as a “female physician” made her a hero to desperate patients and “the Wickedest Woman in New York” to nearly everyone else.
Restell, like many self-proclaimed physicians of the time, had no real medical background. Born Ann Trow in May 1812 in Painswick, England, she had little formal education and began working as a maid at age 15. A year later she married a tailor named Henry Summers. They had a daughter, Caroline, in 1830, and the following year sailed for New York City, where they settled on William Street in Lower Manhattan. A few months after they arrived, in August 1831, Henry died of bilious fever. Ann supported herself as a seamstress, doing piecework at home so she could look after Caroline while she worked, all the while longing for something better. Around 1836, she met 27-year-old Charles Lohman, a printer at the New York Herald. He was well-educated and literate, a habitué of a bookstore on Chatham Street where the city’s radical philosophers and freethinkers gathered to debate, and he began publishing tracts about contraception and population control.
It’s unclear how Ann first embarked upon the patent-medicine business, but Charles encouraged her fledgling career. Together they concocted a story of a trip to Europe where Ann allegedly trained as a midwife with her grandmother, a renowned French physician named Restell. Upon her return, she assumed the moniker “Mrs. Restell” (soon tweaking it to “Madame Restell”), and Charles encouraged her to advertise in the newspapers. Her first notice ran in the New York Sun of March 18, 1839, and read, in part:
TO MARRIED WOMEN.—Is it not but too well known that the families of the married often increase beyond what the happiness of those who give them birth would dictate?… Is it moral for parents to increase their families, regardless of consequences to themselves, or the well being of their offspring, when a simple, easy, healthy, and certain remedy is within our control? The advertiser, feeling the importance of this subject, and estimating the vast benefit resulting to thousands by the adoption of means prescribed by her, has opened an office, where married females can obtain the desired information.
Clients arrived at her Greenwich Street office from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m., and if they couldn’t seek treatment in person, Restell responded by mail, sending Preventative Powder at $5 per package or Female Monthly Pills, $1 apiece. Her pills (as well as those of her competitors) simply commercialized traditional folk remedies that had been around for centuries, and were occasionally effective. Restell counted on clients returning for surgical abortions if the abortifacients failed—$20 for poor women, $100 for the rich.
As her practice flourished it attracted other aspiring “female physicians,” male and female, and Restell began warning prospective clients to “beware of imitators.” To remain competitive she began expanding her range of services. In addition to selling abortifacients, she opened a boardinghouse where clients with unwanted pregnancies could give birth in anonymity. For an additional fee, she facilitated the adoption of infants. Restell placed more newspaper ads, many referring to the thousands of letters she’d received from grateful customers.
Madame Restell’s residence, on the northeast corner of 5th Avenue and 52nd Street. The Wickedest Woman in New York
When Madame Restell began her practice, New York State law regarding abortion reflected contemporary folk wisdom, which held that a fetus wasn’t technically alive until “quickening”—the moment when the mother felt it first move inside the womb, usually around the fourth month. An abortion before quickening was legal, but an abortion after quickening was considered to be second-degree manslaughter. Restell tried to determine how far along a patient was in her pregnancy before offering her services; if she intervened too late, she risked a $100 fine and one year in prison.
She had her first major brush with the law in 1840, when a 21-year-old woman named Maria Purdy lay on her deathbed, suffering from tuberculosis. She told her husband she wished to make a confession: While pregnant the previous year, she decided she didn’t want to give birth again; they had a ten-month-old child and she couldn’t handle another so soon. She had visited Restell’s office on Greenwich Street and joined several women waiting in the front parlor. When her turn came, Restell listened to her story and gave her a small vial of yellow medicine in exchange for a dollar.
Purdy took one dose that night and two the next day but then stopped, suddenly worried about the potential consequences. A doctor analyzed the medicine and concluded it contained oil of tansy and spirits of turpentine and advised her to never take it again. She returned to Restell, who told her that for $20 an operation could be performed without pain or inconvenience. Purdy had no cash, and instead offered a pawn ticket for a gold watch chain and a stack of rings, which Restell accepted. She led Purdy behind a curtain to a darkened room, where a strange man—not Restell’s husband—placed his hands on her abdomen and declared she was only three months along (if Purdy was past the first trimester, she didn’t correct him). She had the surgery, and was convinced that her present illness was a result. After hearing her deathbed confession her husband went to the police, who arrested Restell and charged her with “administering to Purdy certain noxious medicine… … procuring her a miscarriage by the use of instruments, the same not being necessary to preserve her life.”
The case launched a debate that played out in the press, and the debate was as charged as it is today. One antiabortion advocate called Restell “the monster in human shape” responsible for “one of the most hellish acts ever perpetrated in a Christian land.” She was a threat to the institution of marriage, allowing women to “commit as many adulteries as there are hours in the year without the possibility of detection.” She encouraged prostitution by removing the consequences. She allowed wives to shirk the duties of motherhood. She insulted poor women by providing abortions when they could seek aid and solace from their church. She not only abetted immoral behavior but also harmed misguided and naïve women, acting as a “hag of misery” preying upon human weakness. The word “Restellism” became synonymous with abortion.
Restell decided to defend herself, placing an ad in the New York Herald in which she offered $100 to anyone who could prove that her medicine was harmful.“I cannot conceive,” she wrote, “how men who are husbands, brothers, or fathers can give utterance to an idea so intrinsically base and infamous, that their wives, their sisters or their daughters, want but the opportunity and ‘facility’ to be vicious, and if they are not so, it is not from an innate principle of virtue, but from fear. What is female virtue, then, a mere thing of circumstance and occasion?”
She was found guilty at trial, but the case was appealed on the ground that Maria Purdy’s deathbed statement was not admissible. The appellate court ruled that such depositions were admissible only in civil suits. Restell was retried, with Purdy’s statement removed from the evidence, and found not guilty. Emboldened, Restell opened branch offices in Boston and Philadelphia and increased her advertising, targeting “married ladies whose delicate or precarious health forbids a too rapid increase of family.”
Classified advertisements from the New York Herald and the New York Sun, December 1841 From www.librarycompany.org
In 1845, the New York State legislature passed a bill stipulating that providing abortions or abortifacients at any stage of pregnancy was a misdemeanor punishable by a mandatory year in prison. Women who sought abortions or attempted to self-abort would also be liable, subject to a $1,000 fine, a prison sentence of tree to 12 months, or both. The legislators apparently overlooked the possibility that this provision would discourage testimony from women who had undergone abortions, making it more difficult to prosecute abortionists.
Public scrutiny of Restell continued unabated—she was accused in the press, on the basis of an anonymous letters, of performing a fatal abortion on Mary Rogers, the real-life inspiration for the title character in Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Mystery of Marie Roget”—but she managed to avoid legal trouble for two years. In the fall of 1847, a woman named Maria Bodine visited her clinic, having been referred by an anonymous “sponsor.” Restell decided she was too far along for an abortion and suggested the woman stay and board instead, but Bodine’s lover insisted. Restell refused several times before allowing the surgery. Afterward, in pain, Bodine consulted a physician, who suspected an abortion and reported her to the police. She turned state’s evidence, and Restell was arrested for second-degree manslaughter.
Restell was found guilty of misdemeanor procurement and sentenced to a year on Blackwell’s Island (now Roosevelt Island). Upon her release she claimed she would no longer offer surgical abortions, but would still provide pills and stays in her boardinghouse. In an attempt to improve her image she applied for United States citizenship—one had to be a “person of good character” to be approved—and was naturalized in 1854. The mayor of New York, Jacob A. Westervelt, officiated at her daughter’s wedding.
But Restell wasn’t able to escape her reputation. Newspaper reports seemed as bothered by her wealth as by how she obtained it, detailing her collection of diamonds and pearls, her furs, her ostentatious carriage with four horses and a liveried coachman, her brownstone mansion on the corner of 52nd Street and 5th Avenue (built in part, it was said, to annoy the first Roman Catholic archbishop of New York, John Hughes, who had denounced her from his pulpit and who had bought the next block on which to build St. Patrick’s Cathedral). She was now so infamous nationwide that she was included in several guidebooks to the city, one of which dubbed her “the Wickedest Woman in New York.” Anthony Comstock, the founder of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, likened pornography to cancer and drew no distinction between birth control and abortion. A federal passed in March 1873, which became known as the Comstock Law, made it a misdemeanor to sell or advertise obscene matter by mail, and made specific reference to “any article or thing designed or intended for the prevention of conception or procuring of abortion.” Telling someone where they could find such information carried a prison sentence of six months to five years and a fine of up to $2,000. Comstock embarked on a personal campaign to hunt down violators. In 1878 he rang the bell of Madame Restell’s basement office on East 52nd Street, claiming to be a married man whose wife had already given him too many children. He was worried about her health and hoped Restell might be able to help, he said. She sold him some pills. Comstock returned the following day with a police officer and had her arrested. During a search he found pamphlets about birth control and some “instruments,” along with instructions for their use. Once again Restell defended herself in the press. “He’s in this nasty detective business,” she said of Comstock. “There are a number of little doctors who are in the same business behind him. They think if they can get me in trouble and out of the way, they can make a fortune. If the public are determined to push this matter, they will have a good laugh when they learn the nature of the terrible items of the preventative prescriptions. Of course, if there’s a trial it will all come out.”
In 1845, the New York State legislature passed a bill stipulating that providing abortions or abortifacients at any stage of pregnancy was a misdemeanor punishable by a mandatory year in prison. Women who sought abortions or attempted to self-abort would also be liable, subject to a $1,000 fine, a prison sentence of tree to 12 months, or both. The legislators apparently overlooked the possibility that this provision would discourage testimony from women who had undergone abortions, making it more difficult to prosecute abortionists.Public scrutiny of Restell continued unabated—she was accused in the press, on the basis of an anonymous letters, of performing a fatal abortion on Mary Rogers, the real-life inspiration for the title character in Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Mystery of Marie Roget”—but she managed to avoid legal trouble for two years. In the fall of 1847, a woman named Maria Bodine visited her clinic, having been referred by an anonymous “sponsor.” Restell decided she was too far along for an abortion and suggested the woman stay and board instead, but Bodine’s lover insisted. Restell refused several times before allowing the surgery. Afterward, in pain, Bodine consulted a physician, who suspected an abortion and reported her to the police. She turned state’s evidence, and Restell was arrested for second-degree manslaughter.Restell was found guilty of misdemeanor procurement and sentenced to a year on Blackwell’s Island (now Roosevelt Island). Upon her release she claimed she would no longer offer surgical abortions, but would still provide pills and stays in her boardinghouse. In an attempt to improve her image she applied for United States citizenship—one had to be a “person of good character” to be approved—and was naturalized in 1854. The mayor of New York, Jacob A. Westervelt, officiated at her daughter’s wedding.
The reformer Anthony Comstock The Wickedest Woman in New YorkBut Restell wasn’t able to escape her reputation. Newspaper reports seemed as bothered by her wealth as by how she obtained it, detailing her collection of diamonds and pearls, her furs, her ostentatious carriage with four horses and a liveried coachman, her brownstone mansion on the corner of 52nd Street and 5th Avenue (built in part, it was said, to annoy the first Roman Catholic archbishop of New York, John Hughes, who had denounced her from his pulpit and who had bought the next block on which to build St. Patrick’s Cathedral). She was now so infamous nationwide that she was included in several guidebooks to the city, one of which dubbed her “the Wickedest Woman in New York.”Anthony Comstock, the founder of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, likened pornography to cancer and drew no distinction between birth control and abortion. A federal passed in March 1873, which became known as the Comstock Law, made it a misdemeanor to sell or advertise obscene matter by mail, and made specific reference to “any article or thing designed or intended for the prevention of conception or procuring of abortion.” Telling someone where they could find such information carried a prison sentence of six months to five years and a fine of up to $2,000.Comstock embarked on a personal campaign to hunt down violators. In 1878 he rang the bell of Madame Restell’s basement office on East 52nd Street, claiming to be a married man whose wife had already given him too many children. He was worried about her health and hoped Restell might be able to help, he said. She sold him some pills. Comstock returned the following day with a police officer and had her arrested. During a search he found pamphlets about birth control and some “instruments,” along with instructions for their use.Once again Restell defended herself in the press. “He’s in this nasty detective business,” she said of Comstock. “There are a number of little doctors who are in the same business behind him. They think if they can get me in trouble and out of the way, they can make a fortune. If the public are determined to push this matter, they will have a good laugh when they learn the nature of the terrible items of the preventative prescriptions. Of course, if there’s a trial it will all come out.”
An artist’s rendering of Restell’s suicide, 1878 The Wickedest Woman in New YorkThis time there was no trial. On April 1, 1878, Restell’s chambermaid found her nude body half-submerged in the bathtub, her throat slit from ear to ear. House servants told reporters that Restell had been restless and despondent, pacing her home and crying, “Why do they persecute me so? I have done nothing to harm anyone.” Since it was April Fool’s Day, Comstock initially believed the report to be a tasteless joke. When he realized it was true, he reached for his file on Ann Lohman and penned a final comment: “A bloody ending to a bloody life
The ZINE is available at the RIHS Visitor Center Kiosk…$5-.
AMERICAN FLAG FLYING OVER THE FDR FOUR FREEDOMS PARK SITE IN 2010.
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
JUDITH BERDY MANDY CHOI SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
I WAS CALLED BEFORE THE HEAD MATRON, A TALL WOMAN WITH A stolid face. She began taking my pedigree. “What religion?” was her first question. “None, I am an atheist…… Atheism is prohibited here. You will have to go to church.” I replied that I would do nothing, of the kind. I did not believe in anything the Church stood for and, not being a hypocrite, I would not attend. Besides, I came from Jewish people. Was there a synagogue?
She said curtly that there were services for the Jewish convicts on Saturday afternoon, but as I was the only Jewish female prisoner, she could not permit me to go among so many men.
After a bath and a change into the prison uniform I was sent to my cell and locked in.
I knew from what Most had related to me about Blackwell’s Island that the prison was old and damp, the cells small, without light or water. I was therefore prepared for what was awaiting me. But the moment the door was locked on me, I began to experience a feeling of suffocation. In the dark I groped for something to sit on and found a narrow iron cot. Sudden exhaustion overpowered me and I fell sleep.
I became aware of a sharp burning in my eyes, and I jumped up in fright. A lamp was being held close to the bars. “What is it?” I cried, forgetting where I was. The lamp was lowered and I saw a thin, ascetic face gazing at me. A soft voice congratulated me on my sound sleep. It was the evening matron on her regular rounds. She told me to undress and left me.
But there was no more sleep for me that night. The irritating feel of the coarse blanket, the shadows creeping past the bars, kept me awake until the sound of a gong again brought me to my feet. The cells were being unlocked, the door heavily thrown open. Blue and white striped figures slouched by, automatically forming into a line, myself a part of it. “March!” and the line began to move along the corridor down the steps towards a corner containing wash-stands and towels. Again the command: “Wash!” and everybody began clamouring for a towel, already soiled and wet. Before I had time to splash some water on my hands and face and wipe myself half-dry, the order was given to march back.
Then breakfast: a slice of bread and a tin cup of warm brownish water. Again the line formed, and the striped humanity was broken up in sections and sent to its daily tasks. With a group of other women I was taken to the sewing-room.
The procedure of forming lines — “Forward, march!” — was repeated three times a day, seven days a week. After each meal ten minutes were allowed for talk. A torrent of words would then break forth from the pent-up beings. Each precious second increased the roar of sounds; and then sudden silence.
The sewing-room was large and light, the sun often streaming through the high windows, its rays intensifying the whiteness of the walls and the monotony of the regulation dress. In the sharp light the figures in baggy and ungainly attire appeared more hideous. Still, the shop was a welcome relief from the cell. Mine, on the ground floor, was grey and damp even in the day-time; the cells on the upper floors were somewhat brighter. Close to the barred door one could even read by the help of the light coming from the corridor windows.
The locking of the cells for the night was the worst experience of the day. The convicts were marched along the tiers in the usual line. On reaching her cell each left the line, stepped inside, hands on the iron door, and awaited the command. “Close!” and with a crash the seventy doors shut, each prisoner automatically locking herself in. More harrowing still was the daily degradation of being forced to march in lock-step to the river, carrying the bucket of excrement accumulated during twenty-four hours.
I was put in charge of the sewing-shop. My task consisted in cutting the cloth and preparing work for the two dozen women employed. In addition I had to keep account of the incoming material and the outgoing bundles. I welcomed the work. It helped me to forget the dreary existence within the prison. But the evenings were torturous. The first few weeks I would fall asleep as soon as I touched the pillow. Soon, however, the nights found me restlessly tossing about, seeking sleep in vain. The appalling nights — even if I should get the customary two months’ commutation time, I still had nearly two hundred and ninety of them. Two hundred and ninety — and Sasha? I used to lie awake and mentally figure in the dark the number of days and nights before him. Even if he could come out after his first sentence of seven years, he would still have more than twenty-five hundred nights! Dread overcame me that Sasha could not survive them. Nothing was so likely to drive people to madness, I felt, as sleepless nights in prison. Better dead, I thought. Dead? Frick was not dead, and Sasha‘s glorious youth, his life, the things he might have accomplished – all were being sacrificed — perhaps for nothing. But — was Sasha‘s Attentat in vain? Was my revolutionary faith a mere echo of what others had said or taught me? “No, not in vain!” something within me insisted. “No sacrifice is lost for a great ideal.”
One day I was told by the head matron that I would have to get better results from the women. They were not doing so much work, she said, as under the prisoner who had had charge of the sewing-shop before me. I resented the suggestion that I become a slave-driver. It was because I hated slaves as well as their drivers, I informed the matron, that I had been sent to prison. I considered myself one of the inmates, not above them. I was determined not to do anything that would involve a denial of my ideals. I preferred punishment. One of the methods of treating offenders consisted in placing them in a corner facing a blackboard and compelling them to stay for hours in that position, constantly before the matron’s vigilant eyes. This seemed to me petty and insulting. I decided that if I was offered such an indignity, I would increase my offence and take the dungeon. But the days passed and I was not punished.
News in prison travels with amazing rapidity. Within twenty-four hours all the women knew that I had refused to act as a slave-driver. They had not been unkind to me, but they had kept aloof. They had been told that I was a terrible “anarchist” and that I didn’t believe in God. They had never seen me in church and I did not participate in their ten-minute gush of talk. I was a freak in their eyes. But when they learned that I had refused to play the boss over them, their reserve broke down. Sundays after church the cells would be opened to permit the women an hour’s visit with one another. The next Sunday I received visits from every inmate on my tier. They felt I was their friend, they assured me, and they would do anything for me. Girls working in the laundry offered to wash my clothes, others to darn my stockings. Everyone was anxious to do some service. I was deeply moved. These poor creatures so hungered for kindness that the least sign of it loomed high on their limited horizons. After that they would often come to me with their troubles, their hatred of the head matron, their confidences about their infatuations with the male convicts. Their ingenuity in carrying on flirtations under the very eyes of the officials was amazing.
My three weeks in the Tombs had given me ample proof that the revolutionary contention that crime is the result of poverty is based on fact. Most of the defendants who were awaiting trial came from the lowest strata of society, men and women without friends, often even without a home. Unfortunate, ignorant creatures they were, but still with hope in their hearts, because they had not yet been convicted. In the penitentiary despair possessed almost all of the prisoners. It served to unveil the mental darkness, fear, and superstition which held them in bondage. Among the seventy inmates, there were no more than half a dozen who showed any intelligence whatever. The rest were outcasts without the least social consciousness. Their personal misfortunes filled their thoughts; they could not understand that they were victims, links in an endless chain of injustice and inequality. From early childhood they had known nothing but poverty, squalor, and want, and the same conditions were awaiting them on their release. Yet they were capable of sympathy and devotion, of generous impulses. I soon had occasion to convince myself of it when I was taken ill.
The dampness of my cell and the chill of the late December days had brought on an attack of my old complaint, rheumatism. For some days the head matron opposed my being taken to the hospital, but she was finally compelled to submit to the order of the visiting physician.
Blackwell’s Island Penitentiary was fortunate in the absence of a “steady” physician. The inmates were receiving medical attendance from the Charity Hospital, which was situated near by. That institution had six weeks’ post-graduate courses, which meant frequent changes in the staff. They were under the direct supervision of a visiting physician from New York City, Dr. White, a humane and kindly man. The treatment given the prisoners was as good as patients received in any New York hospital.
The sick-ward was the largest and brightest room in the building. Its spacious windows looked out upon a wide lawn in front of the prison and, farther on, the East River. In fine weather the sun streamed in generously. A month’s rest, the kindliness of the physician, and the thoughtful attention of my fellow prisoners relieved me of my pain and enabled me to get about again.
During one of his rounds Dr. White picked up the card hanging at the foot of my bed giving my crime and pedigree. “Inciting to riot,” he read. “Piffle! I don’t believe you could hurt a fly. A fine inciter you would make!” he chuckled, then asked me if I should not like to remain in the hospital to take care of the sick. “I should, indeed,” I replied, “but I know nothing about nursing.” He assured me that neither did anyone else in the prison. He had tried for some time to induce the city to put a trained nurse in charge of the ward, but he had not succeeded. For operations and grave cases he had to bring a nurse from the Charity Hospital. I could easily pick up the elementary things about tending the sick. He would teach me to take the pulse and temperature and to perform similar services. He would speak to the Warden and the head matron if I wanted to remain.
Soon I took up my new work. The ward contained sixteen beds, most of them always filled. The various diseases were treated in the same room, from grave operations to tuberculosis, pneumonia, and childbirth. My hours were long and strenuous, the groans of the patients nerve-racking; but I loved my job. It gave me opportunity to come close to the sick women and bring a little cheer into their lives. I was so much richer than they: I had love and friends, received many letters and daily messages from Ed. Some Austrian anarchists, owners of a restaurant, sent me dinners every day, which Ed himself brought to the boat. Fedya supplied fruit and delicacies weekly. I had so much to give; it was a joy to share with my sisters who had neither friends nor attention. There were a few exceptions, of course; but the majority had nothing. They never had had anything before and they would have nothing on their release. They were derelicts on the social dung-heap.
I was gradually given entire charge of the hospital ward, part of my duties being to divide the special rations allowed the sick prisoners. They consisted of a quart of milk, a cup of beef tea, two eggs, two crackers, and two lumps of sugar for each invalid. On several occasions milk and eggs were missing and I reported the matter to a day matron. Later she informed me that a head matron had said that it did not matter and that certain patients were strong enough to do without their extra rations. I had had considerable opportunity to study this head matron, who felt a violent dislike of everyone not Anglo-Saxon. Her special targets were the Irish and the Jews, against whom she discriminated habitually. I was therefore not surprised to get such a message from her.
A few days later I was told by the prisoner who brought the hospital rations that the missing portions had been given by this head matron to two husky Negro prisoners. That also did not surprise me. I knew she had a special fondness for the coloured inmates. She rarely punished them and often gave them unusual privileges. In return her favourites would spy on the other prisoners, even on those of their own colour who were too decent to be bribed. I myself never had any prejudice against coloured people; in fact, I felt deeply for them because they were being treated like slaves in America. But I hated discrimination. The idea that sick people, white or coloured, should be robbed of their rations to feed healthy persons outraged my sense of justice, but I was powerless to do anything in the matter.
After my first clashes with this woman she left me severely alone. Once she became enraged because I refused to translate a Russian letter that had arrived for one of the prisoners. She had called me into her office to read the letter and tell her its contents. When I saw that the letter was not for me, I informed her that I was not employed by the prison as a translator. It was bad enough for the officials to pry into the personal mail of helpless human beings, but I would not do it. She said that it was stupid of me not to take advantage of her good-will. She could put me back in my cell, deprive me of my commutation time for good behaviour, and make the rest of my stay very hard. She could do as she pleased, I told her, but I would not read the private letters of my unfortunate sisters, much less translate them to her.
Then came the matter of the missing rations. The sick women began to suspect that they were not getting their full share and complained to the doctor. Confronted with a direct question from him, I had to tell the truth. I did not know what he said to the offending matron, but the full rations began to arrive again. Two days later I was called downstairs and locked up in the dungeon.
I had repeatedly seen the effect of a dungeon experience on other women prisoners. One inmate had been kept there for twenty-eight days on bread and water, although the regulations prohibited a longer stay than forty-eight hours. She had to be carried out on a stretcher; her hands and legs were swollen, her body covered with a rash. The descriptions the poor creature and others had given me used to make me ill. But nothing I had heard compared with the reality. The cell was barren; one had to sit or lie down on the cold stone floor. The dampness of the walls made the dungeon a ghastly place. Worse yet was the complete shutting out of light and air, the impenetrable blackness, so thick that one could not see the hand before one’s face. It gave me the sensation of sinking into a devouring pit. “The Spanish Inquisition come to life in America I thought of Most‘s description. He had not exaggerated.
After the door shut behind me, I stood still, afraid to sit down or to lean against the wall. Then I groped for the door. Gradually the blackness paled. I caught a faint sound slowly approaching; I heard a key turn in the lock. A matron appeared. I recognized Miss Johnson, the one who had frightened me out of my sleep on my first night in the penitentiary. I had come to know and appreciate her as a beautiful personality. Her kindness to the prisoners was the one ray of light in their dreary existence. She had taken me to her bosom almost from the first, and in many indirect ways she had shown me her affection. Often at night, when all were asleep, and quiet had fallen on the prison, Miss Johnson would enter the hospital ward, put my head in her lap, and tenderly stroke my hair. She would tell me the news in the papers to distract me and try to cheer my depressed mood. I knew I had found a friend in the woman, who herself was a lonely soul, never having known the love of man or child.
She came into the dungeon carrying a camp-chair and a blanket. “You can sit on that,” she said, “and wrap yourself up. I’ll leave the door open a bit to let in some air. I’ll bring you hot coffee later. It will help to pass the night.” She told me how painful it was for her to see the prisoners locked up in the dreadful hole, but she could do nothing for them because most of them could not be trusted. It was different with me, she was sure.
At five in the morning my friend had to take back the chair and blanket and lock me in. I no longer was oppressed by the dungeon. The humanity of Miss Johnson had dissolved the blackness.
When I was taken out of the dungeon and sent back to the hospital, I saw that it was almost noon. I resumed my duties. Later I learned that Dr. White had asked for me, and upon being informed that I was in punishment he had categorically demanded my release.
No visitors were allowed in the penitentiary until after one month had been served. Ever since my entry I had been longing for Ed, yet at the same time I dreaded his coming. I remembered my terrible visit with Sasha. But it was not quite so appalling in Blackwell’s Island. I met Ed in a room where other prisoners were having their relatives and friends to see them. There was no guard between us. Everyone was so absorbed in his own visitor that no one paid any attention to us. Still we felt constrained. With clasped hands we talked of general things.
My second visit took place in the hospital, Miss Johnson being on duty. She thoughtfully put a screen to shut us out from the view of the other patients, she herself keeping at a distance. Ed took me in his arms. It was bliss to feel again the warmth of his body, to hear his beating heart, to cling hungrily to his lips. But his departure left me in an emotional turmoil, consumed by a passionate need for my lover. During the day I strove to subdue the hot desire surging through my veins, but at night the craving held me in its power. Sleep would come finally, sleep disturbed by dreams and images of intoxicating nights with Ed. The ordeal was too torturing and too exhausting. I was glad when he brought Fedya and other friends along.
Once Ed came accompanied by Voltairine de Cleyre, She had been invited by New York friends to address a meeting arranged in my behalf. When I had visited her in Philadelphia, she had been too ill to speak. I was glad of the opportunity to come closer to her now. We talked about things nearest to our hearts – Sasha, the movement. Voltairine promised to join me, on my release, in a new effort for Sasha. Meanwhile she would write to him, she said. Ed, too, was in touch with him.
My visitors were always sent up to the hospital. I was therefore surprised one day to be called to the Warden’s office to see someone. It proved to be John Swinton and his wife. Swinton was a nationally known figure; he had worked with the abolitionists and had fought in the Civil War. As editor-in-chief of the New York Sun he had pleaded for the European refugees who came to find asylum in the United States. He was the friend and adviser of young literary aspirants, and he had been one of the first to defend Wait Whitman against the misrepresentations of the purists. Tall, erect, with beautiful features, John Swinton was an impressive figure.
He greeted me warmly, remarking that he had just been saying to Warden Pillsbury that he himself had made more violent speeches during the abolition days than anything I said at Union Square. Yet he had not been arrested. He had told the Warden that he ought to be ashamed of himself to keep “a little girl like that” locked up. “And what do you suppose he said? He said he had no choice — he was only doing his duty. All weaklings say that, cowards who always put the blame on others.” Just then the Warden approached us. He assured Swinton that I was a model prisoner and that I had become an efficient nurse in the short time. In fact, I was doing such good work that he wished I had been given five years. “Generous cuss, aren’t you?” Swinton laughed. “Perhaps you’ll give her a paid job when her time is up?” “I would, indeed,” Pillsbury replied. “Well, you’d be a damn fool. Don’t you know she doesn’t believe in prisons? Sure as you live, she’d let them all escape, and what would become of you then?” The poor man was embarrassed, but he joined in the banter. Before my visitor took leave, he turned once more to the Warden, cautioning him to “take good care of his little friend,” else he would “take it out of his hide.”
The visit of the Swintons completely changed the attitude of the head matron towards me. The Warden had always been quite decent, and she now began showering privileges on me: food from her own table, fruit, coffee, and walks on the island. I refused her favours except the walks; it was my first opportunity in six months to go out in the open and inhale the spring air without iron bars to check me.
In March 1894 we received a large influx of women prisoners. They were nearly all prostitutes rounded up during recent raids. The city had been blessed by a new vice crusade. The Lexow Committee, with the Reverend Dr. Parkhurst at its head, wielded the broom which was to sweep New York clean of the fearful scourge. The men found in the public houses were allowed to go free, but the women were arrested and sentenced to Blackwell’s Island.
Most of the unfortunates came in a deplorable condition. They were suddenly cut off from the narcotics which almost all of them had been habitually using. The sight of their suffering was heart-breaking. With the strength of giants the frail creatures would shake the iron bars, curse, and scream for dope and cigarettes. Then they would fall exhausted to the ground, pitifully moaning through the night.
The misery of the poor creatures brought back my own hard struggle to do without the soothing effect of cigarettes. Except for the ten weeks of my illness in Rochester, I had smoked for years, sometimes as many as forty cigarettes a day. When we were very hard pressed for money, and it was a toss-up between bread and cigarettes, we would generally decide to buy the latter. We simply could not go for very long without smoking. Being cut off from the satisfaction of the habit when I came to the penitentiary, I found the torture almost beyond endurance. The nights in the cell became doubly hideous. The only way to get tobacco in prison was by means of bribery. I knew that if any of the inmates were caught bringing me cigarettes, they would be punished. I could not expose them to the risk. Snuff tobacco was allowed, but I could never take to it. There was nothing to be done but to get used to the deprivation. I had resisting power and I could forget my craving in reading.
Not so the new arrivals. When they learned that I was in charge of the medicine chest, they pursued me with offers of money; worse still, with pitiful appeals to my humanity. “Just a whiff of dope, for the love of Christ!” I rebelled against the Christian hypocrisy which allowed the men to go free and sent the poor women to prison for having ministered to the sexual demands of those men. Suddenly cutting off the victims from the narcotics they had used for years seemed ruthless. I would have gladly given the addicts what they craved so terribly. It was not fear of punishment which kept me from bringing them relief; it was Dr. White’s faith in me. He had trusted me with the medicines, he had been kind and generous — I could not fail him. The screams of the women would unnerve me for days, but I stuck to my responsibility.
One day a young Irish girl was brought to the hospital for an operation. In view of the seriousness of the case Dr. White called in two trained nurses. The operation lasted until late in the evening, and then the patient was left in my charge. She was very ill from the effect of the ether, vomited violently, and burst the stitches of her wound, which resulted in a severe hemorrhage. I sent a hurry call to the Charity Hospital. It seemed hours before the doctor and his staff arrived. There were no nurses this time and I had to take their place.
The day had been an unusually hard one and I had had very little steep. I felt exhausted and had to hold on to the operating-table with my left hand while passing with my right instruments and sponges. Suddenly the operating-table gave way, and my arm was caught. I screamed with pain. Dr. White was so absorbed in his manipulations that for a moment he did not realize what had happened. When he at last had the table raised and my arm was lifted out, it looked as if every bone had been broken. The pain was excruciating and he ordered a shot of morphine. “We’ll set the arm later. This has got to come first.” “No morphine,” I begged. I still remembered the effect of morphine on me when Dr. Julius Hoffmann had given me a dose against insomnia. It had put me to sleep, but during the night I had tried to throw myself out of the window, and it had required all of Sasha‘s strength to pull me back. The morphine had crazed me, now I would have none of it.
One of the physicians gave me something that had a soothing, effect. After the patient on the operating-table had been returned to their bed, Dr. White examined my arm. “You’re nice and chubby,” he said; “that has saved your bones. Nothing has been broken — just flattened a bit.” My arm was put in a splint. The doctor wanted me to go to bed, but there was no one else to sit up with the patient. It might be her last night: her tissues were so badly infected that they would not hold the stitches, and another hemorrhage would prove fatal. I decided to remain at her bedside. I knew I could not sleep with the case as serious as it was.
All night I watched her struggle for life. In the morning I sent for the priest. Everyone was surprised at my action, particularly the head matron. How could I, an atheist, do such a thing, she wondered, and choose a priest, at that! I had declined to see the missionaries as well as the rabbi. She had noticed how friendly I had become with the two Catholic sisters who often visited us on Sunday. I had even made coffee for them. Didn’t I think that the Catholic Church had always been the enemy of progress and that it bad persecuted and tortured the Jews? How could I be so inconsistent? Of course, I thought so, I assured her. I was just as opposed to the Catholic as to the other Churches. I considered them all alike, enemies of the people. They preached submission, and their God was the God of the rich and the mighty. I hated their God and would never make peace with him. But if I could believe in any religion at all, I should prefer the Catholic Church. “It is less hypocritical,” I said to her; “it makes allowance for human frailties and it has a sense of beauty.” The Catholic sisters and the priest had not tried to preach to me like the missionaries, the minister, and the vulgar rabbi. They left my soul to its own fate; they talked to me about human things, especially the priest, who was a cultured man. My poor patient had reached the end of a life that had been too hard for her. The priest might give her a few moments of peace and kindness; why should I not have sent for him? But the matron was too dull to follow my argument or understand my motives. I remained a “queer one,” in her estimation.
Before my patient died, she begged me to lay her out. I had been kinder to her, she said, than her own mother. She wanted to know that it would be my hand that would get her ready for the last journey. I would make her beautiful; she wanted to look beautiful to meet Mother Mary and the Lord Jesus. It required little effort to make her as lovely in death as she had been in life. Her black curls made her alabaster face more delicate than the artificial methods she had used to enhance her looks. Her luminous eyes were closed now; I had closed them with my own hands. But her chiselled eyebrows and long, black lashes were remindful of the radiance that had been hers. How she must have fascinated men! And they destroyed her. Now she was beyond their reach. Death had smoothed her suffering. She looked serene in her marble whiteness now.
During the Jewish Easter holidays I was again called to the Warden’s office. I found my grandmother there. She had repeatedly begged Ed to take her to see me, but he had declined in order to spare her the painful experience. The devoted soul could not be stopped. With her broken English she had made her way to the Commissioner of Corrections, procured a pass, and come to the penitentiary. She handed me a large white handkerchief containing matzoth, gefüllte fish, and some Easter cake of her own baking. She tried to explain to the Warden what a good Jewish daughter her Chavele was; in fact, better than any rabbi’s wife, because she gave everything to the poor. She was fearfully wrought up when the moment of departure came, and I tried to soothe her, begging her not to break down before the Warden. She bravely dried her tears and walked out straight and proud, but I knew she would weep bitterly as soon as she got out of sight. No doubt she also prayed to her God for her Chavele.
June saw many prisoners discharged from the sick-ward, only a few beds remaining occupied. For the first time since coming to the hospital I had some leisure, enabling me to read more systematically. I had accumulated a large library; John Swinton had sent me many books, as did also other friends; but most of them were from Justus Schwab. He had never come to see me; he had asked Ed to tell me that it was impossible for him to visit me. He hated prison so much that he would not be able to leave me behind. If he should come, he would be tempted to use force to take me back with him, and it would only cause trouble. Instead he sent me stacks of books. Walt Whitman, Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Spencer, John Stuart Mill, and many other English and American authors I learned to know and love through the friendship of Justus. At the same time other elements also became interested in my salvation — spiritualists and metaphysical redeemers of various kinds. I tried honestly to get at their meaning, but I was no doubt too much of the earth to follow their shadows in the clouds.
Among the books I received was the Life of Albert Brisbane, written by his widow. The fly-leaf had an appreciative dedication to me. The book came with a cordial letter from her son, Arthur Brisbane, who expressed his admiration and the hope that on my release I would allow him to arrange an evening for me. The biography of Brisbane brought me in touch with Fourier and other pioneers of socialist thought.
The prison library had some good literature, including the works of George Sand, George Eliot, and Ouida. The librarian in charge was an educated Englishman serving a five-year sentence for forgery. The books he handed out to me soon began to contain love notes framed in most affectionate terms, and presently they flamed with passion. He had already put in four years in prison, one of his notes read, and he was starved for the love of woman and companionship. He begged me at least to give him the companionship. Would I write him occasionally about the books I was reading? I disliked becoming involved in a silly prison flirtation, yet the need for free, uncensored expression was too compelling to resist. We exchanged many notes, often of a very ardent nature.
My admirer was a splendid musician and played the organ in the chapel. I should have loved to attend, to be able to hear him and feel him near, but the sight of the male prisoners in stripes, some of them handcuffed, and still further degraded and insulted by the lip-service of the minister, was too appalling to me. I had seen it once on the fourth of July, when some politician had come over to speak to the inmates about the glories of American liberty. I had to pass through the male wing on an errand to the Warden, and I heard the pompous patriot spouting of freedom and independence to the mental and physical wrecks. One convict had been put in irons because of an attempted escape. I could hear the clanking of his chains with his every movement. I could not bear to go to church.
The chapel was underneath the hospital ward. Twice on Sundays I could listen on the stairway to my prison flame playing the organ. Sunday was quite a holiday: the head matron was off duty, and we were free from the irritation of her harsh voice. Sometimes the two Catholic sisters would come on that day. I was charmed with the younger one, still in her teens, very lovely and full of life. Once I asked her what had induced her to take the veil. Turning her large eyes upwards, she said: “The priest was young and so beautiful!” The “baby nun,” as I called her, would prattle for hours in her cheery young voice, telling me the news and gossip. It was a relief from the prison greyness.
Of the friends I made on Blackwell’s Island the priest was the most interesting. At first I felt antagonistic to him. I thought he was like the rest of the religious busybodies, but I soon found that he wanted to talk only about books. He had studied in Cologne and had read much. He knew I had many books and he asked me to exchange some of them with him. I was amazed and wondered what kind of books he would bring me, expecting the New Testament or the Catechism. But he came with works of poetry and music. He had free access to the prison at any time, and often he would come to the ward at nine in the evening and remain till after midnight. We would discuss his favourite composers — Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms — and compare our views on poetry and social ideas. He presented me with an English. Latin dictionary as a gift, inscribed: “With the highest respect, to Emma Goldman.”
On one occasion I asked him why he never gave me the Bible. “Because no one can understand or love it if he is forced to read it,” he replied. That appealed to me and I asked him for it. Its simplicity of language and legendry fascinated me. There was no make-believe about my young friend. He was devout, entirely consecrated. He observed every fast and he would lose himself in prayer for hours. Once he asked me to help him decorate the chapel. When I came down, I found the frail, emaciated figure in silent prayer, oblivious of his surroundings. My own ideal, my faith, was at the opposite pole from his, but I knew he was as ardently sincere as I. Our fervent was our meeting-ground.
Warden Pillsbury often came to the hospital. He was an unusual man for his surroundings. His grandfather had been a jailer, and both his father and himself had been born in the prison. He understood his wards and the social forces that had created them. Once he remarked to me that he could not bear “stool-pigeons”; he preferred the prisoner who had pride and who would not stoop to mean acts against his fellow convicts in order to gain privileges for himself. If an inmate asseverated that he would reform and never again commit a crime, the Warden felt sure he was lying. He knew that no one could start a new life after years of prison and with the whole world against him unless he had outside friends to help him. He used to say that the State did not even supply a released man with enough money for his first week’s meals. How, then, could he be expected to “make good?” He would relate the story of the man who on the morning of his release told him: “Pillsbury, the next watch and chain I steal I’ll send to you as a present.” “That’s my man,” the Warden would laugh.
Pillsbury was in a position to do much good for the unfortunates in his charge, but he was constantly hampered. He had to allow prisoners to do cooking, washing, and cleaning for others than themselves. If the table damask was not properly rolled before ironing, the laundress stood in danger of confinement to the dungeon. The whole prison was demoralized by favouritism. Convicts were deprived of food for the slightest infraction, but Pillsbury, who was an old man, was powerless to do much about it. Besides, he was eager to avoid a scandal.
The nearer the day of my liberation approached, the more unbearable life in prison became. The days dragged and I grew restless and irritable with impatience. Even reading became impossible. I would sit for hours lost in reminiscences. I thought of the comrades in the Illinois penitentiary brought back to life by the pardon of Governor Altgeld. Since I had come to prison, I realized how much the release of the three men, Neebe, Fielden, and Schwab, had done for the cause for which their comrades in Chicago had been hanged. The venom of the press against Altgeld for his gesture of justice proved how deeply he had struck the vested interests, particularly by his analysis of the trial and his clear demonstration that the executed anarchists had been judicially killed in spite of their proved innocence of the crime charged against them. Every detail of the momentous days of 1887 stood out in strong relief before me. Then Sasha, our life together, his act, his martyrdom — every moment of the five years since I had first met him I now relived with poignant reality. Why was it, I mused, that Sasha was still so deeply rooted in my being? Was not my love for Ed more ecstatic, more enriching? Perhaps it was his act that had bound me to him with such powerful cords. How insignificant was my own prison experience compared with what Sasha was suffering in the Allegheny purgatory! I now felt ashamed that, even for a moment, I could have found my incarceration hard. Not one friendly face in the court-room to be near Sasha and comfort him — solitary confinement and complete isolation, for no more visits had been allowed him. The Inspector had kept his promise; since my visit in November 1892, Sasha had not again been permitted to see anyone. How he must have craved the sight and touch of a kindred spirit, how he must be yearning for it!
My thoughts rushed on. Fedya, the lover of beauty, so fine and sensitive! And Ed. Ed — he had kissed to life so many mysterious longings, had opened such spiritual sources of wealth to me! I owed my development to Ed, tied to the others, too, who had been in my life. And yet, more than all else, it was the prison that bad proved the best school. A more painful, but a more vital, school. Here I bad been brought close to the depths and complexities of the human soul; here I had found ugliness and beauty, meanness and generosity. Here, too, I had learned to see life through my own eyes and not through those of Sasha, Most, or Ed. The prison had been the crucible that tested my faith. It had helped me to discover strength in my own being, the strength to stand alone, the strength to live my life and fight for my ideals, against the whole world if need be. The State of New York could have rendered me no greater service than by sending me to Blackwell’s Island Penitentiary!
The ZINE is available at the RIHS Visitor Center Kiosk…$5-
PHYLLIS THOMPSON, A LONG TIME ISLANDER WHO WAS ALWAYS AT THE COMMUNITY EVENTS, PASSED AWAY A FEW YEARS AGO. ONE OF THE PIONEERS THAT MADE OUR COMMUNITY BETTER.
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
JUDITH BERDY MANDY CHOI
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
Traveller is an Australian publication that covers interesting and historic sites all over the world. Step away from New York and learn the good and bad history of the Liverpool landmark.
Once considered the grandest building in all of Britain, St George’s Hall in Liverpool has a dark underbelly with a strong connection to Australia. Photo: iStock
“They were very clever, the Victorians. They were also incredibly cruel.”
The words are spoken by John, a volunteer guide at St George’s Hall in Liverpool, England, as he shows me the building’s air conditioning vents.
An ingenious system of air shafts, water fountains and canvas flaps kept the occupants cool in summer. Opened in 1854, the enormous Neoclassical building is widely considered to be the world’s first to feature an air conditioning system.
The History Whisperer tour takes you into the underbelly of St George’s Hall.
But the engineering and architecture, as clever as it is, is not what I’m here for. Today I’m getting a taste of that Victorian cruelty instead.
Once considered the grandest building in all of Britain, St George’s Hall in Liverpool has a dark underbelly with a strong connection to Australia.
The History Whisperer tour takes you into the underbelly of St George’s Hall.
But the engineering and architecture, as clever as it is, is not what I’m here for. Today I’m getting a taste of that Victorian cruelty instead.
Once considered the grandest building in all of Britain, St George’s Hall in Liverpool has a dark underbelly with a strong connection to Australia.
In 1839 the city announced a competition to design a grand hall for public events. Then 25-year-old architect Harvey Lonsdale Elmes won, but before starting work he won a second competition to also design Liverpool’s courthouse. In the end, they decided to combine the two.
But it’s this latter part of St George’s Hall that is the focus of a new interactive exhibition, The History Whisperer, telling the stories of some of the prisoners who found themselves facing justice, if that is the right word, in the courts.
Thousands of prisoners were sentenced to transportation to Australia here, often for minor offences like the theft of a pen.
The History Whisperer takes you through the holding cells, which were often packed with up to 30 prisoners in each cramped space. Each one uses projections and lighting effects to tell stories of various people who passed through, what their crimes were and how they were each sentenced.
Throughout, we’re also given the narrative story of Livie, a young Irish immigrant whose brother Jack is arrested and sentenced to transportation. While the characters are fictional, their experiences are not. It’s a heart-rending look at a terrible time for common people living in Britain, where judges were ordered to meet quotas for transportation in order to deliver a workforce to the new colony and reduce the overcrowded prisons of the UK.
While there’s plenty of information to be had through the exhibits, there are often volunteer guides like John on hand to offer further detail. After the cells, I ascend a spiral staircase that leads into the Crown Court, the same way prisoners would have entered, where clever use of projections recreates a trial from the era (the average “trial” reportedly lasted just eight minutes).
The courtroom is in remarkably good condition, but perhaps it’s not all that surprising when I learn they were still in regular use until 1984 and even temporarily went back into use after COVID-19 restrictions were lifted in order to cope with a backlog of cases.
Interactive exhibits tell the stories of those who faced justice (if that’s the word) at the hall. Photo: Supplied
The verdict (guilty, of course) and sentence (transportation, of course) handed down, my visit is at an end.
It strikes me that, right next door in the same building is the Great Hall – an opulent space with an ornate vaulted ceiling, chandeliers and a spectacular mosaic-tiled floor (consisting of 30,000 tiles, it was once the world’s largest and is now covered with a wooden removable floor, unveiled to the public for a limited time once a year). Behind this, the Concert Hall is smaller but no less impressive, with its Greek-style caryatids and 2824-piece chandelier.
It is a cruel irony that in these grand spaces, where many attended pleasurable events, others faced such pain in the adjacent room. Cruel indeed.
The courtroom, where the History Whisperer tour ends. Photo: kenb
DETAILS
The History Whisperer experience at St George’s Hall is open hourly from 10am to 3pm, Tuesday to Saturday. Tickets are £6 for adults.
St George’s Hall is directly opposite Liverpool’s main train station, Lime Street at St George’s Place.
ONE OF THE 5 KIOSK ENTRANCES AT THE FOOT OF THE QUEENSBORO BRIDGE. JUDY SCHNEIDER, ELLEN JACOBY, NINA LIBLIN
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
TRAVELLER
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
On May 10, 1869 the first United States Transcontinental Railroad was completed when a 17.6-karat gold ceremonial spike was driven into a railroad tie by Leland Stanford.
Begun in 1863, the “Pacific Railroad” or “Overland Route” was a joint, although competitive, endeavor between the Central Pacific Railroad (CPRR), moving east from San Francisco to meet the Union Pacific Railroad (UPRR) which headed west from Council Bluffs, Iowa. The two railroad lines finally met at Promontory Point, Utah, after workers laid 1,912 miles of contiguous track.
The meeting of the rails was something of a coming-out party for Schenectady, a city which, at the time, was mostly known for its broom production. Indeed, many aspects of the transcontinental railroad – from the locomotives involved, to the railroad magnates, to the governor of California – had strong connections to New York’s Capital District, and to Schenectady County in particular.
The Jupiter and Driving of the Golden Spike
The Jupiter locomotive is perhaps the most famous of Schenectady’s attendees at the driving of the Golden Spike. Manufactured in 1868 by the Schenectady Locomotive Company (a forerunner of ALCO), the 4-4-0 Jupiter was a wood-burning engine designed to travel 4’8.5″ gauge track.
After construction, the Jupiter (Schenectady Locomotive serial #505) was disassembled and shipped to California around Cape Horn. Joining the Jupiter on this voyage were three similar locomotives constructed by Schenectady Locomotive: Storm (SLW Central Pacific #61), Whirlwind #62), and Leviathan (#63). Jupiter was put into service on March 20, 1869, as SLW Central Pacific #60.
The Jupiter’s fame is derived from its participation in the Golden Spike ceremony, and for carrying California Governor and Central Pacific President Leland Stanford to the event. Otherwise, there was nothing special about the engine.
Its fame was unintended as it was not supposed to be the locomotive to carry Governor Stanford. Another locomotive, the Antelope, was meant to bear this honor. However, tragedy struck as the two trains made their way to Promontory Point, Utah.
Jupiter led the way on the trip to Utah with Antelope following a moment behind. As Jupiter made its way through a construction camp, workers either missed or misread the flags posted on the locomotive that noted another locomotive was following behind. Believing the track to be clear, the workers rolled a large log down a hill and onto the track, which struck the Antelope broadside.
While no one was seriously injured, Antelope was knocked out of commission, leading to the Jupiter’s big moment. Governor Stanford and his staff changed trains and continued to Promontory Point, Utah.
After a collection of speeches, four ceremonial spikes cast of gold were driven into the completed track to symbolize both the joining of east and west, and the wealth and prosperity it would bring to the country. As president of the Central Pacific Railroad, Stanford was given the honor of driving in the fourth and final golden spike. Once the ceremony was completed, engineers drove forward the Jupiter and Locomotive #119 cowcatcher to cowcatcher, as shown in the photo, now known as “East Meets West.”
It should be noted that Locomotive #119 was manufactured by the Rogers Locomotive and Machine Company in 1868. In 1905, Rogers would become a part of the American Locomotive Company (ALCO) headquartered in Schenectady. The Rogers Company stayed in the ALCO family as a parts warehouse and storage facility into the 1920s.
The Jupiter and Locomotive #119 are just two pieces of the tale that link back to Schenectady and the Capital District. The presidents of both the Central Pacific and Union Pacific Railroads have local ties.
The Stanford Family and the Railroad
Amasa Leland Stanford, the 8th governor of California (1862-83), and a president of the Central Pacific Railroad was born in the town of Watervliet in 1824. His involvement with the railroad started early; his father, Josiah, owned the Bull’s Head cattle market between Albany and Troy and was involved in the construction of the railroad between Albany and Schenectady.
It’s not hard to imagine seven-year-old Leland’s mind being fired by the trailblazing trip of the DeWitt-Clinton locomotive in its inaugural run from Albany to Schenectady. And, this was not young Leland’s only brush with the railroad. In 1844, the Mohawk and Hudson Railroad was ceded land that had been part of Elm Grove, the family farm in Roessleville, in the town of Colonie.
When returning home, Leland would have heard train whistles passing by his house.
The Stanford family connection to Schenectady was expanded in March 1859 when Josiah purchased the Locust Grove Estate. Locust Grove, bordering what is now Route 5 and Balltown Road in Niskayuna, had previously been owned by luminaries including John Duncan, General Philip Schuyler, and John I. Vrooman. Although quite rural at the time, the property has since been transformed into Mansion Square, a commercial shopping center. The Schuyler-Stanford Mansion is now a Berkshire Bank.
Leland Stanford, Governor, and Railroad President
After graduating from the Clinton Liberal Institute in Oneida County in 1841 and attending the Cazenovia Seminary in Madison County, Leland was admitted to the New York Bar in 1848. He moved west to Port Washington, Wisconsin, in 1851, where he set up a law office, which was lost in a fire the following year.
The next year, Leland moved further west to Cold Spring, California, a gold rush town, where he ran a general store. This venture failed as well when the mines petered out. Leland moved yet again, setting up shop in another mining town called Michigan Bluff. There, he ran a general store and was named justice of the peace by the board of supervisors.
It was in Michigan Bluff that Stanford joined the Republican Party of California. He ascended its ranks quickly, and served as the party’s nominee for governor of California in 1859 – ultimately losing the contest. Leland ran again in 1861, this time successfully.
He became friends with Collis P. Huntington through his involvement with the Republican Party of California, as well as William Seward. His dealings with Huntington led to his part in the creation of the Central Pacific Railroad, with Stanford as president, and Huntington as vice president.
Archer Huntington (1870-1955), the adopted child of Collis Huntington inherited his fortune and purchased what is now Huntington Wildlife Forest, part of SUNY-ESF’s Newcomb Campus in the Adirondacks.
Thomas Durant (1820-1885), Stanford’s counterpart in the Union Pacific Railroad, also had Capital District roots, having graduated from Albany Medical School. Durant retired to Blue Mountain Lake after the Crédit Mobilier scandal ended his involvement with the Union Pacific Railroad.
After the Golden Spike
Leland Stanford served as Governor of California for just two years (1862-63) and served part of two terms as a US Senator (1885-1893). He remained president of the Central Pacific and Southern Pacific Railroads until his passing in 1893. His only son, Leland Stanford, Jr. died tragically of typhoid fever while traveling in Italy.
Leland Jr. was just shy of his 16th birthday. In 1887, on what would have been Leland Jr.’s 19th birthday, Governor Stanford and his wife Jane Lathrop dedicated Leland Stanford Junior University. The Stanfords donated $40 million to the cause and brought in Frederick Law Olmsted to lay out the campus.
Olmstead had Schenectady ties as well, having designed Schenectady’s Central Park, as well as Central Park in New York City, Albany’s Washington Park, and Congress Park in Saratoga.
So, what became of the Jupiter after its role in the Golden Spike ceremony?
It stayed in service with Central Pacific until 1891, when it was sold to the Southern Pacific Railroad and numbered 195. It was then acquired by the Gila Valley, Globe and Northern Railway (GVG & N) in 1893, where it became Locomotive #1 and was converted into a coal engine. It returned to the Southern Pacific fold in 1901 when they bought GVG & N. In 1909 it was consigned to scrappers.
In 1974, the National Park Service contracted with O’Connor Engineering Labs of Costa Mesa, California, to build a nearly exact replica of the Jupiter. Completed in 1979, the new Jupiter is on permanent display at Golden Spike National Historical Park at Promontory Point, Utah
Photos, from above: the recreated Jupiter locomotive; East and West Shaking Hands at the Laying of Last Rail by Andrew J. Russell – Yale University Libraries; and Leland Stanford in the 1870s.
Chris Leonard wrote this essay for the Schenectady County Historical Society Newsletter, Volume 63. Become a member of the Society online at schenectadyhistorical.org.
CITY HOSPITAL AT THE SOUTH END OF THE ISLAND WITH THE OUTBUILDINGS SURROUNDING THE HOSPITAL ED LITCHER GOT IT.
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
NEW YORK ALMANACK
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
According to his monument at Albany Rural Cemetery, Samuel Schuyler was born in 1781. Although part African-American, he may have also been a descendant of Philip Schuyler, one of Albany’s most prominent families.
In 1805 he received a manumission from Dirck Schuyler (who is thought to be his white father).
By 1805, he married Mary Martin-Morin listed an Albany directories as a “Mullatto woman” and their son Richard March Schuyler was born and baptized in the Dutch Church. By 1825, Samuel and Mary had ten more children.
Samuel supported the family by working along the Albany waterfront at Quay Street and, by about 1810, he operated his own sail vessel hauling produce, including lumber, south to the city of New York. He had come to be known as “Captain” Schuyler.
In 1812, his son, Samuel, Jr. was born. By 1813, Samuel Sr. owned his home at 204 South Pearl Street and began to acquire surrounding properties in a growing Black neighborhood in Albany’s South End. By 1815, he owned several lots between Bassett and Schuyler Streets and over the next 20 years his holdings spread east to control most of a two-block area from South Pearl Street to the waterfront.
By the 1830s, Captain Schuyler had been joined in business by his sons and by 1835, Samuel Schuyler & Company opened a flour and feed store located at Bassett and Franklin Streets and advertised in the City Directory. The Schuylers also operated a coal yard in the South End. In the 1830s, Samuel Schuyler also continued his shipping business adding newer paddle-wheeled steam-powered towboats.
His son, also known as Captain Samuel Schuyler, succeeded him and renamed the shipping company the Schuyler Steam Towboat Company. Samuel Jr. operated the steam towboats America, Syracuse, Connecticut, Niagara, Belle, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Jacob Leonard, Carrie, G.E. Winants, Robert T. Banks, Ontario and Pontiac. Most of them were among the largest towboats of the period. All except the Pontiac were side-wheel steamboats. The Pontiac was a newer model steamboat with a screw propeller.
Captain Samuel Schuyler’s towboats towed packs of as many as 50 canal boats at a time to the city of New York and back. Schuyler’s company was the second largest towboat company to the Albany & Canal Line (A&C Line) owned by J.J. Austin and then when the A&C Line closed, Schuyler was second to the Cornell Line.
In 1891, seventy-nine year old Captain Samuel Schuyler, Jr. retired and the Schuyler Steam Towboat Company closed. It was said that competition from the railroads and also from the newer screw-propeller towboats made it hard for Schuyler’s older and larger paddle-wheeled boats to compete.
At the time the company closed, The New York Times reported that it was the oldest towboat line on the Hudson River. Samuel Jr. was listed as president and his son, James B. Schuyler, was vice president. They had a New York office at 15 South Street. The Beverwyck Towing Company, also an Albany company, continued the Schuyler operation in 1892 with several of the same boats.
From 1848-1894, Samuel Jr. lived at 2 Ash Grove Place, one of Albany’s most picturesque residences crowned by a large belvedere that provided a 180-degree view of the city and river. Samuel Jr. died in 1894 and is buried in lot 33, section 32 at Albany Rural Cemetery with other family members, near Erastus Corning and Philip Schuyler.
ELEVATOR STOREHOUSE BUILDING AT QUEENSBORO BRIDGE SAMUEL LEVITAN ARCHITECT
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
NEW YORK ALMANACK PETER HESS
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
Hell’s Hundred Acres was the early to mid-20th century moniker for today’s SoHo, thanks to all the fires that broke out in the cast-iron buildings then used for manufacturing. Hellgate Hill was an East 90s enclave named for the narrow East River channel separating Queens from Ward’s Island, where perilous rocks and currents sunk many ships.
Let’s not forget Satan’s Circus, the Gilded Age vice district that straddled the Chelsea-Flatiron-Midtown borders, and Spuyten Duyvil, the northern Bronx enclave that translates into “spite of the devil” or “spouting devil” due to its treacherous waters.
Today, we’re left with one hell neighborhood: Hell’s Kitchen, on the West Side of Manhattan. The name conveys a sense of danger, depravity, and chaos—fueled by the post–Civil War development here of tenements, factories, elevated trains, slaughterhouses, waterfront activity, and railroads. Poor people and immigrants moved in, and crime was rampant.
So where did the illustrious name actually come from? Several intriguing theories abound.
In the late 19th century, Hell’s Kitchen might have first referred only to the down and dirty block of 39th Street between Ninth and Tenth Avenues. “Legend has it that one rookie cop commented to his more seasoned partner, ‘This place is hell itself,’” explains NYC Parks.
“‘Hell’s a mild climate,’ his partner replied. ‘This is hell’s kitchen.’” Soon, the name spread across the neighborhood—which early on spanned roughly 34th Street to 42nd Street west of Eighth Avenue and today runs all the way up to West 59th Street.
Another possibility is that Hell’s Kitchen the neighborhood was named after the Hell’s Kitchen Gang, which in the late 19th century specialized in stealing from railroad yards, breaking and entering, extortion, and “general mayhem,” according to a 1939 book produced by the Federal Writers Project.
Could a New York Times reporter be responsible for the name? The first appearance of “Hell’s Kitchen” in newsprint dates back to September 22, 1881.
“A Notorious Locality,” is the title of the article, which goes on to describe some of the tenement houses on the blocks between 38th and 40th Streets and Tenth and Eleventh Avenue.
“Within the square are a collection of buildings…known to the police as ‘Hell’s Kitchen,’ ‘The House of Blazes,’ ‘Battle Row,’ and ‘Sebastopol.’ The entire locality is probably the lowest and filthiest in the city, a locality where law and order are openly defied, where might makes right, and depravity revels riotously in squalor and reeking filth.” Ouch.
Probably the strangest theory posits that a remark by Davy Crockett—the early 1800s frontiersman—inspired the name.
“I said to [my friend]…these are worse than savages; they are too mean to swab hell’s kitchen.” Somehow the name was applied decades later to the West Side neighborhood, and it fit.
In recent years, Hell’s Kitchen has lost its once-notorious edge. The gangs are gone; apartments in formerly rundown tenements are now pricey. Bars and restaurants make it a prime nightlife area. An attempt to rebrand the neighborhood the bland “Clinton” years ago never really panned out.
Hell’s Kitchen will continue to be Hell’s Kitchen, albeit a more law-abiding and expensive version.
[Top image: Louis Maurer, 1883, “View of 43rd Street West of Ninth Avenue”; second image: Jacob Riis, 1890; third image: New York Times; fourth image: MCNY/Charles Von Urban, 1932; 33.173.319, 1881; fifth image: Jacob Riis, 1890; sixth image: MCNY, 1930, X2010.11.6065]
ARCHITECTURAL RENDERING OF STRECKER MEMORIAL LABORATORY WITHERS AND DICKSON THOM HEYER AND GLORIA HERMAN GOT IT RIGHT
A COMMENT FROM A READER:
This is terrible!! There are other ways to keep the dogs happy without this awful white window. Please change it Sharon Bermon 575
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
EPHEMERAL NEW YORK
Tags: Hell’s Kitchen Name Origin, Hell’s Kitchen Neighborhood Name, Hell’s Kitchen, Hell’s Kitchen history, Hell’s Kitchen street, How Hell’s Kitchen Got Its Name
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
1934: A New Deal for Artists February 27, 2009–January 3, 2010 SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM
In 1934, Americans grappled with an economic situation that feels all too familiar today. Against the backdrop of the Great Depression, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s administration created the Public Works of Art Project—the first federal government program to support the arts nationally. Federal officials in the 1930s understood how essential art was to sustaining America’s spirit. Artists from across the United States who participated in the program, which lasted only six months from mid-December 1933 to June 1934, were encouraged to depict “the American Scene.” The Public Works of Art Project not only paid artists to embellish public buildings, but also provided them with a sense of pride in serving their country. They painted regional, recognizable subjects—ranging from portraits to cityscapes and images of city life to landscapes and depictions of rural life—that reminded the public of quintessential American values such as hard work, community and optimism.
When he was twelve, Dewey Albinson was shot in the leg by a group of boys who had stolen his bicycle. He left high school and spent a lot of time at home, sketching and painting to fill his free time. He studied at the Art Students League in New York, then spent most of the 1920s and ’30s painting the towns, landscapes, and mines of Minnesota. He joked once that he had painted “every outhouse from Minneapolis to Canada” (Loran, “Minnesota Artists,” American Magazine of Art, January 1938). Albinson created images for the Public Works of Art Project and also acted as state director of the Minnesota educational division. In the late 1930s he spent several summers as a “recluse” on a small island on Lake Superior, leaving in the fall only after an inch of ice had formed in his wash pail. Albinson lived the last years of his life in Mexico, where he suffered paralysis caused by his childhood injury and had to pull himself around on a dolly in order to paint. (Swanson, “A Study of Dewey Albinson,” n.d., unpublished ms., SAAM curatorial file)
J. Theodore Johnson is best known for the four murals he created for the Oak Park Post Office in Chicago while working for the Works Progress Administration.
The paper plant where these men are laboring was the mainstay of Glens Falls, New York, where Douglass Crockwell had his studio. Crockwell, like many artists on the Public Works of Art Project who anticipated the public exhibition of his painting, proudly depicted the chief industry of his town. The workers are smoothing and stamping an enormous roll of newsprint, the plant’s principal product.
Crockwell noted that in this scene dominated by mighty iron machinery he took “some liberties with the human form” because “the whole composition of the picture requires hard structural forms.” By showing the workers as blocky figures that appear to be roughly carved out of wood, the artist visually likened the men to the source of the wood pulp from which they made newsprint. The workers appear powerfully identified with their work. The question “what do you do for a living?” became a poignant one during this time when so many had no answer. Crockwell, a busy illustrator for much of his life, recalled that when “the depression arrived . . . there wasn’t much work.”
1934: A New Deal for Artists exhibition label
These workers are demolishing a St. Louis building as evening falls and street lights begin to glow. In the midst of the Great Depression, modest houses and shops around Market Street gave way to wider streets, graceful parks, and the Municipal Auditorium. The pointed tower of the new Civil Courts Building in the background, built in 1930, shows how the city was being transformed.
A few months before Joe Jones made this painting, he had told the St. Louis Artists’ Guild, “I am not interested in painting pretty pictures to match pink and blue walls, I want to paint things that will knock holes in walls.” Yet the warm light on the dilapidated street and the industrial smoke that veils the new buildings in the background suggest that the artist did not embrace these changes uncritically. Jones lived in a houseboat on the Mississippi not far from the construction around Market Street; he knew the old neighborhood that was vanishing and would miss the people and businesses pushed aside in the name of progress.
GLORIA HERMAN GOT THE RIGHT COVER FROM 1980 MARVEL SPIDERMAN COMIC
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
In response to the attack on Pearl Harbour in 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 authorizing the founding of a new federal agency, the War Relocation Authority (WRA), which began forcibly removing Japanese Americans from the West Coast and relocate them to isolated inland areas. Around 120,000 people were detained in remote camps for the remainder of the Second World War.
Among those interned were artists. Chiura Obata had settled in America in 1903 and built a career as a painter and art teacher at the University of California. In the wake of events, he and his family were taken from their home and interned, first in Tanforan Centre, California, and then in Topaz Centre, Utah. Obata was involved in attempts to bring some “normality” into an existence of exclusion. He organized the creation of art schools for inmates. In addition to teaching, he created some 350 works during this period, including sketches that documented camp life. He communicated the spirit of survival, the unwillingness to accept defeat in the face of prejudice and humiliation.
An artist of mixed Japanese descent who managed to stay out of grasp of the WRA (in spite of persistent attempts by the FBI to “nail” him) was one of the most flamboyant characters in American cultural history of the early twentieth century.
Hamburg & Philadelphia
Sadakichi Hartmann was born in 1867 in Deshima, Nagasaki. That year also marked the end of the Edo period in which the artificial island was the sole territory in Japan open to Westerners. His father Carl Hartmann was an affluent Prussian merchant; his Japanese mother died shortly after giving birth.
Raised in Hamburg in the care of his grandmother and uncle, Sadakichi received a solid Lutheran education and was pressed as a teenager to attend the Imperial Naval Academy in Kiel. An independent mind, he rebelled against the academy’s Teutonic discipline and ran off to Paris. His furious father sent the youngster to Philadelphia.
Arriving in in June 1882, he spent three years with his paternal grand-uncle and wife, an elderly childless couple living at 806 Buttonwood Street. Hartmann struggled to cope with the dramatic change in lifestyle, especially since he – a spoiled young man shy of hard labor – was forced to earn a living by working at a lithographic printing house.
Books offered solace. He read voraciously at the Philadelphia Mercantile Library, eventually discovering Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman. Overwhelmed by his stylistic power, he visited the sixty-five-year-old poet at Camden, New Jersey, in 1884, starting what would become an intense relationship (as related in 1895 in his Conversations with Walt Whitman).
Having settled in Boston in 1887, Hartmann spent much of the following year in Europe. On return in 1889, he moved to New York City, residing in Washington Square, Greenwich Village, where he struggled with depression. After a suicide attempt, he met and married his nurse, Elizabeth Blanche Walsh.
Paris on a Tuesday
Whitman served as a model for Hartmann’s career. His early poems bear traces of Whitman’s influence; the title of his Drifting Flowers of the Sea and Other Poems (1904) is a reference to Leaves of Grass. His development as a poet was further enriched by his passion for the French avant-garde.
In 1891, Hartmann traveled to Paris as foreign correspondent for the monthly McClure’s Magazine, interviewing artists and covering scenes of cultural events in Paris. As “Japonisme” was all the rage in the visual arts then, he received a cordial welcome in the city’s artistic circles. Through his friendship with Stéphane Mallarmé, the chain-smoking poet, teacher of English and translator of Edgar Allan Poe, he was introduced to most prominent Parisian authors and painters.
Mallarmé, the “Prophet of Modernism,” was central to the avant-garde for the Tuesday night gatherings held +at his house on the Rue de Rome. Having visited one such occasions, Hartmann dedicated an essay (‘A Tuesday Evening with Stéphane Mallarmé’) to a description of the literary salon. He continued corresponding with the French poet as late as 1897. The impact of his stay was reflected in much of his subsequent art criticism and also in his plays and poetry.
In 1893, Hartmann issued 1,000 copies of his drama Christ, a symbolist treatment of Christ’s life complete with nudity and orgies. Almost all copies of the play were burned in Boston by morality activists of the New England Watch and Ward Society. Hartmann was arrested and spent Christmas week in the city’s infamous Charles Street Jail.
This controversial play was followed by another symbolist drama Buddha (1897). In addition to a number of other “religious” plays, he published various volumes of poetry. A collection of short stories entitled Schopenhauer in the Air appeared in 1899. All these works reflect the intense impact of his Parisian experience.
An American Art
Hartmann had begun writing newspaper articles on art and literature in the 1880s. Whilst living in Boston, he launched his magazine The Art Critic. Its three volumes published in 1893/4 had a small readership of subscribers that included artists such as Albert Bierstadt, William Merritt Chase, Childe Hassam and others. Describing himself as an “American by choice,” Hartmann was on a mission. The magazine’s subtitle made his intention clear: “Dedicated to the Encouragement of American Art.”
His first article was “An Appeal to All Art Lovers” in which he called for the creation of a national art that would contribute to the “task of building up a new race from the waste of other nations.” A National Art would unite the country, making life richer for all. In an essay in the final issue he returns to the subject, stressing that a sense of Americanness could only be developed by cultivating a regional character and choosing local subjects – in other words: by challenging Europe.
Hartmann’s plea for an American Art coincided with his personal wish to obtain US citizenship, but there were serious obstacles. Until the 1952 Immigration Act, Federal law racially restricted naturalization which concerned citizens of Asian descent in particular as they were viewed as a group whose loyalty was in doubt. In 1894, a court held that Japanese people were not white; in 1909 and again in 1912, courts decided that people of half-Asian and half-white descent were not white.
In spite of that, Sadakichi obtained American citizenship in 1894. He most likely fooled the authorities. On his 1891 marriage certificate he was listed as “White.” Half a century later he would once again bamboozle officials about his background and status.
His art magazine was discontinued that same year, partly because he was too far ahead in his appreciation of Continental artists. His readers were (as yet) unreceptive to developments in France and Europe. Moreover, the legal defense costs of his Boston obscenity case had left him bankrupt. Hartmann was forced to take up journalism again. He returned to New York.
Prime Time NYC
Between 1898 and 1902, he penned more than 350 sketches on New York life for the New York Staats-Zeitung. Founded in the mid-1830s and nicknamed “The Staats,” it was at the time one of the city’s major daily newspapers.
Alfred Stieglitz launched his Camera Notes in 1898 and invited Hartmann to join the staff. During the next two decades, the latter was a prolific writer on art and photography for this journal and its successor, the more innovative Camera Work. Many of his pioneering contributions were published under the pen-name of Sidney Allan. He praised Eduard Steichen for showing the “courage to experiment and the ambition to break with conventional laws and to create new formulae of expression.” Art to him was about breaking rules.
Hartmann also covered New York’s visual art scene. His History of American Art (1901; revised 1938) was used as a standard textbook for many years. Other works of criticism include Shakespeare in Art (1900), Japanese Art (1903) and The Whistler Book (1910). Crowned King of Bohemia, he spent much of the 1910s in the Roycrofters Arts and Crafts colony in Upstate New York.
In 1904, he published an essay on “The Japanese Conception of Poetry,” discussing the precision and suggestiveness of forms such as tanka and haiku before similar ideas started circulating in French literary circles and among the Anglo-American Imagist poets. That year he included seven tanka in Drifting Flowers of the Sea. In 1926, he produced a limited edition of Japanese Rhythms.
Hartmann’s introduction of Japanese stylistic principles had an impact on the development of modern American poetry. Poets like Ezra Pound and Amy Lowell searched for alternatives to the pompous grandeur of Victorian poetry. Lowell modeled her work after ancient Greek and Latin examples, but Pound – thanks to Sadakichi’s intervention – found inspiration in Japanese precedents to push the boundaries of literary tradition. In Canto LXXX of his 1948 Pisan Cantos, Pound refers to Hartmann.
San Francisco & Hollywood
Hartmann arrived in San Francisco at the beginning of the First World War and quickly became a fixture in the city’s artistic community. As he refused to enlist or join the war effort, he was brought before a county judge who ordered him to work in the city’s Potrero Point shipbuilding yards. He sat on a rope coil and stared out at the Bay. He was returned to court and threatened with prison, but managed to talk his way into to giving public art lectures as his contribution to the cause.
Throughout his life, Hartmann had suffered from asthmatic attacks which became gradually worse, forcing him in 1923 to move to San Gorgonio Pass, a desert stretch between Los Angeles and the Coachella Valley. He became fascinated by Hollywood and worked for a while as a columnist for the English monthly theater magazine The Curtain. He even appeared in the bit role of court magician in Douglas Fairbanks’s “The Thief of Baghdad,” but his acting career was uninspiring and short lived. His creative powers were also fading.
In Hollywood, Hartmann found himself adopted as a drinking companion by the actor John Barrymore and his mates, a group that often gathered in the Bundy Drive studio of John Decker, the painter who would create an iconic portrait of the ageing Sadakichi. As his health steadily deteriorated, he became dependent upon patronage from friends and admirers. His best work had passed into oblivion. By the 1920s, even former friends looked upon him as a scrounger.
Obituary & Legacy
With the outbreak of the Second World War the FBI started inquiring into Hartmann’s Japanese-German background. In numerous letters and confrontations, Hartmann pleaded with the authorities not to intern him. In the end, he confused them. What could they make of a mixed race person who in appearance was Japanese, who spoke English with a heavy German accent and who showed the refined manners of a French decadent; a person who, at the same time, was a proud American who had penned the first history of American art? Although the harassment never ceased, he escaped incarceration.
Hartmann retreated to Catclaw Siding, a shack adjoining his daughter Wistaria Linton’s home on the Morongo Reservation in Banning, California. There he composed his own idiosyncratic obituary, one that evokes the sounds of ringing bells and ocean waves that rise in disquiet at the poet’s imminent death. Its finale transforms into a more muted tone: “Sadakichi Hartmann is gone a new scene is on / Sounds like flowers drop one by one / Bing! Bang! Bung! Bing! Bong! / Bung! Bing! Bing! Bong! Bang!”
Hartmann died in 1944 while visiting another daughter, Dorothea Gilliland, in St Petersburg, Florida. Among possible titles for an unfinished autobiography Hartmann included Success in Failure (predating Bob Dylan’s classic line “There’s no success like failure”).
Today, he occupies a niche in cultural historiography. Hartmann failed in finding an audience for his work, because he never sacrificed his aesthetic principles for the sake of public approval. He published most of his poetry in limited editions, sharing his art with a select circle of readers. As he put it himself: “When only material progress is at stake, poetry does not function.” Hartmann fits the profile of a Continental modernist, but placed in the midst of an unprepared American setting. He acted as an intermediate in the transfer of cultural trends from Paris to the United States.
An enigmatic personality, his life was a restless search for identity, assuming various masks and guises: the French inspired dramatic poet of the 1890s; the prolific art critic of the turn of the century; the rebel who frequented Julius Schwab’s anarchist saloon at East First Street; the boozing King of Greenwich Village; and finally the ageing court jester in Hollywood. It was racial profiling and the bigoted reception of his work from the 1930s onward that damaged his reputation most. He was denied what he wanted most – to be acknowledged as an American author.
COVERED WINDOWS ON MAIN STREET. SOON TO BE A STREET WITH OUT IDENTITIES PUP CULTURE, RIOC OFFICE, DR. RESNICK OFFICE
ALEXIS VILLAFANE GOT IT CORRECT
HIDING ANOTHER STOREFRONT
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
Illustrations, from above: Conversations with Walt Whitman; Sadakichi Hartmann, c. 1910 by Marius de Zayas (The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Alfred Stieglitz Collection); Cover of The Art Critic, (no. 1, November 1893); portrait of Sadakichi Hartmann, before 1934 by Ejnar Hansen (Los Angeles County Museum of Art); Sadakichi in one of his Mongol prince getups c. 1923; and portrait of Sadakichi Hartmann, 1940 by John Decker (Laguna Art Museum).
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
The 1872 plan to get around Manhattan via elevated pneumatic tubes
The 19th century, not unlike today, New York City had a mass transit problem.
As the city’s population boomed and the urbanization of Manhattan continued northward, it was clear that the horse-pulled omnibuses and horse-drawn streetcars—which carried thousands of people to their destinations every day and contributed to enormous, epic traffic jams—were not going to cut it.
Enter the Gilbert Elevated Railway (above and below, in proposed illustrations). Introduced in 1872 amid a flurry of other ideas for elevated transit, this railroad would run high above the surface of the city on elegant, decorative wrought-iron archways, ferrying passengers in cars powered by compressed air.
Basically, it would be an elevated railroad shuttling uptown and downtown through pneumatic tubes.
The man behind the much-talked-about idea was Rufus H. Gilbert, a former doctor in the Union Army who was troubled by the high rates of sickness in tenement districts.
“Gilbert’s answer to the cholera, typhus, and diphtheria rampaging among the downtrodden classes was, elliptically, rapid transit,” wrote Sam Lubell and Greg Goldin in an article for The Gotham Center for New York City History.
“He reasoned that fast and cheap public conveyances would allow the poor to flee their teeming, disease-infested neighborhoods, and live in the hinterlands, where they could enjoy clean air and water, and plentiful sunshine,” continued Lubell and Goldin.
The idea of mass transit via pneumatic tube sounds a little crazy, especially if you think of pneumatic tubes as an old-fashioned system banks and department stores used to carry cash and receipts through a vacuum-powered network.
But it had precedent. Two years earlier, a pneumatic-tube underground subway opened for business. Running just one block from Warren to Murray Streets under Broadway, the city’s first subway, built by inventor Alfred Ely Beach, attracted curious riders—but not the funding (or political clout) needed to extend the line any farther. Beach’s subway closed in 1873.
Gilbert (above) may have borrowed the pneumatic tube idea, but he also put a lot of thought into how his railroad would run. He proposed putting his stations roughly one mile apart and providing pneumatic elevators for passengers to ascend to each station, according to Lubell and Goldin, who authored the 2016 book Never Built New York.
“He also planned a telegraph triggered by the passing cars, which would automatically signal arrivals and departures from all points along the line,” they wrote.
Though Gilbert got the go-ahead from the city to start constructing his pneumatic railway along Sixth Avenue, his plans had the misfortune of colliding with the Panic of 1873—a terrible depression that left him without investors. With no capital, he was forced to abandon his idea.
Gilbert persisted over the next few years, modifying his elevated railroad so it would be powered by steam engines, not compressed air. In 1875 he received a charter to begin building. Three years later, the first leg of the Gilbert Elevated opened from Rector Street to Central Park. (Above, the debut of the railroad as it approached Jefferson Market Courthouse.)
By 1880, almost all of New York’s avenues had steam-powered elevated trains roaring and belching overhead. Traffic congestion was relieved—but a decade later, plans for a faster, less obtrusive, and more efficient underground subway would be in the works.
What became of Gilbert? Sadly, after his elevated railroad opened, he was ousted from his own company, which was renamed the Metropolitan Elevated Company. Gilbert threatened to sue his former colleagues, charging that they defrauded him. Ultimately he died in his home on West 73rd Street in 1885.
[Top illustration: Alamy; second illustration: Library of Congress; third illustration: NYPL; fourth illustration: Library of Congress; fifth illustration: Library of Congress]
ANOTHER BLOCKED WINDOW MAIN STREET HAS TURNED WHITED-OUT
FORMER DAY NURSERY AND P.I. 217 SIGN THAT USED TO BE ON RIVERCROSS WALL
NINA LUBLIN GOT IT
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
EPHEMERAL NEW YORK
THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
