SHOP THE KIOSK FOR YOUR HOLIDAY GIFTS THIS WEEKEND!!!
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Recently I have heard a tirade of complaints about tourists, mostly unfounded. There have been some challenging times at the tram but the wonderful, interesting and curious people whom I meet make our island better. Our guests support our businesses and restaurants. The island’s magic, which probably attracted you to live here probably started with a tram ride to the Island.
Today I decided to work in the kiosk. Having no plans until dinner, I decided to work while everyone else was enjoying the day off.
Just as I opened, neighbors from Rivercross stopped by to purchase a tapestry throw. A rush of business always occurs before I am set-up, but it was a good omen.
A couple from Amsterdam and I conversed on favorite TV shows. They love our American detective and action ones while we had laughs over old episodes of Benny Hill and Faulty Towers. (They never watch Van der Valk)
Today was a great day for South American visitors: Brazil, Colombia, Peru and Ecuador. My Spanish made everyone sigh with relief that they would be able to converse (not that well ) with me.
Many of our visitors had been to the parade and the usual response was that this was a one-time experience and it is better on TV, as per two sisters age 6and 9.
A woman from Serbia enjoying a week on her own in the city, just wandering thru neighborhoods to discover our city. After trying to get into the Museum of Natural History she decided it was not the day to be near Central Park. I assured her that tomorrow we will be back to our normal chaos.
A Mexican family and I had a great time discussing sloths and interpreting our conversation while they shopped and “adopted” a sloth to take home. Seems sloths are not well known outside Costa Rica and Panama.
So many of our visitors are living in New York temporarily for their jobs and are thrilled to be here. They take every opportunity to explore the sites.
One gentleman had a great job, testing all the high tech on European sports cars. Showed us a photo of the salesroom with a $250,000 one ready for purchase.
A young woman from the Middle East was soon to leave the island where she has been for a few years with a job in finance. She is single and regrets having to return to a different culture. Tears were flowing when she thought of leaving New York. We do not realize what opportunities we offer to all who come from restrictive cultures. I invited her to visit as often as she liked before leaving our island.
Just as I was locking up, a women came into the kiosk asking about the Smallpox Hospital. Being almost 5 p.m. and too late to see the building, I asked of her interest in the hospital. She is a research microbiologist who studies epidemics and medical history. She purchased one of our books and I told her to contact use for more information on the island history.
Time to close up and off to dinner at Granny Annies.
A fun afternoon and as always, you do not know who walks in the door.
WEEKENDPHOTO
MAY THE HOSTAGES AND PRISONERS BE RETURNED TO THEIR FAMILIES DURING THIS WEEK
THURSDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY
The Saks Fifth Avenue holiday display opposite Rockefeller Center. Hara Reiser and Nina Lublin got it right.
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The fabled 1621 “First Thanksgiving” celebrated in elementary school plays across the country was reported on by Edward Winslow in Mourt’s Relation (A Relation or Journal of the Beginning and Proceedings of the English Plantation Settled at Plimoth in New England, 1622) and William Bradford in Of Plymouth Plantation.
Winslow participated in the feast along with his wife Susanna and her two sons. He wrote “our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a special manner rejoice together,… many of the Indians coming amongst us, and amongst the rest their greatest king Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted.”
Bradford’s account included the celebration of the harvest and mentioned serving wild turkey, but not attendance by Massasoit, sachem of the Pokanokets, and his people.
In September 1789, Congressman Elias Boudinot of New Jersey introduced a bill in the House of Representatives requesting that President George Washington establish a day of public thanksgiving and prayer “to acknowledge the favors bestowed on them by Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity to peaceably establish a form of government calculated to promote their prosperity and happiness.”
On October 7, 1789, George Washington issued a proclamation declaring Thursday, November 26th “a Day of public Thanksgiving and Prayer.” The Boudinot proposal and the Washington proclamation were both announced in the Gazette of the United States published in the city of New York.
Thanksgiving harvest festivals were celebrated in a number of states in the first half of the 19th century. In November 1837, New York City’s Morning Herald reported that the city and state governments had issued calls for a day of Thanksgiving on November 30th.
On October 31, 1851, The New York Times reported that New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Maine, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Indiana, and Ohio would celebrate Thanksgiving Day on Thursday, November 27.
On October 3, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation that “In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and provoke their aggressions, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict; while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union . . . It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American people. I do, therefore, invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a Day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens.”
This Thanksgiving followed the United States victory at Gettysburg during the summer of 1863 and the dedication of the Gettysburg National Cemetery on November 19.
On November 10th, Governor Horatio Seymour declared that Thanksgiving would be celebrated in New York State on November 26th as a “day of thanksgiving and prayer . . . In the midst of calamity brought upon our country by the wickedness, folly, and crimes of men… Let us offer fervent prayers that rebellion may be put down, our Union saved, our liberty preserved, and our Constitution and Government upheld.”
New York City Mayor George Opdyke followed with a proclamation that “having been designated by the President of the United States, and by the Governor of this State, as a day of Thanksgiving and Prayer, it becomes the duty of every good citizen to refrain from all secular employments on that day, and to devote it to appropriate religious exercises.”
On November 27, The New York Times reported “It is doubtful whether any day of Thanksgiving has been so generally, so purposely observed as yesterday. It broke upon us bright, clear and beautiful, and it really did seem as though Heaven designed participation with the prevailing happiness. At an unusually early hour all business was suspended, and long before the appointed time the several churches were filled to overflowing by those anxious to hear the words of religion and of loyalty… All the charitable and benevolent institutions were supplied from kindly quarters with enough wherewith to feed those under their charge, and many with enough to clothe… Much good was done yesterday – much more than past years have record of.”
The Times also published transcripts of Thanksgiving sermons at a number of churches in New York City and Brooklyn. Henry Ward Beecher, minister of Brooklyn’s Plymouth Church told congregants, “Let us pause on the threshold of our thanksgiving to give a word to the martyrs that have fallen. The noblest courage, patience and endurance have been manifested. The young men of the country have fallen by thousands on the field. Would that the young men of the South who have died were not so utterly dead. Would that they had died fighting so bravely for a better cause. They die, indeed, who die for Slavery, and the lapse of years will only make their oblivion more certain. No future historian will feel an enthusiasm in recovering their names to write in the records of a great nation. No future millions will rejoice over their graves, and the only words that charity can write over their burial places will be, ‘Let their names and faults be forgotten.’ But how bright a record is there for those who have died in the defence of their country. Those that die for a good cause are redeemed from death.”
Thanksgiving is possibly the most American of holidays, the first celebrated by new immigrants to the country. As Americans prepare for Thanksgiving in 2023, we need to remember the words spoken in the midst of the Civil War. Thanksgiving is a day to recognize the importance that “peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed.”
It is a day to hope and pray that our Union be saved, “our liberty preserved, and our Constitution and Government upheld.” It is a day to celebrate those who fought and died for justice and to allow those who fought and continue to fight on the side of injustice to disappear into the dustbin of history.
Illustrations, from above: Norman Rockwell’s “Freedom From Want”
LINDA BIRD, LUCY BAINES, LYNDON AND LADY BIRD JOHNSON
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Illustrations, from above: Norman Rockwell’s “Freedom From Want” from his 1943 Four Freedoms series (detail); Alexander Gardner photo of Abraham Lincoln with his son Tad (Thomas) in 1865 (courtesy Library of Congress, cropped); and “Uncle Sam’s Thanksgiving Dinner,” 1869, by Thomas Nast.
MAYA LEVANON-PHOTOS TIK TOK & INSTAGRAM
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
It is a plain box, probably held a pair of boots. I was 15 years old and a sophomore in high school. My classmates were part of the Camelot generation who idolized a youthful president.
I started collecting items from the coverage of President Kennedy’s death.
The box has traveled with me from Forest Hills, to Manhattan, to 580, 575 and now in 531.
Many of the newspapers are disintegrating. The photos are sharp and the memories are forever.
The White House sent out photos of the First Family upon request.
The next morning the news came in the Times.
I kept a diary of the events for the week.
History was in black and white, no color needed
The next year we visited DC and included a visit to JFK’s gravesite.
The Post caught the secrets
It took a few days and everyone published commemorative issues.
William Davis and family at their farm near Crothersville, Ind.
Thanksgiving Maskers: 1911
November 1911. Before Halloween came into its own as a holiday in this country, there was “Thanksgiving masking,” where kids would dress up and go door to door for apples, or maybe “scramble for pennies.”
Thanksgiving Dinner: 1924
Washington, D.C., circa 1924. “Park View Citizens Association store.” LOOK CLOSELY, FEATHERS WERE INCLUDED!
Thanksgiving Turkey: 1919
A child holding the Thanksgiving turkey. From the National Photo Company collection, 1919.
Basting the Bird: 1940
November 28, 1940. “Mrs. T.L. Crouch, of Ledyard, Connecticut, pouring some water over her twenty-pound turkey on Thanksgiving Day.”
Stuff It: 1937
December 4, 1937. Washington, D.C. “Note to housewives: your turkey-baking troubles will be over and the bird you serve for dinner this yuletide will be tender, juicy and flavorsome if you follow the method used by the expert cooks at the Bureau of Economics, U.S. Department of Agriculture. Continual testing and experimenting with various recipes has taught Uncle Sam’s cooks that many a prize bird has become a ‘ham’ when improperly prepared. The best recipe so far discovered by the Bureau of Economics is demonstrated in the following set of pictures, made under the supervision of Miss Lucy Alexander, Chief Cooking Specialist. Miss Alexander, a graduate of Vassar and the University of Illinois, has been on her present job for 11 years. Mrs. Jessie Lamb, Assistant Cook, is stuffing the turkey under her watchful eye. The turkeys on the table will go into the ovens at regular intervals, and be tasted and judged by a group of experts who are determining which diet and feeding program will produce the best flavored meat.” Harris & Ewing Collection glass negative
Pies in Repose: 1940
November 28, 1940. “Pumpkin pies and Thanksgiving dinner at the home of Mr. Timothy Levy Crouch, a Rogerene Quaker living in Ledyard, Connecticut.
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Wheeler Hazard Peckham, born in 1833, was the eldest of three sons of New York Court of Appeals Judge Rufus Wheeler Peckham. He was born in Albany, attended Albany Academy, and later a French boarding school in Utica and a year at Union College.
He left Union due to health problems and spent a year in Europe. Returning in 1853, he became one of Albany Law School’s first students. Completing the program at Albany Law, he joined his father’s firm of Peckham & Tremain. He was admitted to the bar in 1854.
In 1855, Wheeler Peckham married Anne A. Keasbey, whom he had met while traveling in Europe. In 1856, he suffered what was called a hemorrhage of the lungs (tuberculosis) that caused him such alarm that he returned to Europe for another 14 months for medical help.
After returning to the U.S., he took up residence first in Dubuque, Iowa and then St. Paul, Minnesota, where he remained until 1864. That year he joined a law partnership with George M. Miller and John A. Stautenburg practicing in the city of New York.
Defender of the Greenback Dollar
His New York law firm flourished and Wheeler carried a large portion of the work. His first notable case came in 1868, when he came to the defense of the “greenback dollar.”
Prior to the Civil War, most money had inherent value meaning that a $20 gold coin contained about $20 worth of gold; a silver dollar contained about $1 worth of silver.
There was little question about the value of the denomination and counterfeiting was difficult, why would you make a counterfeit silver dollar if you had to make it from $1 worth of silver? Paper money could be counterfeit and therefore was scorned by many Americans.
However, there was never enough money in circulation. Pounds of flour, barrels of rum, pounds of salt, beaver pelts, nails and all sorts of other products were being used as money.
The economy was being hurt because a merchant might sell a plow blade to a farmer, but the farmer could only pay in flour or chickens and the merchant couldn’t easily buy tools from a supplier in Sheffield, England for flour or chickens.
Banks were particularly affected. They couldn’t take deposits of flour or chickens and they couldn’t make loans in flour or chickens; they needed money. The result was that most banks and some businesses issued their own paper money backed by deposits and loans.
During the Civil War things got much worse. People started hoarding gold and silver. The money supply almost dried up in the middle of a booming economy. Even the city of Albany began issuing its own money.
Several Albany companies couldn’t make change so they stamped their own coins. Albany merchant D. L. Wing stamped a penny, good for a one-pound bag of flour. Fruit dealers Benjamin & Herrick and a grocers P. V. Fort followed suit.
Soon other merchants were accepting and using these “pennies” for change. In Troy, pre-Civil War token coins from Boutwell Mills turned up as pennies in change drawers into the 1940s.
All of these different designs of money made counterfeiting easier. Most people outside Albany wouldn’t know what a $20 bill issued by the National Commercial Bank of Albany was supposed to look like.
Following the Civil War, the need for a new banking system and system of issuing money was obvious. Legislation was passed allowing the Federal Government and only the Federal Government to issue paper currency backed by gold and silver deposits in the Federal Treasury. However, there were still the stalwart opponents to the paper money that people nicknamed “greenbacks.”
Legal cases were brought challenging the Federal Government’s authority to issue paper money; New York State tried to tax all greenbacks issued in the state. The Federal Government hired the Albany firm of Peckham and Tremain and Wheeler Hazard Peckham’s New York firm to defend the greenback dollar.
Lyman Tremain, a former New York State Attorney General, argued the constitutionality of the government’s authority to issue the greenback through the New York Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court, winning at each step.
Tremain and Wheeler Hazard Peckham argued the case contesting New York’s right to tax the printing of federal money in the New York Court of Appeals and lost but then successfully reversed the decision before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Tremain and Wheeler Hazard Peckham were later frequently referred to as the “defenders of the greenback dollar.”
Peckham represented many influential companies and argued several cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. He represented the Bell Telephone Company in several important patent cases.
He also argued a case before the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of the State of South Dakota bringing an action against the State of North Carolina and a North Carolina railroad. He represented New Hampshire in a suit against the State of Louisiana.
Peckham served as chief counsel of the Union Trust Company of New York representing them in many varied cases. When federal taxing authorities tried to force the Union Trust Company to pay income tax on the appreciated value of the company caused by the increase in the value of their stock, Peckham successfully argued that only their profit as determined by income minus expenses should be subject to income tax.
In 1869, Wheeler Hazard Peckham was one of the founders of the city of New York’s Bar Association.
In 1873, Charles O’Conor who had been Peckham’s opponent in the greenback dollar case, asked him to take on a case for the New York City District Attorney’s office, the prosecution of the “Tweed Ring.”
Prosecution of the Tweed Ring
Peckham’s father, Judge Rufus Wheeler Peckham, had long been a member of the Democratic Party in Albany serving as County District Attorney for two years and elected to Congress twice in the 1850s with support from Albany’s Democrats.
In the mid-19th century, a dominant political power in the city of New York was Tammany Hall under the leadership of William Marcy “Boss” Tweed. At one time Tweed was also the city’s Superintendent of Public Works, a State Senator, Chairman of the Democrat General Committee, Superintendent of the County Court House and President of the Board of Supervisors. Due to political services provided to Jay Gould and Jim Fisk, Tweed was also appointed a director of the Erie Railroad.
In 1855 the city of New York had a population of around 630,000, half of whom were foreign born. There were 175,000 recent arrivals from Ireland and 95,000 from Germany. Like today, the higher standard of living in the United States (largely a result of the reliance on slave labor and the seizure of natural resources from indigenous people) encouraged emigration to America.
Many Protestant anti-immigrant Americans recoiled, claiming immigrants – especially Catholics – were anti-American, and responsible for the low wages and poverty associated with the burgeoning industrial revolution. They also blamed immigrants for crime and immoral behavior and tried to restrict immigration and limit citizenship (and therefore the political power) of immigrants.
Tammany Hall, which increasingly included Catholic Irish-Americans and German-Americans after the Civil War, looked on these new immigrants as simply voters, and an important base of their power in northern urban areas.
Immigrants who lived in extreme poverty and received little government assistance from the Protestant ruling class were welcomed by Tammany Hall, and were provided basic assistance, including food, charcoal, loans, and a job. In this way, Tammany served as an intermediary with a government foreign and often hostile to them.
Historians now view Tammany Hall, which began as a benevolent association for American Revolutionaries, as an early public welfare system and a champion of social reforms. Tammany nurtured important Progressive politicians such as Al Smith and Franklin D. Roosevelt, lending support for the New Deal.
Tammany’s support for the rights of immigrants and other working people was repaid with their loyalty to the Democratic Party. One of the important ways the Party supported new Americans was by expanding public improvement projects in order to provide jobs.
In 1858, the New York State Legislature approved state funds “not to exceed $250,000 for the construction and furnishing” for a new New York County courthouse. By the time it was finished it cost $12 million, more than the cost to build the U.S. Capitol.
The courthouse at 52 Chambers Street, today known as Tweed Courthouse, or the Old New York County Courthouse, was the costliest public building in the United States. Its construction provided opportunity for one of America’s first large-scale graft operations, which involved people from both political parties, numerous businessmen and even newspaper publishers. (You can read about the details here).
In 1870 however, New York County auditor James Watson’s horse bolted and Watson was thrown from his sleigh and killed. The new county auditor was a friend of James O’Brien, who although had once been a friend, had become a political opponent of Tweed’s. O’Brien was a city alderman, then became Sheriff of New York County in 1867.
O’Brien’s friend Matthew O’Rourke gave O’Brien the financial records that would prove the courthouse graft. O’Brien forwarded them to The New York Times, then the only Republican newspaper in the city. Initially The Times did little, although Thomas Nast contributed political cartoons attacking the “Tweed Ring” that proved effective in turning political opinion against Tweed and his fellow schemers.
Meanwhile an ally of O’Brien, John Morrissey, was already organizing opposition to The Ring known as the “Young Democracy,” which included allies of Samuel Tilden. They were soundly defeated by supporters of Tweed in the Spring of 1870, but it provided space for Tilden, then the New York State Democrat Party Chairman, and August Belmont, then the National Democrat Party Chairman, to hold a meeting at New York’s Cooper Union September 4, 1871 to pressure for reform.
On October 26, Tilden signed an affidavit arguing that money from city contractors had been misappropriated into Tweed’s personal bank account. The next day Tweed was arrested and charged with 55 criminal offenses relating to embezzlement of public funds. Nonetheless, Tweed was reelected State Senator in November 1871.
Wheeler Hazard Peckham was named a special prosecutor for the State in what became known as The Ring Cases. In 1872, he unsuccessfully prosecuted Mayor A. Oakey Hall and successfully prosecuted Tweed in 1873. The trial began in 1873, with Peckham assisted by Lyman Tremain, O’Conor, Peter Olney and Henry Allen.
Tweed’s influence on the New York City Police Department was considered so strong that Peckham requested and received permission for each juror to be assigned a plainclothes detective 24 hours a day. Each plainclothes officer was followed by another plainclothes officer and a private detective to be sure that the first plainclothes officer did not carry a bribe or threat to the juror.
Peckham presented to the jury the volumes of obviously inflated and fake invoices. Peckham also introduced new charges that he thought he could make stick without question: approving invoices without audit, a misdemeanor. The city laws required all invoices to be audited and some invoices personally approved by Tweed had not been submitted for audit.
Tweed was convicted on 204 misdemeanor charges of approving fraudulent invoices without audit. The judge, knowing the true involvement of Tweed in the Ring’s graft, sentenced Tweed to 12 years in prison and a $12,750 fine. Tweed’s lawyers appealed the sentence and the Court of Appeals found that 12 years was inappropriate for misdemeanor charges and reduced his term to 1 year.
After Tweed was released from jail, Peckham brought a civil lawsuit against him to recover millions in funds Tweed had personally stolen. Unable to post the $3 million bond the former Boss fled, first to Cuba, but was captured en route to Spain and returned to the United States. Peckham won a $6 million verdict and was returned to the Ludlow Street Jail.
Tweed eventually agreed to testify against the other Ring members if he was released, but this promise was rejected by then Governor Samuel Tilden and Tweed died in jail on April 12, 1878, from pneumonia.
Peckham was appointed Special District Attorney and Special Deputy Attorney General and continued his prosecution of Tweed Ring members, including bringing impeachment charges against Ring-connected judges.
Return to Private Practice, and Politics
After the Ring Cases Peckham returned to private practice. He was appointed New York District Attorney by Governor Grover Cleveland in 1884, but served less than a year due to health problems.
In 1888, he entered the political fray by supporting Warner Miller in his campaign for Governor against incumbent David B. Hill (a Cleveland opponent who was responsible for establishing the New York State Forest Preserve) and served as president of the New York City Bar Association from 1892 to 1894 where he advocated law reform.
In January, 1894, Peckham (along with William B. Hornblower) was nominated by then President Cleveland to two vacancies on the United States Supreme Court. At that time, the U.S. Senate operated under an informal but powerful custom known as “senatorial courtesy,” which allowed that no appointment or law affecting a state could move forward unless one of its two Senators agreed.
Former Governor David B. Hill, who Peckham and Cleveland had opposed, was one of New York’s U.S. Senators. The other was Edward Murphy of Troy. Neither men, although both Democrats, would move the nominations. Peckham returned to private practice.
In 1900, Peckham represented the New York World, a Democratic newspaper, in an action against New York City Mayor Robert Anderson Van Wyck and Dock Commissioner Charles Murphy and in the subsequent impeachment proceedings against Van Wyck in the infamous “Ice Trust” price fixing scandal.
Peckham was also president of the People’s Municipal League and president of the City Club for many years.
Wheeler Hazard Peckham died suddenly in his office in New York City in September 1905 at the age of 72 and is interred at Albany Rural Cemetery together with his wife and other members of his family.
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It seems RIOC went cheap this year and the chintzy decorations from last year have returned. There are a few yards of green garland in front of the RIOC office at 524 Main Street. It seems that the rest of Main Street does not even deserve some garland. RIOC is being a true SCROOGE this year!! Judy Berdy
1990’s Carnival that would set-up shop on the vacant lot opposite the Tram, now 405 Main Street. The food concession was by the tram entrance……..no one complained and a great time was had by all. Maybe it is time to bring back some good old fashioned entertainment.
From Gloria Herman: Back in the day when we had fairs near the tram prior to Southtown being built. There were carnival rides on the Southtown side and all the food trucks were on the tram side.
Madame Restelle was supposedly imprisoned on Blackwell’s Island for performing abortions.
Hart Island has been the burial place of the unclaimed in New York for centuries. The island is finally being opened to the public. Please see the Hart Island website to reserve a place on an upcoming tour.
PROGRAM TONIGHT FROM CUNY GRADUATE CENTER
Upcoming Free Book Talks
The Trials of Madame Restelle: Nineteenth-Century America’s Most Infamous Female Physician and the Campaign to Make Abortion a Crime
Thursday, November 16th 6:30–8 PM
In this new biography, Nicholas L. Syrett tells the story of one of the most infamous abortionists of the nineteenth century, a tale with unmistakable parallels to the current war over reproductive rights. “Madame Restell,” the nom de guerre of the most successful female physician in America, sold birth control, delivered children, and performed abortions for decades in a series of clinics run out of her home in New York City. But it was the abortions that made her infamous, “Restellism” becoming a term detractors used to indict her.
Abortion was then largely unregulated in most of the United States, including New York. But a sense of disquiet arose about single women flocking to the city for work and greater sexual freedom, amid changing views of motherhood, with fewer children born to white, married, middle-class women. Restell came to stand for everything threatening the status quo. From 1829 onward, restrictions on abortion began to put her in legal jeopardy. For much of this period she prevailed—until she didn’t. The Trials of Madame Restell: Nineteenth-Century America’s Most Infamous Female Physician and the Campaign to Make Abortion a Crime paints an unforgettable picture of the mid-nineteenth-century New York and brings Restell to the attention of a whole new generation of women in the current fight over reproductive choice.
Mary Ziegler, Professor of Law at UC Davis and the author of numerous books on the modern day struggle, joins in conversation
REGISTRATION LINK IS BELOW
NYC Parks Launches Public Access to Hart Island
Today, NYC Parks announced the start of free public tours of Hart Island, the City’s public cemetery, in an effort to increase access to the island, reduce historical stigmas surrounding its past, and educate the public about its role as an important piece of City infrastructure.
Free public history tours led by the Urban Park Rangers will be held twice a month starting November 21. Registration for first tour is open now through November 16.
Beginning on November 21, 2023, NYC Parks’ Urban Park Rangers will offer free walking tours of the island twice per month. Registration is required through an online form and participants will be selected by lottery. All public history tours are done on foot and last approximately 2.5 hours, with ferry transportation provided to and from Hart Island.
Additional public tours will be held on the following dates:
December 5, 2023 December 19, 2023 January 16, 2024 January 30, 2024 February 13, 2024 February 27, 2024 March 12, 2024 March 26, 2024 April 9, 2024 April 23, 2024 May 14, 2024 May 28, 2024
The tours will encompass the history of the Island including how it became a municipal cemetery, wildlife and natural aspects, the burial process, and island advocacy.
Waterpower was the top priority in the development and location of the abundant textile mills in New York State. In places like Utica or Cohoes, the Mohawk River; in Troy, the Hudson River; and in Waterford, the King Canal (built about 1828 by John Fuller King), provided plenty of rushing water.
The humidity in New York was sufficient for spinning and access to seaports was convenient via the Erie and Champlain Canals and the Hudson River. There was an abundant supply of immigrant labor.
In 1855, Clark Tompkins, from Troy, patented the first fully mechanized knitting machine.
In many ways, this invention foretold the industrial future for the Hudson and Mohawk River Valleys. By 1890, Mohawk Valley had become the number one knit-goods manufacturing center in the country.
New York knit-good manufacturers primarily produced underwear. Two-thirds of all underwear produced in the United States in the late 19th century was made in New York, and of that, a large percentage came from the Mohawk and Hudson Valleys.
In 1909, The Knit Underwear Industry reported that New York State produced 33.5% of all knit goods in the United States.
With the opening of the King Canal in 1830, Waterford successfully harnessed the power available from the Mohawk River. The King Canal neighborhood became heavily industrialized, with more than half of the community’s underwear manufacturing concerns located there.
In 1910, about 1,700 people worked in the twelve knitting mills making underwear in Waterford. The community’s total population at the time was about 6,130. There were four other knitting mill operations that did not produce underwear; they employed about 220 workers. One-third of Waterford’s population worked in the industry.
From that time into the 1950s, underwear was Waterford’s largest export item.
Two Waterford manufacturers had pressing questions for the underwear-buying public: “Have you been bothered recently by dangerous underwear fads?” and “Do you need to purchase underwear in a larger size because it shrinks?”
The Kavanaugh Knitting Mill, established by Luke Kavanaugh, was the largest factory, with about 600 employees. Their business was built on the following belief:
“Men who demand cool, comfortable garments and who appreciate good health avoid dangerous underwear fads usually wear the famous Kavanaugh Balbriggan. The comfortable underwear. Just loose enough to avoid the pinch, just light and soft enough for cool comfort, just weight enough to protect against sudden cool breezes.”
Balbriggan was noted textile community just north of Dublin, Ireland. Balbriggans, were “Long-Johns.” Queen Victoria and the Czarina of Russia were known to wear Balbriggans.
The Kavanaugh Balbriggan advertisement featuring the above pledge also included caricatures of the Theodore Roosevelt‘s Rough Riders. Luke Kavanaugh’s son was a personal friend of Roosevelt; his brother Frederick was a close friend of William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody. The Kavanaugh Mill is said to have provided the underwear for the Rough Riders during the Spanish-American War. One wonders if Buffalo Bill wasn’t a customer as well.
In 1891, the same year the Kavanaugh Mill opened, John Wheeler Ford established a large textile mill on the Hudson River to the north of the village. The facilities were later purchased by the Robert Reis Company, whose main products were tee shirts and men’s and ladies’ undergarments. Their advertising made the following claim:
“Reis’ Union Suits, we’ll put you wise; you needn’t buy them oversize. The size mark on Reis’ Lavender Label means precisely what it says. All athletic underwear shrinks when first laundered. Instead of pretending that it doesn’t. Reis, frankly, allows for shrinkage. So you needn’t buy a 42 when your size is 38 or a 38 when your size is 34. It’s sized right in the first place. Reis, you see, doesn’t skimp on material. Yet, for all the roominess of a Reis, they are tailored to fit. It doesn’t flop around you like a sail or wrap you up like a bug. They fit, and of course, they don’t chafe. They are made for a man, not a wax figure.”
Reis’ Mill lasted the longest of the community’s textile mills, until 1979. Their main office was in the Empire State Building, but the bulk of their manufacturing was conducted in Waterford. During First and Second World Wars, about 300 workers there delivered on contracts to supply underwear to the United States Army.
During the first half of the 20th century, the Harmony Mills in Cohoes and the Ford and Kavanaugh Mills in Waterford all had military contracts that impacted their ability to produce, distribute, and sell civilian supplies. The others were quick to fill the void.
By the mid-1950s however, they were mostly gone. Of the twelve mills that produced underwear in Waterford, several had majestic brick buildings. Their buildings are now all gone, with the exception of the Laughlin Textile Mill, which is vacant. It was the headquarters for Ursula of Switzerland. The company’s founder Ursula Garreau-Rickenbacher passed away in 2021. That marked the closing of the textile industry in Waterford.
Kavanaugh’s advertisement made mention of “Dangerous Underwear Fads” and the Utica Brand underwear company asked, “tired of underwear fads?”
Among the fads found in newspapers where those for underwear that didn’t need ironing; material fads of fine rayon mesh, nalmook, velvet, silk, and crepe; a black underwear fad during the Great Depression, to cut down on washing; and colored and lightweight underwear.
As far as dangerous? Lightweight underwear was sometimes blamed for hospital admissions. Wearing silk underwear was used successfully as grounds for divorce. Later, underwear made of highly flammable materials was to blame for many burning deaths when their wearers got too close to open flames that were prevalent in households before regulations against open flames were enacted in the later part of the 20th century.
AN IMAGE PROPOSED IN THE EARLY 1990’S BY A DEVELOPER, WHO DID NOT HAVE THE RIGHTS TO USE THE MARRIOTT NAME AND WAS SPECULATING THAT THIS IS JUST WHAT WE WANTED ON THE SOUTH END OF THE ISLAND. HIS NAME WAS STEVE JUMEL AND HIS FAMILY WAS THE OWNERS OF “RAZY EDDIE” STORES. THE LESS SAID THE BETTER!! NINA LUBLIN AND GLORIA HERMAN GOT THIS RIGH
Russ VanDervoort is the Waterford Town Historian, leader of the Waterford Canal and Towpath Society and a Trustee of the Saratoga County History Center. John Warren contributed to this essay.
Illustrations, from above: Waterford’s Kavanaugh Knitting Mill advertising card; a Tompkins Upright Circular Knitting Machine (1891); and a Utica Knitting Company underwear advertisement.
JUDITH BERDY
MAYA LEVANON-PHOTOS TIK TOK & INSTAGRAM
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
