Appalling Disaster: An 1871 Staten Island Ferry Disaster
The following is from the Harpers Weekly of August 12, 1871. It was transcribed by Hudson River Maritime Museum contributing scholar Carl Mayer.
About half past one Sunday afternoon, July 30, [1871] the Staten Island ferry boat Westfield was lying quietly in her slip at the foot of Whitehall Street, New York. Over four hundred souls were on board, lured by the delightful weather from their crowded homes to breathe the pure sea air and enjoy the grass and shade of the uncontaminated country.
Everything was in readiness for the start. The captain was at his post, the engineer was on his way to the engine room, men were standing ready to unhook the chains, when suddenly there came a terrible crash, and in an instant the steamer was a wreck.
Those who witnessed the disaster say that first there was a dull crunching sound, somewhat like that made by the fall of a large building, followed immediately by the sharp hiss of escaping steam.
The main deck was forced upward for a considerable distance; the beams and planks were torn into fragments. Many of them were thrown high into the air, and fell back in a confused mass into the hold.
The pilot house, which was directly over the boiler, was hurled into the air to a great height, and falling back upon the hurricane deck was shattered to pieces.
The pilot was in the house, and yet, strange to say, aside from a few severe scratches and contusions and a severe shock, escaped unhurt. He could scarcely believe that he was not mortally injured, as he crawled from the ruins and saw the havoc and desolation that had been made.
The heavy smoke stack was also blown high in the air and fell into the general wreck. The escaping steam filled the boat, and many were scaled who would have otherwise escaped unhurt.
The part of the boiler which gave way was opposite the fire box, and toward the bow of the boat. Such was the force of the explosion that a piece of the upper half of the shell of the boiler, twenty feet in length and weighing two tons, was hurled forward a distance of twenty-five fee, and lodged in the bow. The fracture apparently started at a place where the boiler was patched to cover a defect.
A majority of the passengers were collected on the main deck, directly over the boiler. These were blown into the air to the height of thirty or forty feet, falling back into the wreck, or into the water. Happy were those who died instantly! Scores of men, women, and children who escaped the full force of the explosion were immediately enveloped in a scalding cloud of steam.
The scene of the boat was harrowing. Groans and loud screams of agony came from the scalded, wounded, and dying. Parents were eagerly seeking their children, children for parents, friends for friends. Many in their panic leaped overboard, some were rescued by boats that surrounded the wreck, while others sank at once and were drowned.
The Police and Fire departments called upon for assistance, and at once furnished men and means to convey to the hospitals such sufferers who could be moved.
A pitiable sight they presented when brought upon the docks. Many had the skin almost entirely scalded from the face, neck, and breasts. Others had lost portions of their hair, from the scalp literally being parboiled and peeled off. Others were covered with ghastly wounds, and all were begrimed with soot and dust.
As fast as possible the sufferers were removed to the hospitals, where the utmost that surgical skill could do was done to relieve them. In spite of every attention, many died after their removal. The number of the victims has not been fully ascertained. It is thought that between forty and fifty were killed outright, and that the list of fatalities may be swelled to a hundred by deaths in the hospital.
The cause of the explosion has not been ascertained. Various surmises are afloat in regards to it. Only two months ago, the United States inspector of boilers inspected the Westfield and pronounced it safe.
The engineer, a colored man, is said to be capable and trustworthy. He states that just before the explosion took place, he found the water in the boiler all right, and the steam gauge indicating a pressure of twenty-seven pounds.
A fragment of the boiler picked upon the dock was pronounced by good judges to be unsound iron. It was taken to police headquarters to be produced before the coroner’s jury, when the questions of cause and responsibility will be fully inquired into
COMING TO THE NYPL BRANCH ON FEBRUARY 18TH
PHOTO OF THE DAY
Swirling dancers entertained the Coler residents today celebrating Lunar New Year. A fun afternoon with lots of colorful entertainment.
CREDITS
NEW YORK ALMANACK
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
80 DAYS FROM TODAY IS THE 50th ANNIVERSARY OF THE FIRST RESIDENTIAL TENANT MOVING INTO ISLAND HOUSE, THE FIRST OCCUPIED BUILDING. HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO CELEBRATE THE ISLAND’S 50TH ANNIVERSARY? SEND IN YOUR SUGGESTIONS TO JBIRD134@AOL.COM
ARTIST
PAUL MANSHIP
Wednesday, February 5, 2025
ISSUE #1388
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Sculptor. The country’s most famous exponent of Art Deco, he embraced archaic vocabularies of Greek, Roman, and Indian art to create decorative, stylized, Neoclassical works. The statue in the fountain in New York City’s Rockefeller Plaza, Prometheus (1933) is one of his famous works.
Joan Stahl American Artists in Photographic Portraits from the Peter A. Juley & Son Collection (Washington, D.C. and Mineola, New York: National Museum of American Art and Dover Publications, Inc., 1995)
The Rainey Memorial Gate at the Bronx Zoo in Bronx, New York – By American sculptor Paul Manship 1934
Artist Biography
By the time he was fifteen years old, Paul Manship had decided he wanted to become a sculptor. He was born the day before Christmas, in 1885, in St. Paul, Minnesota, the youngest of seven children. After attending Mechanical Arts High School, he took evening classes at the St. Paul Institute School of Art, but left to work as a designer and illustrator.
In 1905 he enrolled in the Art Students League in New York City and after a few months of formal study became an assistant to the sculptor Solon Borglum, whom he considered a critical influence on his work. After further study he received a three-year scholarship to study in Rome where he fell under the spell of Greek antiquity and the beauty of classicism. He traveled extensively before returning to the United States in 1912 where he became an immediate success, launching a career that would last fifty years.
The critics and public unanimously acclaimed him a major new talent. There was a rising tide of enthusiasm for his graceful work, and he sold all of the ninety-six bronze statutes he showed in his first exhibition. One year later he received his first important commissions for garden and architectural sculpture from New York architects.
Early in his career Manship became attracted to animal sculptures and showed a great interest in mythical stories and characters. He became known for his freely modeled forms and dramatic gestures. “I like to express movement in my figures. It’s a fascinating problem which I’m always trying to solve,” he said. He also noted, “I’m not especially interested in anatomy, though naturally I’ve studied it. And, although I approve generally of normally correct proportions, what matters is the spirit which the artist puts into his creation—the vitality, the rhythm, the emotional effect.”
Some of Manship’s well-known works are the Prometheus Fountain in Rockefeller Center, the gates to the entrances of the Bronx Zoo and the Central Park Zoo, and the Time and Fates Sundial and Moods of Time sculptures installed in front of Trylon and Perisphere at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York City.
Paul Manship turned his attention from painting to sculpture after discovering that he was color-blind. As a teenager, he devoted so much time to sculpting that he neglected his studies and dropped out of school. Manship’s early work was influenced by Rodin’s expressive style, but when the younger artist was awarded a three-year internship at the American Academy in Rome, he had the opportunity to study Greek and Roman art firsthand. He fell in love with archaic Greek sculpture, and also studied Egyptian, Asian, and Assyrian art. The sculptures that Manship created from this point were unusual because they were very stylized but still representational. The artist’s work was hugely popular upon his return from Rome, and he sold all ninety-six pieces from his first show in New York. Manship worked on a number of monumental projects, and became an influential sculptor in America. Artists openly borrowed and applied his style in many media, especially in illustration. By the end of his career, Manship had produced more than seven hundred works and won many prestigious medals. One of his most famous pieces is the fountain sculpture Prometheus at Rockefeller Center in New York City.
Aero Memorial by Paul Manship, 1950. Currently located on Landsdowne Drive near Memorial Hall (West side of Fairmount Park), Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.
“Girl with a duck” statue by Paul Manship in the fountain at Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia
COMING TO THE NYPL BRANCH ON FEBRUARY 18TH
PHOTO OF THE DAY
CREDITS
SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
Walk up Fifth Avenue to about East 85th Street, and something enchanting will catch your eye. Just inside Central Park are two granite pillars flanking cast-iron gates decorated with animal sculptures.
Bears, deer, mice, squirrels, a frog, a fox, a wold, a crane, and a crow—these playful sculptures set against a backdrop of tree branches are inspired by the stories in Aesop’s Fables.
It’s an appropriate theme, as the gates open to the Ancient Playground, one of the Central Park’s 21 play areas for kids.
But the pillars have a curious inscription. One carries a dedication to the memory of a William Church Osborn, while the other pillar calls out his accomplishments: president of the Metropolitan Museum of Art from 1941 to 1947; president of the Children’s Aid Society from 1901 to 1949.
The pillar also notes that from 1910 and 1957 he was president of a group called the New York Society for the Relief of the Ruptured and Crippled.
The ruptured and crippled? Like institution and lunatic asylum, these Dickens-ish terms have been long abandoned by the medical establishment. But it made me wonder about the Society and to try to trace its origins.
That took me back to the New York City of 1863. With the Civil War in the backdrop, the newly formed Society founded a hospital led by an orthopedic surgeon, Dr. James Knight, in Knight’s own home on Second Avenue and Sixth Street.
In a city population of about 800,000, many people suffered from orthopedic problems and “ruptured” organs. That first year, more than 800 people sought help, including many children.
“Persons afflicted with ruptures, ulcerated legs [and] poor families having crippled children, suffering from spinal and paralytic affections, thronged our streets, dwellings and places of business, making revolting displays of their infirmities and misfortunes,” wrote Dr. Knight, according to this NYC Mayor’s Office page.
By 1875, the Society raised enough funds to open a much larger hospital on 42nd Street and Lexington Avenue, below. (Above, the third image shows the play area for children living at the hospital.)
William Church Osborn, a lawyer and philanthropist from a wealthy New York family, got involved with the Hospital for the Ruptured and Crippled around this time.
In 1940, the hospital was renamed the Hospital for Special Surgery, which exists today on 70th Street east of York Avenue.
So what’s the connection between Osborn and the animal gates?
After Osborn’s death in 1951 at age 88, city officials decided to honor his long history of supporting children’s causes by commissioning the gates, which would grace a new playground to be built north of the Museum this avid art collector once led.
In the 1970s, the gates were relocated to the Ancient Playground; the previous playground was demolished to make room for an expanded Met museum building
The kids scampering around the playground these days may not be able to read Osborn’s name inscribed in the pillar. But they meet eye to eye with the animals on the gates—which I imagine would charm the man they’re named for.
COMING TO THE NYPL BRANCH ON FEBRUARY 18TH
CREDITS
EPHEMERAL NEW YORK
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
The Greek Revival row houses built on Washington Square North between 1829 and 1833, with their graceful stoops and elegant ionic columns, offered everything a wealthy New York family could want.
What would that be? Think spacious living quarters, backyard gardens, proximity to the theater, church, and fine shops, and assurance by the builders, who leased the land from Sailors’ Snug Harbor, that no factories would encroach on this residential enclave.
Elite residents also craved some distance from the filth overtaking lower city. And across the street was a lovely new park—the former potter’s field turned military parade ground, Washington Square. Access to the park was definitely a plus.
But for any New Yorker to live comfortably in the antebellum city, they needed a place to keep their horses and carriage, and possibly living space for the servants who tended to them.
So began the early years of Washington Mews, perhaps Greenwich Village’s most famous and photographed historic private lane.
Shortly after the row houses fronting Washington Square were completed, planning began for this back alley—an unusual concession in a city that was intentionally mapped out without alleys, as real estate was too precious to waste on horses and garbage.
Cutting a slender path between Washington Square North and Eighth Street, the Mews followed what had been a Lenape trail connecting the Hudson and East Rivers, according to James and Michelle Nevius’ Inside the Apple.
Once the Belgian block paving was in place, a row of two-story carriage houses were built—but only on the north side of the Mews (third photo). That kept the sound and stench of horses from intruding on the “deep rear gardens and extensions” of the Washington Square North houses, according to the Greenwich Village Historic District report.
Who were the well-heeled residents who parked their equipages here? Bankers and merchants, according to Village Preservation. The Row, as Washington Square North became known, enjoyed decades of status as one of the most desirable places to live.
But change was coming. In the 1850s, six new stables were built on the south side, freeing up space on the north side for the carriage owners living on Eighth Street, per the Greenwich Village Historic District report. No longer was it the exclusive lane of residents of The Row.
In 1881, city officials mandated that gates be built at the entrances of the Mews, clarifying its status as a private lane, wrote Christopher Gray in a 1988 New York Times Streetscapes column. (Fourth photo shows a gate on the University Place side.)
By now, artists were arriving; “the house and stable at 3 Washington Square North was demolished for a studio building in 1884,” stated Gray. Coinciding with the coming of the artists was the end of the horse and carriage era.
In 1916, Sailors’ Snug Harbor, which still owned the land, announced that “the little stables of the mews, whose usefulness has long since passed away,” will be converted into artists’ live-work studios, per Gray. ( Fifth image: 1917, looking toward University Place)
Artists like Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, Edward Hopper, and Paul Manship did occupy the stables-turned-studios. More dwellings were constructed on the south side, and a renovation did away with many of the original brick facades in favor of stucco and the occasional ornamental tile.
Washington Mews’ next chapter began in 1949, when New York University purchased the alley—or the lease from Sailors Snug Harbor, as some sources state. Since then, school administrators have gradually transformed the cottages into faculty housing and facilities space.
Even though it’s a private street, the gates tend to be open during the day, so tourists and curious New Yorkers can wander through and imagine living inside this “charming little village,” as the Greenwich Village Historical District report describes it, isolated from city traffic.
If you stand still and concentrate, you might even sense the ghosts of the original horses clip-clopping on those Belgian blocks.
COMING TO THE NYPL BRANCH ON FEBRUARY 18TH
WHEN MANHATTAN WAS DUTCH—THE 400TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION
The Dutch of the early 17th century turned an edge of Manhattan wilderness into New Amsterdam. Although it lasted only 40 years, the colony had a profound and lasting impact on the future city of New York. From the start, people of many ethnicities filled its streets, trade and profit were paramount, and religious tolerance was the norm.
With Joyce Gold- Historian and noted NYC Tour Guide
This program is free and open to the public. TIme: 6:30 p.m.
PHOTOS OF THE DAY
I attended Shoppe Object, a trade show where wonderful merchandise is sold in home-where, gift items, decorative items are available. It has been relocated from piers to the massive Starrett Lehigh Building on 11-12th Avenues between 26-27th Streets. Hundreds of items on display to purchase for a retail shop.
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
Do you have a pair of gloves on your holiday gift list?
If so, you’re part of a long-standing tradition of giving and receiving gloves. What you might not realize is that these simple accessories have a history that is intimately entwined with women’s social mores in American society. After all, who could forget the opening scene of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, when Meg decides to present Marmee with “a nice pair of gloves” for Christmas, instead of getting anything for herself?
Today, gloves are mostly cold-weather accessories, but in the 19th century middle-class and elite women wore gloves every time they left the house. These gloves were often made of silk or thin kid leather from the skin of a young goat or sheep, and meant to protect hands from sun rather than chill (for that, women often used fur-lined mittens or muffs). Gloves also helped keep the hands soft and “ladylike”; by the mid-19th century such soft, pale hands were the mark of a woman who didn’t have to do her own housework. Later on in Little Women, when Meg’s father returns from fighting in the Civil War, he praises her burnt, blistered, and needle-pricked fingers as evidence of her hard work, both on the home front and for the Union cause by cooking, cleaning, and sewing.
Paul Thompson, photographer. Rose O’Neill, 1914. Rose O’Neill Collection, PR-369, New-York Historical Society.
Her illustrations appeared in a number of notable periodicals including Harper’s, Life, Cosmopolitan, and a number of ladies’ home journals. Her success led to a full-time position with Puck, the humor magazine known for its political satire and anecdotes. While talented in various forms of art and continuing to freelance, it was the creation of one particular cartoon character that launched O’Neill into fame: the Kewpie Baby.
Chas. T. Jones advertisement, ca. 1895. Patricia D. Klingenstein Library, New-York Historical Society
Gloves made an excellent gift because a lady would need several different pairs in order to be properly outfitted. Kid leather was extremely delicate, prone to stretching, splitting, and tearing. Many of the most popular colors were also impractically light: white, fawn, tan, and gray were all considered “standard,” despite being terribly susceptible to stains. (Over the course of Little Women, the tomboy heroine Jo March ruins several such pairs of gloves with lemonade and coffee.) Moreover, women needed different gloves for everyday and evening wear. Evening gloves, especially those worn to the opera or to a concert, were often longer, and came with all sorts of different embellishments—they might be scented, ruffled, embroidered, beaded, or even printed with commemorative imagery to mark a very special occasion.
Left: Glove belonging to Elizabeth Shipton, 1850-1900. Kidskin, silk. New-York Historical Society, gift of Mrs. Edgar Saltus, 1917. 7ab. Right: Asher Durand, engraver. Glove worn at a ball to honor the Marquis de Lafayette, held at Castle Garden, September 14, 1824. Printed leather. New-York Historical Society purchase, Foster-Jarvis Fund, 1952.293.
However, a proper lady wouldn’t accept a gift of gloves from just anyone. Gloves could carry a hint of erotic charge: as British fashion historian Lucy Ellis writes, the glove “could provide a vital barrier between the sexes, preventing the frisson of touch and preserving modesty.” Returning once more to Little Women, this explains why Meg tells Jo, “Gloves are more important than anything else; you can’t dance without them,” before the sisters attend a fashionable party; and why we learn of Mr. Brooks’ romantic interest in Meg when Laurie reveals that he keeps one of her gloves in his breast pocket. It seems, then, that the exchange of gloves could be a sign of familiarity or intimacy. In the May 1852 issue of Godey’s Lady’s Book, the author claimed that this use of gloves hearkened back to a knightly time, when “chivalry wore [the glove] in its helm—at once a charm and token, the honorable badge of a woman’s love, invested with the potency of her virtues.”
Sole Agents for New York City of the Genuine Foster Hook Glove,” ca. 1884. Patricia D. Klingenstein Library, New-York Historical Society
The popularity and ubiquity of gloves also provided jobs for women. These charming images from the Bella C. Landauer Collection of Business and Advertising Ephemera show smartly dressed “shop girls” at work selling gloves, part of the great influx of young unmarried women into retail jobs between 1880 and 1890.
The reality of these jobs was slightly less charming—retail workers had to fight for things like seats behind the counter, and lunch breaks lasting beyond a scant 20 minutes amidst long work hours. The women who worked in glove manufacturing organized against long hours and poor working conditions: Agnes Nestor, who worked as a glove-maker in Chicago during the 1890s, recalled sewing a dozen pairs of gloves an hour (at five minutes per pair) and trying to break the monotony of the work by singing “A Bicycle Built for Two.” Nestor and the other women glove-workers objected to their employers’ practice of charging them for the needles, oil, and even the power required to run their machines, and walked out. Their demands were met, and Nestor later became a well-connected labor leader and president of the International Glove Workers Union of America, lobbying for workers’ education, maximum work hours, a minimum wage, and women’s suffrage.
As you wrap up your last-minute holiday shopping, we hope that you enjoy thinking a little bit about the history of this everyday object! The Center for Women’s History wishes you and yours a happy holiday season.
COMING TO THE NYPL BRANCH ON FEBRUARY 18TH
WHEN MANHATTAN WAS DUTCH—THE 400TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION
The Dutch of the early 17th century turned an edge of Manhattan wilderness into New Amsterdam. Although it lasted only 40 years, the colony had a profound and lasting impact on the future city of New York. From the start, people of many ethnicities filled its streets, trade and profit were paramount, and religious tolerance was the norm.
With Joyce Gold- Historian and noted NYC Tour Guide
This program is free and open to the public. TIme: 6:30 p.m.
PHOTOS OF THE DAY
Talking about games, here is one that is not available (except on E-bay). The reporter and famous investigator of the Blackwell’s Island Lunatic Asylum later went on to circumnavigate the world.
CREDITS
NEW -YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY FROM THE STACKS Jeanne Gutierrez, Curatorial Scholar, Center for Women’s History
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
Nursing, which as a profession has long been associated with women, offered opportunities not only for education and employment, but leadership. Long before American women could vote, they were able to influence public policy, often through professional organizations, such as those formed by nurses in the early 20th century.
Student Nurses in the Orrin Sage Wightman Collection
In 1916, Dr. Orrin Sage Wightman, internist and avid photographer, made a series of photographs showing student nurses from City Hospital at work on Blackwell’s Island. Dressed in tall pleated caps and long aprons, the young women take care of patients, weigh babies, assist surgeons, make beds, fill bottles, and take cooking classes. A fascinating window into one of America’s earliest hospital-based nurse training programs, the photos depict a nurse’s daily routine at a time when the nursing profession was adjusting to a series of momentous changes.
Student nurses tend to babies on Blackwell’s Island, 1916. Orrin Sage Wightman Collection. New-York Historical Society Library.
Nursing Education in New York City
Although professional nurses were nothing new (George Washington’s ledgers detail the fees paid to nurses during the Revolution), the overwhelming demands of the Civil War had demonstrated the country’s urgent need for nurses trained in hygiene and patient care. The demand for trained nurses remained acute after the Civil War was over. As more and more people flocked to dense urban centers, public hospitals strained to cope with growing populations of sick and impoverished patients. In response, philanthropist Louisa Lee Schuyler, founder of the State Charities Aid Association, helped institute and fund a Training School for Nurses at Bellevue Hospital in 1873–74, the first such program in the United States. When City Hospital (then called Charity Hospital) opened its own School of Nursing in 1877, it became the nation’s fourth.
Initially, nursing education consisted of two to three years of practical training in patient care and cleanliness. As Wightman’s pictures indicate, the student nurses provided valuable labor, but the hospitals they worked in rarely hired them as staff nurses once they had graduated.
Student nurses tend to babies on Blackwell’s Island, 1916. Orrin Sage Wightman Collection. New-York Historical Society Library.
Nurses at Work in New York
While many graduates became private nurses—that is, nurses who were hired directly by patients on a temporary basis—by 1916 the range of job opportunities for nurses had increased. Lillian Wald, founder of the Henry Street Settlement, pioneered the field of public health nursing in 1893. (Wald is featured in our new women’s history film, WeRise, and her work in the settlement house movement is discussed in our Massive Open Online Course, Women Have Always Worked.) In 1901, the Army formally established its own Nurse Corps, and the Navy followed suit in 1908. Meanwhile, in 1902, Lina Roberts of New York City had become the first school nurse in the United States. Wald remained active into the 20th century: In 1909 she partnered with the insurance giant Metropolitan Life to employ home nurses to visit sick policyholders, and in 1912 she spearheaded a nationwide Public Health Nursing Service in partnership with the American Red Cross.
Student nurses observe a surgery on Blackwell’s Island, 1916. Orrin Sage Wightman Collection. New-York Historical Society Library.
In keeping with their professional training, New York’s nurses formed a professional association—the first for nurses in the country— in 1901. By 1902, the New York State Nurses’ Association began to press for a law that would establish uniform standards for nursing education and practice. The resulting Nurse Practice Act provided for state examination and certification of nurses, and created the title of Registered Nurse. The first states to pass nurse registration laws—New York, North Carolina, Virginia, and New Jersey—all did so in 1903.
In 1905, the president of the New York Nurse Board of Examiners, Sophia Palmer, wrote that the state required nurses to be trained and examined in medical and surgical nursing, obstetrical nursing, the nursing of sick children, and “diet cooking for the sick.” Wightman’s photographs show the student nurses engaged in just such activities during their training on Blackwell’s Island.
A nursing student tends to an infant on Blackwell’s Island, 1916. Orrin Sage Wightman Collection. New-York Historical Society Library
Nursing on Blackwell’s Island
In Wightman’s time, the city was about to rebrand Blackwell’s Island (today known as Roosevelt Island), which had a fearsome reputation, with the benign-sounding moniker “Welfare Island.” In the 19th century, the island had been the grim home of a penitentiary. Its former inmates included the infamous abortion provider known as Madame Restell and the equally infamous anarchist Emma Goldman, both featured in our Women’s Voices exhibit. The island also housed a smallpox hospital, a workhouse, and the city’s Lunatic Asylum. In 1887, the island’s asylum had been the subject of journalist Nellie Bly’s “Ten Days in a Mad-House,” a chilling exposé which detailed the inadequate food and clothing given to patients, overcrowding within the facility, and mistreatment from the nurses on staff. Bly’s investigation, part of a larger reassessment of how the city coped with problems of poverty and illness, helped spur desperately needed institutional reforms.
Nursing students at a patient’s bedside on Blackwell’s Island, 1916. Orrin Sage Wightman Collection. New-York Historical Society Library.
Nursing Reforms in City, State, and Nation
One reform that did not take place until the mid-20th century was desegregation. Until 1923, the privately funded Lincoln School for Nurses in the Bronx was the only institution in New York City that trained African American women. Founded in 1898, it was the first school of its kind in the United States. (Mary Eliza Mahoney, the country’s first professionally trained African American nurse, graduated from Boston’s New England Hospital for Women and Children in 1879 under a quota system that admitted one African American woman and one Jewish woman per class.) To press for the end of racial discrimination in the nursing profession, in 1908 fifty-two women formed the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses in New York. However, it was not until World War II that severe nursing shortages caused state-level nursing associations to admit African American members, and it was not until the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 that the federal government mandated desegregation in hospitals and nursing schools.
Student nurses on Blackwell’s Island, 1916. Orrin Sage Wightman Collection, New-York Historical Society Library.
–Jeanne Gutierrez, Center for Women’s History
This post is part of our new series, “Women at the Center,” written and edited by the staff of theCenter for Women’s History.Look for new posts everyTuesday! #womenatthecenter
COMING TO THE NYPL BRANCH ON FEBRUARY 18TH
WHEN MANHATTAN WAS DUTCH—THE 400TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION
The Dutch of the early 17th century turned an edge of Manhattan wilderness into New Amsterdam. Although it lasted only 40 years, the colony had a profound and lasting impact on the future city of New York. From the start, people of many ethnicities filled its streets, trade and profit were paramount, and religious tolerance was the norm.
With Joyce Gold- Historian and noted NYC Tour Guide
This program is free and open to the public. TIme: 6:30 p.m.
PHOTOS OF THE DAY
Louisa Lee Schuyler (1837-1926) founded the New York State Charities Aid Association in 1873. Shortly thereafter, she founded the nation’s first nursing school, at Bellevue Hospital in New York City. When philanthropist Margaret Olivia Slocum Sage formed the Russell Sage Foundation in 1907, she appointed Schuyler a founding trustee.
Image description: sitting portrait of Louisa Lee Schuyler, a white woman dressed in a dark, ruffled shirt. The image caption reads, “Great-granddaughter of Alexander Hamilton, and founder of the State Charities Aid Association.”
The center building of the Nurses Home (Smallpox Hospital) was named in honor of Louisa Schuyler, Schuyler Hall.
CREDITS
NEW -YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY FROM THE STACKS
–Jeanne Gutierrez, Center for Women’s History
This post is part of our new series, “Women at the Center,” written and edited by the staff of theCenter for Women’s History.Look for new posts everyTuesday! #womenatthecenter
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
When Rose O’Neill’s illustrations appeared in True Magazine on September 19, 1896, she made history by becoming the first female cartoonist to publish a comic strip in America. A self-taught artist, O’Neill (1874-1944) had spent her childhood studying artists and submitting her work to various periodicals around the country. She set out for New York City at the age of nineteen with the intention of becoming a writer. Although she would publish numerous works throughout her career, she quickly impressed publishers with her drawings and was able to start a career as an illustrator.
Paul Thompson, photographer. Rose O’Neill, 1914. Rose O’Neill Collection, PR-369, New-York Historical Society.
Her illustrations appeared in a number of notable periodicals including Harper’s, Life, Cosmopolitan, and a number of ladies’ home journals. Her success led to a full-time position with Puck, the humor magazine known for its political satire and anecdotes. While talented in various forms of art and continuing to freelance, it was the creation of one particular cartoon character that launched O’Neill into fame: the Kewpie Baby.
The Kewpies made their first appearance in the December 1909 issue of Ladies’ Home Journal and became an instant sensation amongst readers of all ages. While their style was seen in some of O’Neill’s earlier characters, the creation of “Kewpieville” allowed her to write comics that focused on moral values and kindness. The comics were continuously published in Ladies’ Home Journal, Woman’s Home Companion, and Good Housekeeping well into the 1930s. The Kewpie Doll was soon created in 1913, resulting in a wave of toys, advertisements, and household goods portraying the characters. The Kewpies also became an unofficial mascot for the Woman’s Suffrage Movement, thanks to O’Neill’s involvement. Kewpie posters made an appearance with messages supporting the Women’s Right to Vote while several comics featured feminist-themed plots.
One of several posters created during the Woman’s Suffrage Movement that featured the Kewpie babies. Rose O’Neill Collection, PR-369, New-York Historical Society.
O’Neill made $1.4 million from her Kewpie creations, making her the highest-paid and wealthiest cartoonist of her time. All the while she continued to produce works of art that were much more “serious” in nature. Her success as an artist, writer, and cartoonist allowed her to develop a very lavish lifestyle, placing her in the center of the New York art world, but O’Neill eventually faced financial difficulties during the Great Depression. She died from complications of a stroke in 1944. Production of the Kewpie dolls continued through the 20th century. They remain a familiar part of popular culture all over the world.
“Ramming them back into their desks” (undated). Rose O’Neill Collection, PR-369, New-York Historical Society.
Untitled drawing, 1900. Rose O’Neill Collection, PR-369, New-York Historical Society.
Untitled portrait of a woman (undated). Rose O’Neill Collection, PR-369, New-York Historical Society.
Man gazing at a portrait of a woman (undated). Rose O’Neill Collection, PR-369, New-York Historical Society.
COMING TO THE NYPL BRANCH ON FEBRUARY 18TH
WHEN MANHATTAN WAS DUTCH—THE 400TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION
The Dutch of the early 17th century turned an edge of Manhattan wilderness into New Amsterdam. Although it lasted only 40 years, the colony had a profound and lasting impact on the future city of New York. From the start, people of many ethnicities filled its streets, trade and profit were paramount, and religious tolerance was the norm.
With Joyce Gold- Historian and noted NYC Tour Guide
This program is free and open to the public. TIme: 6:30 p.m.
PHOTOS OF THE DAY
Six Cornell Tech took on the challenge of assembling Frank Lloyd Wright design jigsaw puzzles today at a seminar on campus. The winner was Gen Fei (middle student on left side) The group was awarded a box of Lunar New Year sweet treats. Each year I join the students at this seminar and we discover new things about their experiences and life on Roosevelt Island.
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
Jessie Tarbox Beals, self-portrait with camera. Jessie Tarbox Beals photograph collection, ca. 1905-1940, PR-4, New-York Historical Society. [Click image for higher resolution scan.]
Jessie Tarbox Beals was a woman of many firsts. A pioneer of photography, she was the first published female photojournalist in the United States, the first woman press photographer, and the first female night photographer. The Jessie Tarbox Beals photograph collection, ca. 1905-1940, PR-4, at the New-York Historical Society is available through our Shelby White and Leon Levy Digital Library.
Beals was born in 1870 in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Her father, John Nathaniel Tarbox, was a sewing machine manufacturer, and inventor of the portable sewing machine. Jessie Tarbox Beals moved to Massachusetts when she was 17 to become a teacher, a job she held for roughly 12 years. She got her start in photography by chance, when she won a small camera in a contest. She was immediately intrigued and began taking portraits of local students at a low price. Once she caught the photography bug, Beals never looked back. Her first credited work is in the Vermont newspaper the Windham County Reformer in 1900. In 1902, she was hired as a photographer for two newspapers in Buffalo, New York; The Buffalo Inquirer and The Buffalo Courier.
Beals was no doubt a tough woman, and quite the hustler. She always went the extra mile for her photographs. She did not have one particular focus, and her photos contain a wide number of subjects; such as major events (e.g., the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition), outdoor photography (e.g., houses and gardens), architecture, Greenwich Village, children, and urban poverty. According to the Library of Congress’s own post about her, she carried around a 50-pound (8×10 format) camera for her assignments–definitely not equipment for the faint of heart!
Three cafes and their owners on the corner of Washington Place. A Busy Corner in Greenwich Village, Will o’ the Wisp Tea Room, Idee Chic [?], Aladdin Tea Room. Jessie Tarbox Beals photograph collection, ca. 1905-1940, PR-4, New-York Historical Society. [Click image for higher resolution scan.]
Beals moved to New York in 1905 and made a name for herself in the New York scene by first opening a portrait studio, and then by taking portraits of prominent artists (a job commissioned by American Art News). She later moved to Greenwich Village, opening a tea room and art gallery in 1917. Much of her work during this time was freelance, and she spent her days capturing the artistic nature of Greenwich Village. She focused on educational and arts programs aimed at progressive reform initiatives. She also contributed to the New York Times by submitting scenic photographs of architecture, street scenes, and gardens.
W. H. Wells 265 W. 11th; 10 year old pear tree 4 stories high, started flowering and fruiting again, special treatment by Mr. Wells. Jessie Tarbox Beals photograph collection, ca. 1905-1940, PR-4, New-York Historical Society. [Click image for higher resolution scan.]
Beals fit right in with the bohemians of Greenwich Village and enjoyed the artistic, free spirit of the neighborhood. She got on well with the likes of Sinclair Lewis and Edna St. Vincent Millay. Since Beals didn’t specialize in one area, choosing instead to take a wide variety of photos, her collection is particularly rich for setting the scene of Greenwich Village in the early 20th century. Her photos are even used in other blog posts about other 20th century figures! For example, our blog post on Alice Foote MacDougall features photographs taken by Beals of the coffee shop mogul. She has captured images of four presidents (Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, and William Howard Taft), as well as other famous/prominent individuals such as Mark Twain, Ida M. Tarbell, General Pershing, and Fannie Hurst to name a few. No matter your interest, whether it is portraits, gardens, street scenes, fashion, or documentary photography, Beals has no doubt covered it.
Mark Twain. Jessie Tarbox Beals photograph collection, ca. 1905-1940, PR-4, New-York Historical Society. [Click image for higher resolution scan.]
It is thanks to fellow photographer Alexander Alland that Beals’ work did not fall into complete obscurity. Beals passed away in 1942, at the age of 71, in the charity ward at Bellevue Hospital. Much of her work was initially thought to be lost or destroyed. However, Alland bought many of Beals’ negative and prints from her heirs, and in 1978 published a biography entitled, Jessie Tarbox Beals: First Woman News Photographer. See through the eyes of Jessie Tarbox Beals, and glimpse history by heading over to our Digital Library now!
Dancing in Charley Reed’s Purple Pup, Greenwich Village. Jessie Tarbox Beals photograph collection, ca. 1905-1940, PR-4, New-York Historical Society. [Click image for higher resolution scan.]
This post is by Gina Modero, Reference Librarian for Printed Collections.
COMING TO THE NYPL BRANCH ON FEBRUARY 18TH
WHEN MANHATTAN WAS DUTCH—THE 400TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION
The Dutch of the early 17th century turned an edge of Manhattan wilderness into New Amsterdam. Although it lasted only 40 years, the colony had a profound and lasting impact on the future city of New York. From the start, people of many ethnicities filled its streets, trade and profit were paramount, and religious tolerance was the norm.
With Joyce Gold- Historian and noted NYC Tour Guide
This program is free and open to the public. TIme: 6:30 p.m.
PHOTO OF THE DAY
CREDITS
NEW -YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY FROM THE STACKS GINA MODERO, REFERENCE LIBRARIAN FOR PRINTED COLLECTIONS
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
The chalet-style elevated train station is long gone; the Ninth Avenue El, which ran along Greenwich Avenue, was demolished in 1940. (Though Berenice Abbott keeps it alive just as the painting does in this 1936 photo.)
The cigar shop in the little Federal-style house on the left has also bit the dust. The land is part of the churchyard of St. Luke’s, and the sidewalk is occupied by a row of Citibikes.
But otherwise, so much of Beulah R. Bettersworth’s 1934 depiction of Christopher Street looking down toward Greenwich Avenue is strangely unchanged more than 90 years later.
The three-story yellow building on the northwest corner of Greenwich is still there and still yellow. The two red-brick taller buildings to the north exist as well. The curvy awning at the entrance to the Hudson Tubes—aka, the PATH train—remains in place.
Beyond Greenwich Street, the Gothic steeples of St. Veronica’s enchant and delight. Far in the background, a sliver of the Hudson River lets us know we’re at the small-scaleend of this historic street in Greenwich Village.
I tried to capture the same view today, but my camera work is no match for Bettersworth’s eye. This was her neighborhood—she lived in an Art Deco high-rise on the corner of Bleecker Street—and she depicts her neighborhood with tenderness.
I’m not the only one so taken with this streetscape. “A wintry corner of Greenwich Village lives in this painting as Beulah Bettersworth knew it when she and her husband inhabited 95 Christopher Street, a block away,” explains the Smithsonian, which has the painting in its collection. (Before that, FDR had it hanging in the White House.)
“Closely observed details draw the viewer into the painting to join Bettersworth’s neighbors hurrying through the slushy snow, catching a whiff of tobacco from the cigar store in the foreground. Snow melts from the roof of St. Veronica’s Catholic Church, whose towers are visible behind the Ninth Avenue ‘L’ station. The elevated train station had been an elegant adaptation of a Swiss chalet when it was built in 1867, but by Bettersworth’s time it was an aging relic soon to be torn down.”
More about Christopher Street is known than about Bettersworth. Born in St. Louis, she studied at the Art Students League and became a WPA painter during the Depression. She exhibited portraits and still lifes; she painted a mural for the Columbus Ohio post office that by today’s sensibilities has been considered controversial.
She died in Tucson in 1968, and I like to think she’d be quite charmed to know that the contours of this part of Christopher Street are almost frozen in time.
PHOTO OF THE DAY
Snowy day at the north end of Blackwell’s Island about 1915
CREDITS
EPHEMERAL NEW YORK
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
The holdings of the New-York Historical Society Library are vast and fascinating. It is always fun to open a box of photos or unroll a set of drawings to discover something new. Recently, a researcher was working with the Printmaker File (PR 58), a collection of aquatints, engravings, etchings, lithographs, and woodcuts, representing work by over 200 artists dating from 1730 to the present. That’s how the delightful etchings of Albert E. Flanagan caught my eye.
Ruth Marie Reeves (1892–1966) was an American painter, Art Decotextile designer and expert on Indian handicrafts.
1930 Place madeNew York, United States, North America Silk shantung Overall: 54 x 35 1/4 in. ( 137.2 x 89.5 cm )
Gift of Bella C. Landauer 1945.82 Designed by Ruth Reeves (1892-1966), the textile “Manhattan” was part of a series commissioned by the W. & J. Sloane Company in 1930. The series was exhibited later that year at the Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibition, “Decorative Metal Work and Cotton Textiles.” Reeves’s designs ranged from the abstract to more realistic scenes of contemporary life and reflected her interest in the urban landscape of soaring skyscrapers, expansion bridges, and sophisticated citizens. Description MarkingsPrinted along selvage: “Manhattan designed by Ruth Reeves” ClassificationsTEXTILES
In 1920, Reeves traveled to Paris and studied with Fernand Léger.[5] During her time in Paris, she pioneered the use of vat dyes and the screen print process for home fabrics.
Above Drawing, preliminary sketch for “Westpoint” from the Hudson River series, 1933–1934 by Ruth Reeves
Ruth Reeves working on a mosaic mural. Photographed for the Works Progress Administration. Identification on verso (handwritten and stamped): Federal Art Project W.P.A.; Photographic Division; 110 King Street; New York City Location: 628 West 24 St.; Date: 6/10/40; Negative No.: 4794-1; Photographer: Shalat. Identification on accompanying label (typewritten): Ruth Reeves, right, and an assistant at work on a large mosaic mural in the Stained Glass Shop, a unit of the New York City WPA Art Project, located at 624 West 24th Street, New York City. Miss Reeves, well-known textile designer, mural painter and Guggenheim Fellowship winner for 1940, has adopted the familiar theme of school activities for the mural which is to be installed in the William Cullen Bryant High School.
Career
Returning to the United States in 1927, her designs were influenced by modern developments in France like Cubism.
Reeves’s first exhibition was with the American Designers’ Gallery in New York, where she showed textiles.[8]Lewis Mumford called her wall hangings and dresses inspired by traditional Guatemalan designs shown in 1935 “probably the most interesting work any designer has offered for commercial production today.
One of her best-known works was the carpeting and wall fabrics of Radio City Music Hall in New York City.[10] Her fabric and carpet designs along with those of her colleague Marguerita Mergentime can be seen there today. ]Donald Deskey, who won the competition to design the interiors for Radio City Music Hall, commissioned Reeves and Mergentime to design textiles for the hall.[12]
The Index of American Design, one of three main divisions of the Federal Art Project (FAP) was originally conceived by Reeves and Romana Javitz, the curator of the Picture Collection at the New York Public Library, as a way for the American artist to find authentic American everyday objects to use as visual references for their work. The Index was established with the FAP in January 1936 with Reeves as its national supervisor. She held the position until the spring when Adolph Cook Glassgold replaced her. Within the Index, Shaker works were highly prized as Reeves felt they emphasized the art of the American common man.[10][13][14]
She later taught at the Cooper Union Art School in New York [ She married engineer Donald Robert Baker and had three daughters. The couple separated in 1940
She often worked with narratives sourced from her life or friends live
South Mountain is one of her earliest narrative pieces designed as an autobiographical family portrait. It was named after the road she lived on in the artist colony in New City, New York. This piece was the start of her “personal prints” that were privately commissioned limited editions.
In 1930, Reeve was commissioned by the W. & J. Sloane Company to create a group of narrative textiles to be submitted to the American Federation of Art for their International Exhibition of Decorative Metalwork and Cotton Textiles that was to be held later that year at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The company neglected to check in on her progress and in the end were horrified at the unconventional fabric she designed. Each pattern was printed on twenty-nine different types of cotton and depicted a series of rooms in an imaginary house. The fabrics also didn’t sell and the relationship ended unhappily. The most notable work from this collection is “American Scene,” a panorama that celebrates everyday American life: work, sports, and family.[15][17][18]
In 1933, Reeves created a series of textiles inspired by the Hudson River School. These textiles were funded by a grant from the Gardner School Alumnae Fund. In 1934, the textiles were shown at the National Alliance of Art and Industry.[6]
In 1934, she traveled to Guatemala through a sponsorship from the Carnegie Institution. The textiles she collected on this trip were exhibited at Radio City in New York. In 1935, she worked with R. H. Macy & Company to create five Guatemalan-inspired patterns that were some of her only works to be produced commercially.
Above DescriptionDesign for carpet for Radio City Music Hall. Repeating pattern of still life with musical instruments in tones of brown and beige. Repeat unit is rectangular; some feature instruments including the guitar, saxophone, and accordion, while others rendered with undulating abstract shapes; nine units shown.
PHOTO OF THE DAY
A Transit Art and Design mosaic at Times Square this morning.
CREDITS
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS ENCYCLOPEDIA.DESIGN WIKIPEDIA FROM THE STACKS NEW-YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY JUDITH BERDY
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated THIS PUBLICATION FUNDED BY DISCRETIONARY FUNDS FROM CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE MENIN & ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE FUNDS.
