The Virtual Dime Museum

The Skeleton Bang

2009-12-07T05:06:00.000-08:00

Just down the street from Mrs. Thompson who sold hair switches and medicated gloves in New York City in the 1880s, we find one L. Shaw, advertising in Cosmopolitan in 1888 who sold - hair switches and medicated gloves.

Her gloves were called Monte Cristo Medicated Gloves, which sound European and (thus) very fancy. Shaw also has something to liven up your hair with the ominous, rather troubling name of the Skeleton Bang.

The Skeleton Bang was patented by Louise F. Marshall of new York on November 15, 1887. Marshall called it "A Wig or Similar Article" and explained that her invention was false bangs which rested upon a non-slipping skeleton base of steel springs covered with cloth.

If they were anything like the ones shown in the drawing they look rather artificial.The lady in the picture looks like she is sporting a bunch of carefully trimmed cauliflower on her head. The Skeleton Bang sounds very uncomfortable, too. Imagine those steel springs on your forehead. But at least they weren't going to slip off.

You could also buy the Genuine Auburnine to turn your hair auburn, Turkish Rose Leaves to use as rouge for cheeks and lips, and the Empress Eugenie's Secret of Beauty, which was a "transparent enamel for the complexion." That might be useful in a craft project or over nail polish - not so good for the face, though.

In addition to the cosmetics available at L.Shaw's, she also had "the best French artists" standing by to cut and color your hair "any desirable shade." So, not green or purple, presumably. The French artists sound like they would be fussy and boss you around. I wonder what they thought of Skeleton Bangs?

In the ad above and at the left, from 1886, Shaw describes her shop as a Hair and Beautifying Bazaar complete with a "Gray Hair Depot." You could get "Spanish, Grecian or basket braids" and all manner of hair styles including "Art's Greatest Triumph," the Recamiere Coiffure. Shaw actually means to refer to Madame Récamier (1777-1849), a noted literary beauty of the early 19th century. Her portrait, on the right, was painted in 1802. But the ladies in these ads, with their Skeleton Bangs, do not look quite like this.

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I am thinking about writing up some more Victorian true crime, I haven't done that in awhile. Maybe we will have a mystery object on Friday, if I can find a good one for you. And I have a really funny Christmas anecdote from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, which I've been saving since last January - which I'll post nearer to the 25th.

Larger version of the Cosmopolitan ad from 1888 is here; the "Hair and Beautifying Bazaar" ad is from 1886 and the larger version of that is here.

Mrs. Thompson Redux: The Celebrated Patent Waves

2009-12-04T07:48:00.000-08:00

Mrs. Thompson has some Celebrated Patent Waves (or rather "Waves") for you, so that you will make the best-dressed list in New York in 1882. It does not look false and wig-like (although it is in fact false and wig-like) - and is perfect for those who need more abundant waves and do not wish to ruin what hair they still possess.

As I was Googling for more information, what do you think I found? Why, I'd already written about dear Mrs. Mary Thompson back in January of this year. The subject of that post was her patented medicated gloves. There are some rather good links over there concerning her inventions and those of her husband, Charles, who invented a Crimping Pin to put waves in whatever hair you might already have.

Basically, if you wanted wavy hair of any kind in New York City in the 1880s (to say nothing of medicated gloves) you knew to get right over to the Thompson establishment at 52 East 14th Street, wallet in hand.

Or did you? Next time, we will be visiting Mrs. Thompson's rival and her very oddly named rival hairpiece.

[This advertisement is from Peterson's Magazine (volumes 81-2, 1882, p. 325).]

The Smuggler's Tomb

2009-12-02T06:37:00.000-08:00

This is the Smuggler's Tomb which lay on the rocky East River shoreline between East 71st and East 72th Street, at the end of the 18th century. The Tomb was located on the Louvre Farm which was between 64th and 74th Streets and the East River, according to the notes on the original illustration.

David Provoost, the Smuggler, was the cousin of Samuel Provoost (1742-1815), the first Bishop of New York and president of King's College (later Columbia University). David, a Revolutionary War soldier, was outraged by the duties he was having to pay after the war. He thus turned to smuggling and was known thereafter as "Ready Money" Provoost. David hid his spoils in this outbuilding and also in a cave at Hallett's Point in Astoria, Queens. David made "a fortune" from smuggling. His widow married Scottish-born lawyer James Alexander, and their son William** claimed to be the sixth Earl of Stirling.

Jones' Wood, owned by the Prevoost family, ran from 66th to 74th Streets and was comprised of 90 acres of land.It was sold to John Jones in 1805, and Jones' Wood became a popular picnicking area later in the 19th century. It was the original location proposed for Central Park. The Bowery Boys have an excellent post about Jones' Wood which I highly recommend. It was said that David's ghost haunted the woods, and people liked to gather and tell ghost stories about him (though no one wanted to camp out all night, ever).

The site of the Tomb is where the Hospital for Special Surgery now stands, at 71st Street and East End Avenue.

Picture from NYPL Digital Gallery.

The Life of Bishop Provoost of New York (1855) by John Nicholas Norton is here at Google Books (it does not mention David the family smuggler, though).

*Excursion Planned for the City History Club of New York by Frank Bergen Kelley (1905, p. lxi) - link here.

**See here for Dictionary of National Biography article on William Alexander. It says that he was born in 1726, which does not make sense if his father David was a Revolutionary War soldier born about, say 1750 (see above that David's cousin Samuel was born 1742).

Also see A Loiterer in New York by Helen W. Henderson (1917, p. 337) for more on David Provoost.

A Hard's Day's Soap

2009-11-30T05:57:00.000-08:00

What better way to sell soap than to show the consumer dozens of little, disembodied, mustachioed heads? This must have been the rhetoircal question that the Woodbury Soap Company was asking itself in the late 19th century - and the result is this charming, if rather eccentric looking, advertisement.

It reminded me a little bit of the 1964 cover of A Hard Day's Night. If only the little mustachioed man had made different funny faces, like the Beatles did! Unfortunately all the little heads have the same vaguely unhappy look. You'd think that the Woodbury's would have cheered him up a bit.

Ad image from the Ivory Project.

A Hard Day's Night image is from Jeff's Picasa album (link is in title).

The Million Dollar Peanut Stand

2009-11-26T09:12:00.000-08:00

Of course, no peanut stand was ever worth a million dollars. But the land that one New York City peanut stand stood on in the 1920s - now, that was another matter.

By the early 1900s, upper Fifth Avenue was beginning to be lined with the mansions of fabulously wealthy families, and by splendid public places such as Central Park and the Metropolitan Museum of Art (founded in 1870).

In contrast to these magnificent places, there was a strange sight to be seen on the northeast corner of Fifth Avenue and 82nd Street*, from the mid-1890s until 1922. Across from the massive white splendor of the Metropolitan, and the mansions of high society Astors and Vanderbilts, was a little house surrounded by a picket fence with a side gate, trees and, in back, a huge vegetable garden. It was a large piece of land "whose value," wrote the Times in 1922, "is much more than a million and a half dollars." It added that the "tiny mansion" was not in the Real Estate Directory.

The little house was where Frank Beggi - otherwise known as the Peanut Man of Fifth Avenue - had a peanut and candy shop. An Italian immigrant, he had lived at "the suburbs" of Third and 82nd as a young man in the 1890s, and often walked across "the fields" from his home to Central Park. He noticed a vacant lot right across from the Museum. Seeing all the visitors going in and out, he thought that it might be just the place for a peanut stand. So Beggi asked the landowner for permission to go ahead, and the owner agreed. Beggi started his peanut stand across from the Museum in November 1894. As his business grew, Frank Beggi built a little structure on the land to serve as a shop. It had a soda fountain inside, and he also sold candy, cigars and sandwiches.

Beggi said that the Museum staff were "fine people," friends of his really, who used to run across Fifth Avenue to buy ginger ale, sarsparilla, candy and peanuts from him.

He knew all of his wealthy neighbors, too. They had begun to build mansions on that stretch of Fifth Avenue by the late 1890s. He was also a "Furnace Man" by trade and kept the furnaces of the huge mansions running smoothly - 22 of his clients were in the Social Register. They included the Astors, Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick and Frank W. Woolworth. They often gave flower boxes for his lilacs and shrubs. In addition, Frank Beggi raised Pomeranian puppies there.

The "tiny mansion" was not where Beggi and his family (including twelve children in all) lived. They resided at 1464 Third Avenue (at 83rd and Third). Beggi considered the little house on Fifth Avenue to be his "summer residence."

But by 1922, he was forced out of business. The landowner had decided to sell. The Times noted that "a palatial apartment house" would soon "crowd him out." And the man known as Frank the Peanut Man would not sell snacks across from the Met any more. He lived for 16 more years, still living in the general area of Third and 82nd.

You can see the "palatial apartment building" in the modern picture on the left - it is the highrise just to the right of the narrow house with the green roof. It is hard to believe it, but right on that spot, less than a century ago, there was a little house with a picket fence, trees and shrubs, where the Metropolitan Museum staff used to send for their sarsparilla sodas.

Sources:

"Fifth Avenue Landmark and 'Pioneer' to Go," New York Times, Jul. 30, 1922, p. 33.
"Fifth Ave. Vendor of Peanuts Dies," New York Times, Mar. 22, 1938, p. 23.

The picture of present-day 82nd and Fifth is from The City Review. The photos of the peanut stand - not Frank Beggi's - of the Metropolitan Museum of Art around 1902-3, and the Henry Clay Frick mansion on Fifth Avenue and 71th Street (just to give you an idea of Beggi's neighbors' houses) - are from the NYPL Digital Gallery. I looked for a picture of Beggi's little store and million-dollar piece of farmland, but found nothing.

*I had originally thought that the Beggi house was right next to the frame house on 83rd and Fifth - obviously, it is not. I've edited that post to reflect this.

The Lost House On East 83rd Street

2009-11-24T06:19:00.000-08:00

This little flat-topped frame house at 3 East 83rd Street was built sometime between 1845* and 1867, when this part of Manhattan was the countryside.

You can just see a bit of the Metropolitan Museum of Art at the far left. The tall building to the left of the little house is still there**, at the corner of 83rd and Fifth, but the frame house is, alas, long gone.

The house was razed in 1953 in order to make way for a twelve-story apartment building "with penthouse," as the New York Times said admiringly. It added that the curator of maps and prints at the New-York Historical Society, Arthur B. Carlson, had estimated that the house was built between 1853 and 1867 - a time when "geese and goats still thrived in East Eighty-Third Street, and the horse was a major means of transportation."

But there was something else amazing and anachronistic, just one block away from the frame house on 83rd. It - and its owner - are a fascinating part of lost New York history, something hard to imagine on Fifth Avenue now.

I'll tell you all about it in my next post!

* The New York Public Library, see at the link, states that the house dates from 1845.
**Note the unusual feature of the taller building - the windows at the side, which were possible only because there was a small house next to it and not another tall building.

Photograph of the house from the NYPL Digital Gallery. Also see "Century-Old Home Yields to Progress," New York Times, Mar. 19, 1953, p. 31.

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And thank you to Leslie at Lost Family Treasures for the Kreativ Blogger award!

Pa Cat 's Merciless Jokes

2009-11-22T07:32:00.000-08:00

Would anyone like to guess what on earth the picture has to do with Dunbar's Diarrhoea Mixture? And is that an alarm bell that the kitten on the right is about to pull?

I think that the consumer was meant to draw an analogy between the condition that the Mixture was supposed to alleviate, and the distress of the kittens at having to listen to Pa Cat read out not-very-funny jokes from his Very Funny Joke Book. Pa Cat looks so pleased and so determined - and he also looks a bit like the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland (who would, at most, just smirk at Pa's jokes).

This card made me laugh, and I love cats (even when they are telling bad jokes - whatever sort of jokes are in that book, anyway? I really want to know!) - so here it is.

This amusing advertising card comes to you courtesy of the fabulous Images From the History of Medicine of the National Library of Medicine at Bethesda, Maryland. It was printed at Providence, Rhode Island by the Buker Press, and probably dates from the late 19th century. The picture of the Cheshire Cat is from Wikipedia.

The Inexhaustible Cow

2009-11-18T06:47:00.000-08:00

One of the many attractions at Coney Island in the late 19th century was a tireless mechanical wooden cow which dispensed glasses of milk, served by costumed dairy maids, who unfortunately cannot been seen in this charming late-Victorian stereograph entitled "The Inexhaustible Cow."

The cow stood in a pavilion at Culver Plaza, next to the iron observation tower that had been brought there from the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition in 1878. Culver Plaza, on Surf Avenue, was named for developer Andrew R. Culver, whose Prospect Park and Coney Island Railroad had its terminus there.

A glass of milk from the mechanical cow cost a nickel a glass, according to Charles Denson in Coney Island: Lost and Found (2002, p. 21). John S. Berman in Coney Island (2003, p. 16) writes that people could "bathe under the udders" of the cow at this time, too, but I am not sure how the cow would have been able to multi-task

Berman attributes the cow's installation at Coney Island to notorious local politician/police chief John Y. McKane, but the Eagle, in 1879, refers to it as "Paul Bauer's cow." Bauer was a prominent Coney Island hotel owner, whose West Brighton Hotel was one of Coney Island's largest and most luxurious accomodations. The West Brighton Casino, also owned by Bauer, was just behind the hotel.

The cow had been at Culver Plaza since at least 1879, in which year it was first mentioned in the Eagle. The Eagle also noted other pleasures at Culver Plaza in the late 1870s: sipping cream and "eating sweetmeats" at Cable's restaurant while listening to a band play, a children's merry-go-round, "magnetic machines,"a Camera Obscura and a patent weighing machine that would tell not only your weight but your age, too.

The amazing stereograph of the Inexhaustible Cow is from New York City Stereos at Antique Photographics. The modern picture of the cow, sans blanket, is from Collector's Quest, from the 2008 American Antiques Show; it was selling for $95,000 (I don't know who, if anyone, bought it, though). The picture of the iron tower is from the German version of Wikipedia. And over here, in Charles Denson's Coney Island: Lost and Found, is a great picture of the cow in its pavilion.

Also see "Coney Island" (Jul. 9, 1879, p. 6) and "Sweltering" (Jul. 14, 1880, p. 4) in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, for mentions of the cow.

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Thanks so much to Prim Girl for the Best Blog award!

Afternoon Tea at the Claremont Inn

2009-11-16T08:44:00.000-08:00

This beautiful inn is long gone, but in the 1930s the Claremont still stood at Riverside Drive and 125th Street, just opposite Grant's Tomb. According to Helen Worden in This Is New York (1939), you could have lunch or afternoon tea on the terrace overlooking the Hudson River, and it was a lovely place "although it lost much if its charm when the interior was altered" (p. 167).

The house was built in 1797 by the Post family.Worden writes that the Claremont stood on the site of the Battle of Harlem Heights, fought in September 1776 during the Revolution. And it was here that people gathered to watch Robert Fulton's famous steamboat make its maiden voyage down the Hudson. Worden also notes that Joseph Bonaparte, "the mournful exiled heir to the French throne," spent the final years of his life here, too.

Lossing says that among the residents of the house was Viscount Courtenay, later Earl of Devon, in the early 19th century. Worden writes that the nearby "Grave of an Amiable Child" was the grave of Courtenay's illegitimate child. However, it is the grave of St. Claire Pollock, who fell to his death off the cliffs into the Hudson in July 1797. Roadside America notes that it is one of only three private gravesites in Manhattan (the other two are Grant's Tomb and the grave of William J. Worth at Broadway and 25th Street).

The Claremont had become an inn by the early 1860s. There were lovely formal gardens with arbors and pavilions, according to Benson Lossing's The Hudson (1866), quoted in Arthur G. Adams' The Hudson (1981): "...Jones' Claremont Hotel [is] a fashionable place of resort for the pleasure-seekers who frequent the Bloomingdale and Kingsbridge roads on pleasant afternoons. At such times it is often thronged with visitors, and presents a lovely appearance."

James Rian wrote about the pleasures of dining here in 1930's Dining In New York. Although Rian writes that it was by then "the lonesomest place in New York," it was one of New York's finest French restaurants. One could have "perfect planked steak" and "the most marvelous Turtle Soup L'Anglaise" and "a special Claremont Inn interpretation of Salmon Steak en Gelee that would inspire awe in a robot." Or one could simply have profiteroles and lemonade. One dined out on the "broad ample veranda" facing the river and "watch[ed] snooty little tugs puff up and down the river, dodging in an out among a perfect maze of ferries, battleships and square-riggers in the coastal lumber service."

According to Nathan Silver in Lost New York (2000) the inn was "burned and demolished" (p. 59) by the City in 1951; Silver doesn't say why, but I suspect that there was no very good reason for the destruction of this beautiful building. They did, however, put up a commemorative tablet at Claremont Playground the following year. It hardly seems like a fair trade, though.

Photograph of the Claremont is from the NYPL Digital Gallery. Also see here at Morningside Heights.net.

Adams, Arthur G. The Hudson: A Guide to the River (New York: SUNY Press, 1981) [he quotes the Lossing book on p. 374]
Rian, James. Dining in New York (orig. pub.1930, 2007 Rian Press reprint) p. 136.
Silver, Nathan. Lost New York (Mariner Books, 2000).
Worden, Helen. This Is New York (Doubleday and Doran, 1939).

Le Flou-Flou

2009-11-14T08:46:00.000-08:00

The plan today was to write about some of the research that I'm doing for my NaNoWriMo novel, which is set in 1896 in Brooklyn and New York City. However, I'll be getting to more research after I hit the 50,000 word mark. I hope to make it to that point within a week or so - thanks to writing masses at first and then plugging away every day since then. Though I must tell you I am looking forward to slowing down and working on some of the descriptive stuff. I just need to get Eleanor (the amateur detective) out of her final dangerous incident, and then wrap things up. I will still have a lot of work to do so am going to use the rest of November to motivate myself. In previous years I would stop and take the next 11 months off so it will be best to just keep on going.

Anyway, this post is not about NYC mass transit in 1896 or Green-Wood or Charlotte Canda (a NYC girl who died in a carriage accident in 1843 and is a partial inspiration for the title). It is, as you see above, about Le Flou-Flou. I'll be writing about mass transit, Green-Wood and Charlotte later in the month (hence no links about Charlotte, they will go in her post). But this post is, as you see, about Le Flou-Flou.

Le Flou-Flou is a device for putting ribbons in your hair. Flou-flou was a French for "rustling" and I suppose that is what your beribboned curls would do.

The ad for Le Flou-Flou is from the NYPL Picture Collection Online. It is from an 1896 Le Figaro magazine. There is a bigger image there if you'd like to take a look at the device, which looks like a modern curling iron.

The Quintessence Of Petroleum

2009-11-11T06:53:00.000-08:00

Here is Petrolina, an 1880s rival of Vaseline, a petroleum jelly invented by Robert Chesebrough in the 1870s. It is still widely used for everything from lip balm to eye makeup removal. What is amusing about Petrolina is the name - the oil-refinery tang of the word 'petroleum' coupled with the Victorian way of naming medicines as if they were the heroines of third-rate yellowback novels. Petrolina sounds pretty close to being something that Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth or Augusta Evans Wilson might have written (I've read novels by both ladies, and would not have been surprised to find a Petrolina therein).

Petrolina was made by the Binghamton Oil Refining Company of Binghamton, New York. Acccording to the ads, you could use it:

-externally, much as we use Vaseline today: to soothe burns, or as a cleanser

-internally to soothe coughs and colds (take by the teaspoon!)
- as a hair pomade

- and it works on horses too, soothing scratches, "contraction of the hooves" and sprains

The picture of the Petrolina container is from NMAH. The advertisements are from the Southern Medical Record (Vol. 10, 1880, pp 17-18). A bigger version of the ad at right is here, in case you'd like to read more about the wonders of Petrolina.

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Thanks so much to Dr. Lauren at The Ancient Digger (one of my favorite reads!) for the Best Blog award!

The Mystery of the Catacombs in Manhattan

2009-11-09T06:39:00.000-08:00

This really is a history mystery, and I'm hoping that someone will be able to confirm or deny this (actually, I hope that it is true).

Back when Frozen Charlotte (my NaNoWriMo mystery) was in a previous incarnation as The Black Mirror (which draft will someday become the second in the Eleanor Grey detective series, I hope) I did a lot of research into New York's underground places - not just the subways and secret passages under the street, but also hidden rooms (as in the Seabury Tredwell house) and other odd semi-subterranean and secret places. Julia Solis' New York Underground is a superb resource, by the way, as is the non-New-York but fascinating zine, Infiltration.

Anyway - I wanted to have Eleanor searching for a clue down in some catacombs (underground burial galleries and passageways) under an old church. Now, most sources I've found do not say anything about their being catacombs in New York City. However, in a 1939 book called Here Is New York by Helen Worden, she writes:

Ghosts might also flit through the catacombs beneath the Church of the Holy Apostles, at Twenty-Eighth Street and Ninth Avenue. The passageway which forms a labyrinthlike network of underground chambers was once the repository for coffins. Years ago bodies awaiting burial were kept there. They say there are about seven different exits from those spooky walks.

The cornerstone of Holy Apostles was laid in 1846 and the building was completed two years later. The church is a designated New York Landmark; and what the NYC Architecture site calls its "ambiance of a quaint country chapel" and differing architectural styles make it a charming addition to its Chelsea neighborhood.

I did a search for other mentions of the catacombs (and the seven different exits) but (so far) have not found any corroboration. However, Worden tends to be pretty accurate in her New York lore, and knew a lot of people interested in old New York so I would imagine there is something to this. For now, I have created a fictional NYC church based on Holy Apostles - with catacombs.

Image of the church from NYC Architecture. More pictures of Holy Apostles and its Chelsea surroundings over here at the Bridge and Tunnel Club. And see here also at NYC AGO (a historic church organ site primarily).

Amazing Inventions From 1909

2009-11-06T08:16:00.000-08:00

This has nothing to do with Brooklyn or mysteries. There will be more of that next week but too much of the same thing makes even someone very interested in, just for example, Brooklyn and mysteries (i.e. me) just a little bit - bored! And it's Friday, which means it is time for something fun and amusing.

So here is something fun from the April 1909 issue of Popular Mechanics. Take a look at some of the cutting-edge inventions that were in the news! (You can see the big version of the inventions page over here at Google Books, bu the way). For example:

-The Dog Sweater - I had no idea it was around this early, did you?

-The Violin with Horn Attachment - just sling a drum around your neck and you can be a one man or one woman band.

-A special telephone receiver for long boring calls - looks like modern headphones.

- Lock up those milk bottles in case you have "thieving cats' or "tramps" around early in the morning.

-Strengthen your finger muscles by wearing a leather harness fitted with iron rods. Better lock up the milk bottles before putting this on, though.

-Anti-Snoring device, which is still made, I think. Even back in 1909, scientific types were being inspired in the middle of the night by snoring spouses, to come up with this.

-And to feel extra healthy in the morning even if you are being kept awake by snoring - the Electrically Vibrated Bed, with "spring legs" and a motor at the foot.

-Lastly, an invention that we know was not new in 1909 - that Sunshade Hat, which had been around since the 1880s, as you can see over here.

The Coney Island Bowery

2009-11-04T07:37:00.000-08:00

The Bowery at Coney Island was a plank street laid out in 1882 by George C. Tilyou, one of the pioneer developers of Coney Island as a summer resort and amusement complex. It was named for the Bowery, the oldest street in Manhattan - which by the 1880s had a reputation as a rather shady place lined with cheap amusements, saloons and flophouses.

Originally a little alleyway between larger streets running down to the sea, the Coney Island Bowery was enhanced by the wooden planking and gave it a new importance. Tilyou's idea was to give people a quick route past the amusement places which would lead them straight to the Tilyous' Surf Theater.

Many dance halls, saloons and cheap stands which sprouted up on either side, hoping to benefit from the crowds of pedestrians using the walk. The Bowery soon became the center of Coney Island amusement, often photographed and the subject of penny postcards.

The Stauch's sign in this 1907 photo advertises a popular restaurant, which had a ballroom and cigar store in the same building, which had been opened in 1904. They served seafood, steaks, a variety of pickles and vegetables, and ice cream for dessert. You could have frankfurters with potato salad for 30 cents, but it cost 10 cents extra to have Imported Frankfurters. The menu is here and it is lots of fun to read over, as old menus usually are.

The magnificent building pictured at right is Strauch's, from the front of the 1906 menu.

In the near future (after a couple of medical ads I've found that I want to write about) we'll look at the differences between Sea Gate, West Brighton, Brighton beach and Manhattan Beach, which are all technically part of the larger area of Coney Island - but very different in character.

At this point in NaNoWriMo, my heroine/detective has - in the midst of trying to solve a murder at Coney Island - inherited a cottage at Manhattan Beach (the wealthier, more sedate end of the island) - I might have her inherit property further inland in the second draft, depending on various plot issues.

For some time, I've had an image of Eleanor (my amateur detective) riding around on the railway and taking ferries, looking into things and snooping, really moving around New York in 1896. She could commute down to Coney (this takes place over the winter, because I like beach resorts off-season). It was quite easy to get down to Coney Island from anywhere in New York by 1896 - and in a future post I'll remind myself - and tell you - how she would have done that.

The photograph is from Staley's Views of Coney Island (1907). Picture of Stauch's restaurant from a 1906 menu at the New York Public Library Digital Gallery.

Justus For Hair

2009-11-02T05:59:00.000-08:00

Dr. Justus August - who may or may not be the splendidly bearded man in this advertisement from 1901 (Brooklyn Daily Eagle, April 15, 1901, p. 31) - shows us that even over 100 years ago (and much earlier than this, too), people were concerned about going grey.

The Hair Rejuvenator was a device "applied with electricity" and was supposed to stimulate regrowth and prevent greying. Dr. August's Hair Coloring, advertised in small print at the bottom, was of course for dealing with the grey hair you already had. It had no "sugar of lead" in it - which sounds like a good thing.

Advertisements in the Eagle in the late 1890s (for example, April 8, 1898, p. 9) proclaimed that this product was also called (at least by Dr. August) the Greater New York Hair Grower. The print ad above is from the Brooklyn Eagle, November 22, 1900, p. 7.

A John August was listed in the 1859 Brooklyn Directory as a barber living at 316 Fulton with a work address of 7 Clinton; this directory is digitized at the wonderful Brooklyn Genealogy Information Page - the link is here. In the 1860 census he is listed as being 38 years old, born in Germany, and a "Master Barber" [John August household, 1860 US Census, Brookyn Ward 3, Kings, NY; #353/404, Series M653, Roll 764, p. 504].

John August was also listed in the 1873 Boyd's Brooklyn Directory, digitized here, residing at 7 Clinton and listing his occupation not as physician but "hairdresser." By the end of the century, though, August had promoted himself to being not only a physician but a Professor, too.

I Lift My Lamp Beside the Laundry Soap

2009-10-30T12:20:00.000-07:00

This cartoon is from an 1884 issue of Life (Vol. 3, p.326): commentary on the plastering of ads everywhere in New York City which is relevant today, too. The ad on Liberty's arm looks like a tattoo, doesn't it? Of course Lungoria and Snook's Laundry Soap were not real products, but the names are close enough to what actual soap and medicines were called.

As some of you may know, November 1 starts National Novel Writing Month and therefore until December 1 I will be (in theory) writing at least 1700 words a day in order to make a 50,000 word first draft appear in my hard drive. So by necessity the posts here will be a little shorter and I will be tailoring them to the research I'm doing for the novel. It is a mystery (again - this is my 4th NNWM) set in Brooklyn in 1896-7, called Frozen Charlotte. My profile at the NNWM site is linked on the left hand sidebar - just click on the logo to go there, if you like.

So I'll be looking up things about Green-Wood Cemetery, Coney Island, transportation, everyday life, fortune-tellers and true crime. And I will write some of them down here, with a sprinkling of ads and ephemera.

The Haunted Reptile House

2009-10-28T11:42:00.000-07:00

Charley Snyder was the head keeper of the New York Zoological Society - also known as the Bronx Zoo - in 1915. And he had a huge problem on his hands that summer: all the keepers of the reptile house were convinced that it was haunted by an unknown ghost. This ghost whistled every morning, around opening time, from a window at the southeast corner of the reptile house.

At first, of course, some of the men thought that it was a practical joke. For two weeks everyone checked the window several times a day, trying to catch the culprit. But there was no whistler there. Some thought it might be a zoo visitor. Finally a keeper called Toomey told Charley Snyder in confidence that he thought it was a ghost. He said he had heard not just a whistling sound but a voice crying 'lookooser.'

This anecdote was passed around and soon all the employees at the zoo knew about it, "even Gateman Minks at the West Farms entrance." Sensible Mr. Decker, "a very sober-minded man," said that he too had heard a strange voice in the reptile house. And then Mr. Ditmars told Snyder that he "had dreamed that the big boa and the West African crocodile had held an animated conversation." And when the sensible people start feeling nervous, Snyder thought, that's when it's time to put on the Sherlock Holmes hat.

But who was going to play Sherlock Holmes? Another zoo resident, as it turned out. Charley Snyder had a "lady friend" who was a fortune teller, and he told her all about the strange goings-on at the Bronx Zoo. He wouldn't tell the New York Times (or anyone) what she said, because he was pledged to secrecy. In fact, he really didn't like people knowing about his fortune-telling lady friend. But (Snyder said) she mentioned something about "a dark cloud" over the reptile house which gave the building a "disturbed aureole" (by which she meant an aura, which usually pertains to something surrounding a living body). She said that Snyder would get help from a "little one" with a "pompadour, a wizened fact and whiskers."

Snyder thought that she must mean the new saki, which had recently arrived from Peru. "Gee," Snyder recalled thinking, "How is that long-tailed monkey going to help solve the mystery?" Snyder said he wanted the saki to use its psychic abilities to help, but the saki was scared of the iguana. The saki fled to his own cage and refused to go near the reptile house even after Snyder relocated the iguana.

On the next attempt to get the saki to do some detecting, it managed to "upset a box of toads" which was going to be the snakes' dinner. The saki then ripped up Toomey's trousers. Finally, in a panic, the poor saki blundered into the last place he wanted to be - the iguana's cage - and got so upset that "he has not yet recovered."

At last, though, keepers Toomey and Deckert solved the mystery when they were spraying water on some salamanders in boxes of moss. They heard the whistle up close and were terribly frightened. The noise was coming from one of the smaller boxes. Deckert found the culprit: a single, tiny narrow-mouth frog from Trinidad which "had escaped the nightly roll call" since it was no bigger than a postage stamp. The water spray had excited the little frog and this is what made him whistle. "That frog sang every morning because it was glad to see us," said Charley Snyder - and so ended a ghost story with an uncharacteristically happy ending.

Source: "Singing Frog Made Bronx Zoo Shudder," New York Times, Sept. 13, 1915, p. 14.

The Bronx Zoo in 1911 from NYPL Digital Gallery.
The picture of the saki, French ca 1830, is from NYPL Digital Gallery also. And the narrow-mouthed frog photo is from Wikipedia.

A Trumpet In Your Ear

2009-10-26T07:51:00.000-07:00

As so many of you guessed, this lovely little silver object is in fact an ear trumpet.

Possibly inspired by people cupping a hand to the ear to improve hearing, the ear trumpet has existed for centuries although the earliest print references date from the 17th century. Originally made out of animal horns, ear trumpets were generally made of wood or metal by the Victorian era. Often the metal was covered with a thin coat of vulcanized black rubber to make the device less obvious.

Until the electronic hearing aid began to be available in the 1890s, the ear trumpet was the best option for improving one's hearing. Beethoven used several kinds of ear trumpet in the early 19th century; a picture of the ones he used can be seen here. The English writer Harriet Martineau also used one; in the advertisement below, from Philadelphia in 1857, you can see that one ear trumpet has been named for her.

Many audible hand-claps and hurrahs to those who guessed that this was an ear trumpet:

Thomas MacEntee at geneabloggers
FreshHell at Life In Scribbletown
Jen of The Transmogrifier's Tale
Descartes at If You Write It
Grace at Hugz Before You Go
Jude at Mature Not Senile
Debbi at Debbi's Random Thoughts
RE Ausetkmt at EntrePOD
Jen at Redhead Ranting

And thank you also to -

Harriet M. Welsch at spynotes
Patricia Rockwell at Subjective Soup
Amanda at Time Machine to the Twenties
Joanne Olivieri at Poetic Shutterbug
Wendy at November Obscura
John at English Wilderness
Bill [no blog link]

For more on ear trumpets:

Vintage Ear Trumpets at Retrospectacle
Victorian-Era Concealed Hearing Devices
Ear Wax Museum

The drawing of ear trumpets (with ear in middle) is from George Tiemann's 1879 book American armamentarium chirurgicum.
A patent for an ear trumpet very similar to the mystery object is here, and dates from 1880.
The picture of the man cupping his ear is from NYPL Digital Gallery.
The advertisement for ear trumpets and other medical devices made by Pugh Madeira of Philadelphia is from the 1857 Directory of the Borough of West Chester [Chester County, Pennsylvania], p. 121.

An Attractive Victorian Device

2009-10-23T06:22:00.000-07:00

This week's mystery object is silver, and has an attractive decorative grid, and dates from the end of the 19th century. There are any number of things that it could be. I can think of several. But what do you suppose it was, and how was it used?

I'll tell you all about it on Monday!

The Ghost of Third Avenue

2009-10-21T07:46:00.000-07:00

If you had been taking an evening walk up Third Avenue, late in August 1894, you would have had a problem getting through the crowd at the corner of Third and 72nd Street.

For several nights, there were hundreds of people gathered there from dusk until midnight. So many hundreds of people were there that four extra policemen were assigned to the area to keep everyone calm.

What were they waiting for? A celebrity? Perhaps a comet or shooting star was predicted to appear in the night sky? In fact, they were waiting for a ghost to show himself - a ghost who had recently moved into the neighborhood and had established a residence at 1253 Third Avenue, in a vacant room on the second floor. Everyone in the neighborhood was talking about how the ghost would go to the window, wave its arms and "perform such tricks as ghosts are wont to perform."

The room was vacant - as was the rest of the building - because there had been a fire in it earlier in August. The paint store on the main floor was totally destroyed, and the second-floor apartment in which the O'Connor family had been living, was badly damaged too. After the fire, several people saw the ghost there. The most interesting part of the Times coverage of this story was the list of witnesses who had seen the ghost - with names and addresses. The men had all gone to a notary to affirm that they had seen the ghost (I don't know why they all did this).

On the night that the Times reporter was there with the crowd, someone noticed that the gaslight was on in the flat. Several people thought that the ghost might prefer darkness and at 10pm someone was sent upstairs to turn the gas off. Everyone waited for 2 more hours, to no avail. And then - in a great anticlimax - they all straggled off and went home.

Note: In February 1894, a former manufacturer of trimmings named Alexander H. Strouse died suddenly, of apoplexy, at Minke Causse's restaurant - at Third Avenue and 72nd Street. Could he have been the ghost?

Photograph of Third Avenue at 72nd Street from NYPL Digital Gallery. The storefront at bottom left is very possibly the correct building, as 1253 is right on the corner of Third and 72nd.

"The Ghost Declined To Walk," New York Times, Aug. 20, 1894, p. 8.
"Sudden Death of A.H. Strouse," New York Times, Feb. 19, 1894, p. 2.

The Great New York Aquarium

2009-10-19T08:00:00.000-07:00

The official New York Aquarium was opened at Castle Garden, in Battery Park (the southernmost tip of Manhattan) in 1896. It was the earliest continuously-operating aquarium in the US. It remained in operation at Castle Garden until 1941, and was reopened at Coney Island (where it remains today) 16 years later.

This advertisement is for a rival operation, the Great New York Aquarium at 35th Street and Broadway. It was opened in 1876 by William Cameron Coup (the former business manager of Barnum's Circus) and an animal dealer named Henry Reiche.

P.T. Barnum popularized the aquarium in the US, after seeing how popular there were in England on his trip there in 1855. The following year, he opened one at his American Museum; one opened in Boston in 1859, which Barnum took over a few years later.

The Great New York Aquarium was not a long-term success. According to Coup's book on his aquarium and circus adventures, Spangles and Sawdust, it was terribly expensive transporting the white whales, sea lion and other creatures - never mind the cost of keeping them. There were 42 fresh and salt water tanks to maintain. Furthermore, he and Reiche argued over whether to open the Aquarium on Sundays (Coup didn't want to, Reiche did). They decided to resolve their differences by flipping a coin. Whoever won the coin toss would take over the Aquarium and its satellite operation at Coney Island.

Reiche won the coin toss. Coup doesn't tell us anything more (this is in fact the last sentence in the book) but presumably the Aquarium did not last long after that. By 1880, Henry Reiche, working as an "Animal and Bird Importer," was living in Hoboken, New Jersey [Henry Reiche household, Hoboken Ward 2, Hudson, NJ; #443/781, Series T9, Roll 786, p. 209].

Image from the NYPL Digital Gallery.

Sources

Coup, W.C. Sawdust and Spangles: Stories and Secrets of the Circus. (Chicago, 1901).
Kisling, Vernon N. Zoo and Aquarium History (2001), pp 155-6.
Popular Science (July 1899), p. 362.

The East Williamsburgh Head Muff

2009-10-16T06:37:00.000-07:00

Today we are celebrating the incredible inventiveness of Mr. Helmann Fürst of East Williamsburgh, Brooklyn, in 1876 - behold his amazing Improved Head Muff, just in time for the cold weather!

It seems to be for men only and is not worn, exactly, but "applied to the head." And it is portable, too.

I didn't find Mr. Fürst's patent, but a Mr. Isaac B. Kleinert of New York City patented an Improvement in Head-Muffs in 1875. It is very similar to this one but also protects the mustache.

One obvious problem with the Head Muff is that it is made out of some kind of mesh or cloth, and does not look as if it offered much protection from the cold. But that is so often the way with trendy accessories: you may not be warm, but you'll cut quite the fashionable figure.

From the fabulous NYPL Digital Gallery.

Note: Helmann Fürst thus far is a rather shadowy figure - not in the census, not in Brooklyn directories, and not in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle - as far as I can tell. Furthermore, the NYPL does not indicate the source of this cutting.

Another Note: Many many thanks to my friend Caroline Rance at The Quack Doctor (one of my favorite history blogs!) for finding the Head Muff patent filed by Furst. The link is here.

The Assistant Sexton and Patrick Henry's Ghost

2009-10-14T08:15:00.000-07:00

George Herbert, a "wideawake young man," was the assistant sexton of the North Reformed Dutch Church, Clermont Avenue, Brooklyn in the mid-1890s. It was probably just around Christmas 1895 that Herbert started having problems. And it was all President Grover Cleveland's fault.

Cleveland had, in July of 1895, referred to the Monroe Doctrine when insisting that the British must use arbitration in settling their dispute with Venezuela. The Monroe Doctrine of 1823 was masterminded by then-President James Monroe and his Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams. It is a landmark in American foreign policy, stating that any European interference or attempt to colonize US lands would be considered an act of aggression and treated accordingly by the US government. In turn, the US would not interfere with existing European colonies.

Herbert was very distressed by Cleveland's threatening action against Britain in reference to its Venezuelan issues. The pastor of North Reformed, T. Calvin MacClelland, had preached about this, advocating for peace and the brotherhood of nations - which seems perfectly reasonable. Not according to Herbert - or to the ghosts which began appearing in his dreams.

Ever since Cleveland's remarks in July, Herbert had been having "troubling visions" in which the ghosts of the Founding Fathers shook their fists in his face while martial music played loudly. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were among the figures who also "dance[d] in fury" in Herbert's dreams.

By the winter of 1895 one of the ghosts took things a step further. One night during services, Herbert went down to the church basement to check on the steam heat (this was one of his regular jobs). Suddenly, he said, an invisible hand hit him sharply on the right side of his face, and whispered something angry in his ear. The ghost hissed that the Monroe Doctrine must be upheld at all costs. Herbert was pretty sure that this was the ghost of Patrick Henry because it was wearing knee breeches, buckled shoes and a periwig. He also recognized his features and pose from the well-known 1851 painting of Henry giving his famous "Give me liberty or give me death" speech to the Virginia House of Burgesses, by Peter F. Rothermel . Patrick Henry's ghost made it known to Herbert that it was especially angry at Pastor MacClelland and his talk of "peace at any price."

Herbert decided that the best idea would be to protect himself by wrapping himself in an American flag whenever he had to check on the steam heat in future. He had a Brooklyn tailor make one specially for him, adapted for him to wear (the New York Times, recounting the story, did not specify how). He advised MacClelland to order one, too.

But when MacClelland heard what Herbert had to say, he "gave him his walking papers" - and the ghostly problem was solved, for MacClelland and the parishioners, at least. But what happened to George Herbert? I wish I knew. I would like to know how long he was troubled by patriotic ghosts and the crashing of martial music in his head - and what became of him.

Oddly, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle appears not to have picked up this story (I found nothing there, after an extensive search). I would have thought that it was just their cup of sensational tea, but they seem to have ignored the whole thing. If I do find out anything more about this story and poor George Herbert, I will let you know.

Image of what is probably the North Reformed (since this is a photo of Clermont at Myrtle) is from NYPL Digital Gallery. The ghost in 18th century dress (actually the ghost of Samuel Johnson, who is standing in for Patrick Henry) is also from the NYPL Digital Gallery. The Rothermel painting is from Wikimedia Commons.

Source: "Ghost Scared A Sexton," New York Times, Jan. 4, 1896, p. 8.

A Magical Mystery

2009-10-12T08:03:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to John, Shinade, Grace, Joanne Olivieri and Jen for guessing with magical accuracy - this is indeed a magician's set, made in France in the 1850s. It is over at Martinka's Museum of Magic. I wrote a poem about a 1971 ad for this shop, also known as the Flosso Hornmann Magic Co., in this post. A far more edifying post on the shop is here at The Bowery Boys.

Several pieces in this set were made of tin (cups and balls, which seem not to have survived). The ones in the picture are mostly made of boxwood, which is one of the few woods denser than water, and is often used to make chess pieces (which these resemble a little).

The upper right hand corner piece (with reddish wooden egg sitting just to the left of it) was, according to Martinka, a trick which enabled one to give the illusion of having magically inserted a playing card into a real egg. Here is how the trick, called The Hatched Card, can be done; another version, called Egg à la Card, is here in John Scarne's Scarne on Card Tricks (2003).

The red and blue item just above the wand at the bottom is a Scotch Purse, a trick purse that one put coins into that seemingly then disappeared, though one's audience could still feel the coins inside. This picture at left is the closest modern equivalent of the Scotch Purse that Icould find to show you. It is available at Wonder Workshops.

Apparently, a "bonus genus doll" is missing from the set. This was used in a trick called "Bonus Genus" or "The Little Messenger." One used a trick coin, a small wooden doll and a miniature cape that fitted over the doll to perform this trick. The magician made the doll disappear, provided with invisible money, to some fantastic place to have adventures (this was often done for children). A complete explanation of how this trick was done is discussed in Paul Curry's Magician's Magic (2003, pp 20-25), Curry notes that it was a favorite of Charles Dickens, who was an enthusiastic amateur magician - and who might just have owned a set such as the one pictured above. The illustration at right is from this book, p. 24.

Thank you to all who guessed this week:

John at English Wilderness
Robin Egg's Bleu
Daisy the Curly Cat
Shinade at The Painted Veil
Grace at Hugz Before You Go
Debbi at Debbi's Random Thoughts
Jayne at Our Great Southern Land
Life In Scribbletown
Brett Payne at The Photo Sleuth
Wendy at November Obscura
Pam Walter at Satisfied Sole
Catherine at Sharp Words
Relax Max at Clarity 2009
Alison at EleanorBlog
Susanne Saville at Caffeinated Natter
Joanne Olivieri at Poetic Shutterbug
Jen at Redhead Ranting

A Set Of Strange Little Victorian Objects

2009-10-09T04:25:00.000-07:00

It's a History Mystery Friday, and that means a confounding photograph of a confounding historical something.

Here is a set - of something. It does date from the Victorian period, but that's all I will tell you for now.

Have fun guessing - and all shall be revealed on Monday!

******

Edited to add: I am - for now - putting the EC widget back on, primarily so that I can use the toolbar to visit my favorite blogs, and drop on them. Not to be dropping the eleventy-zillion cards I was dropping (don't have time for that!). And I will just see what happens. But I want to use it as a way to visit people. And we'll see how it all goes. There, that's that - see you tomorrow!