USA > Louisiana > Orleans Parish > New Orleans > Standard history of New Orleans, Louisiana, giving a description of the natural advantages, natural history settlement, Indians, Creoles, municipal and military history, mercantile and commercial interests, banking, transportation, etc. > Part 53
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From the standpoint of chronology it would be in order here to give some ac- count of the works of the children of Israel in the matter of religious activity, for in New Orleans as in every other city on the face of the earth the Jews had found a home and became valuable citizens early. In 1847 Touro Synagogue was erected. = was then known as the Dispersed of Judea. It is located on Carondelet, between Julia and St. Joseph. It had been formerly located at the corner of Bourbon and Canal, the Church of the Episcopal- ians originally. Rabbis J. K. Gutheim, R. S. Jacobs, Joseph H. M. Chumaceiro and 1. H. Leucht have been successively in charge of this temple. The Chevre Mikveh Israel Synagogue at 510 Carondelet, established in 1872, has been served by Rabbis Abraham Alimo, Elisha Silverstein, Albert Silverstein, Lois Silverstein, M. Man- delstann, who is to-day rabbi. The Gates of Prayer was established in 1854. It is located on Jackson, between Chippewa and Annunciation, the present structure having been built in 1855. Rabbis Sampson Cerf, Nathan Schwersky, M. Eisen- berg, D. Jacobson, Jacob Korn, and M. Sessler have been in charge of this syna-
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STANDARD HISTORY OF NEW ORLEANS.
gogue since the beginning successively. The Right Way Synagogue, Carondelet, between Poydras and Lafayette, established in 1870, has had the following rabbis : B. E. Jacobs, M. A. Seiferth, M. Shokat, Louis Silverstein, and S. Gordon. Temple Sinai was organized in 1870. The movement was inaugurated indeed in 1864. The building was erccted on Carondelet, between Delord and Calliope, in 1871. Rev. J. K. Gutheim was selected rabbi in 1872. In 1888 Rabbi Gutheim was suc- ceeded by Rev. Max Heller.
CHAPTER XXI.
MANUFACTURES.
BY NORMAN WALKER.
T HE manufactories of New Orleans are nearly all of recent growth and de- velopment, a matter of twenty or thirty years at most. In one or two lines there was, from necessity, some development in earlier days, but the city was distinctly not a manufacturing one at that time, but devoted instead to com- merce and finance. It did not become a manufacturing center until after the Civil War, when a shrinkage in its trade, or rather, a reduction in the profits therefrom, compelled it to find other employment for its large surplus population.
It would be absurd, therefore, to attempt any account of manufactures in the earlier French days, because there were none. The inhabitants depended on France or Spain for such manufactured goods as they needed. There were a few black- smith and repair shops-nothing more; and New Orleans could, with difficulty, put in condition such vessels as arrived here in any way damaged by wind or weather. In one line only it did some light manufacturing, but of a very crude character. This was in supplying the lumber or boxes in which Cuban sugar was at that time shipped to market. It could scarcely be called a New Orleans industry, however, for while the lumber was shipped from that city and the boxes were some- times made there, the bulk of the work, as in the manufacture of staves to-day, was done in the country parishes. The same was true of the small cotton industry
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of Louisiana, which was confined exclusively to the rural districts-the Acadian women and daughters turning out the famous Attakapas cottonade, popular in Louisiana for nearly a century.
Nor did the American domination which brought so many improvements in other lines make any marked change in the conditions prevailing in manufactures. The destiny of the city was believed to be wholly commercial-and commerce was very profitable at that time-and manufactories were regarded with more or less contempt. The city had all the raw materials necessary for manufactories, cheap and in abundance, but it was lacking in skilled operatives; and commerce gave employment to nearly its entire population. One serious evil presented itself in this condition of affairs. The busy season of the year was naturally the winter, when the city was marketing the crops of the Southwest. This was followed by a long period of rest, when there was little doing in a commercial line. The conse- quence was that the laboring classes had six months of good labor and six months of very little work. They had to get very high wages for this first period in order to make up for the long time they were at rest and without anything to do; and the summer saw those who were improvident suffering because of the difficulty of getting any employment at that time. It was a case, therefore, of feast and famine, alternating. Manufactures could, of course, have averted the evil by giving em- ployment to the operatives all the year round; but it was not until late in the forties when Pittsburg, Cincinnati and other Western cities began to enjoy pros- perity as manufacturing centers, that the political economists of New Orleans realized that for sound and substantial business their city ought to have factories to supplement its active commerce. An agitation then began, which, however, was productive of few important results. The fact is, slavery was an enemy of manu- factories, as some of the great political economists of the South have lately shown. It had a tendency to crowd mechanics out of New Orleans. In the records of that day a general desire is shown to have mechanical work done by negro slaves. Negroes, educated as blacksmiths and carpenters, were in great demand and brought two or three times as much as "green hands," who could only contribute the rough- cst kind of labor. These skilled negro workmen were rented out, and sometimes were leased to themselves, paying their owners for the privilege of hiring their own labor and in this way accumulating enough money to purchase their freedom. So general was the belief in slavery that the Louisiana Engineering Department secured from the State of Louisiana the right to purchase such negro slaves as it might need in the work of levee building, the construction of canals and such other improvements as it had on hand, much of it requiring more or less skilled labor.
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It can be readily recognized how thoroughly demoralizing slavery was under these conditions to free labor and to manufactories ; and, as has been stated, New Orleans did not smile on manufacturing. When, in the thirties, it was organizing so many new banks, all of them save one devoted themselves to fostering the com- mercial interests of New Orleans or the agricultural interests of the State. But a single bank, the Mechanics and Traders, was expected to look after the mechanical and manufacturing arts, and it had the smallest capital of any of the new banking institutions ; and it was provided that $100,000 of its stock should be withheld to be subscribed to by mechanics exclusively ; but there is no evidence that they did so.
Such manufacturing industries as sprang into existence during that time owed their origin to the absolute necessities of New Orleans, and were mainly for such repair work as could not be done elsewhere. Occasionally, the city suffered because of a lack of manufacturers. Thus, for instance, an early effort to provide it, or at least the central portion of the town, with water proved a failure, because there was no iron piping or tubing through which the water could be forced. An attempt was made to supply this deficiency with cypress logs, hollowed in the center so as to form pipes. The substitutes were not satisfactory ; they were too expensive and were not as well suited to water as iron pipes are.
Later on, when the city began its drainage work, it was found impossible to obtain in New Orleans the pumps and other machinery needed, and they had to be purchased in Baltimore. The newspapers of the time complained of these pur- chases and declared that New Orleans could turn out the machinery needed as well and as cheaply as Baltimore; but they were probably mistaken. The com- pany which made the purchases was composed of very patriotic and public-spirited men, who were anxious to use the home market as much as possible and to encourage home industries, and the very fact that they went to Baltimore to purchase what they needed may be regarded as proof positive that they could not get it in New Orleans.
The early factories of New Orleans, therefore, devoted themselves almost exclusively to repair work, or turned out such goods as could not be well manu- factured anywhere else.
In the first category may be placed the foundries, which soon grew to be the leading industry of the city and remained so for many years. The foundries were originally designed for the repair of such machinery as became broken or could not otherwise be used, and which was too heavy to be shipped back to the place of its original manufacture. They found plenty of work when the steamboats
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eame in vogue, for these boats were constantly getting out of order and their boilers needing attention. From this repairing business the foundries gradually branched out and became manufactories of machinery, agricultural implements, boilers, ete. The development of the sugar industry proved a great stimulus to them. That industry called for a great deal of machinery; and while the bulk of this came at first from the manufacturing towns of the North and West, its ten- deney was to drift to New Orleans, as the planter eould then readily order what he needed ; and if he broke a roller eould get one of exactly the size required elose at hand. Under the stimulus of this demand, the foundries and machine shops of New Orleans attained a very high degree of prosperity in ante-bellum days and were decidedly the most prosperous of all the manufacturing industries of the eity. They claimed to have been able to manufacture anything in the iron and eopper line. Occasionally they ventured on big pieces of work, and New Orleans was inelined to boast in 1848, when the Leeds foundry manufactured all the machinery necessary to establish a large rope and eordage faetory there. It might be stated, however, that these were exceptional ventures, and done more to show what the New Orleans foundries were capable of than with any idea of profit.
Among the ante-bellum industries which did well in New Orleans because it did not pay to carry them on elsewhere, were naturally the building trades and the manufacture of building materials-brick, tile, lumber, etc. The briek was made almost exclusively in New Orleans, or at points aeross the lake in St. Tam- many parish. The city bricks were manufactured on the river front, mainly of river clay. They are still to be scen in many of the older buildings of New Orleans and in some of the banquettes, or sidewalks. They were a bright red, very soft, but hardened with time, and resisted fire better than many of the harder varieties, as the latter erumbled away before the flames, whereas the river bricks beeame harder and stronger the longer they were submitted to fire. In many of the older build- ings these bricks were much larger than the standard sizes of to-day and very much like those used by the Egyptians and Assyrians. Several factories also made roof tiling of the same material, the houses in the business seetion being covered with these tiles instead of cypress shingles, after the big fires, which destroyed so large a portion of the eity. The tiles went out of fashion long ago, on the introduction of slate for roofing purposes.
In lumber and similar lines the factories in or around New Orleans, either on the eity or Algiers side of the river, did considerable business. Pirogues or skiffs from cypress logs were made in the earliest days, as were boxes for the
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marketing of the Cuban sugar crop. Later on, skiffs were made, and still later the small schooners, luggers, etc., employed in the Lake Pontchartrain and lower river trade. The sawmills made such lumber as was used in buildings, except the finer class of goods-doors, sashes and blinds. Other industries in which wood enters as the principal material, were the manufacture of cisterns, hogsheads, barrels and casks for the sugar and molasses crops. It will be readily seen that the manufacture of such bulky articles elsewhere would have been unprofitable. The cooperage business for years ranked next in importance to the foundries. It also was built upon the success of the sugar industry. To supply from 400,000 to 500,000 hogsheads, and 500,000 to 600,000 barrels annually naturally gave employment to a large number of men and severely tested the output of the New Orleans cooperages. There was consequently a very considerable demand for second-hand hogsheads, and in years of a big crop barrels were brought down the river from points as far distant as Cincinnati.
Similar in its character was the manufacture of bread, which naturally had to be done in New Orleans ; but the bread was of a poorer quality than that turned out by the city bakers to-day.
A large business was done in the manufacture of boots and shoes, but they were custom-made and not made in factories. The Southerners looked with some contempt on the factory-made shoes of New England, and, save the lower classes and negroes, demanded a much higher grade of goods. As a result the output of the New Orleans shops was very large. This was also true of the tailoring establishments, but such things as clothing factories, which now constitute so important an item among the industries of New Orleans, were practically un- known.
It will be seen from this brief review that manufactories had made little head- way in New Orleans up to the Civil War. The city did some repairing and manu- factured a few articles which could not be easily or profitably made elsewhere. The exceptions were its machine shops, cooperages and a few soap and candle fac- tories, which utilized the refuse of the city. The latter, however, did not begin to supply the large demand and New Orleans depended on the West for most of the candles it used or supplied to the neighboring country.
In 1833 it showed commendable energy and public spirit, thanks to Mr. J. H. Caldwell, in the manufacture of gas, using that material as an illuminant in ad- vance of most of the Western cities.
Its other ventures in manufactures were small and unimportant. Although
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the center of the cotton trade, it had done practically nothing in the manufacture of cotton goods, although the South Atlantic and Gulf States from 1840 to 1860 were erecting a number of new cotton-mills. There was one venture at a mill which proved a failure, and a second venture, on a small scale, just before the Civil War broke out, which survives to-day in the Lane Mills.
While handling the tobacco crop of the country, it did nothing in the manu- facture of tobacco or cigars, and postponed the utilization of its possibilities to a much later day; and it equally neglected its opportunities in the manufacture of woolen goods, although it handled a large quantity of wool.
In 1848 a rope factory was established in New Orleans for the manufacture of ropes from hemp, large quantities of which were exported through that city to Europe and the Atlantic States. The "fuss" made over this factory well illus- trates the paucity of manufactories in New Orleans at the time. The papers bragged that the machinery had been made in a New Orleans foundry (Leed's) and that the output sold for more than the ropes turned out in the New England factories. The new establishment employed 150 hands and was one of the largest factories in the city.
The next twelve years tell of a few similar ventures, but of little importance. It began to be recognized that the prosperity of New Orleans would be built on much safer and better foundations if it had manufactories to supplement its com- merce; and De Bow's Review was filled with strong articles, showing how much more easily and at greater profit cotton could be manufactured in New Orleans than in New England. But in spite of this lucid demonstration the cotton mills did not come to the Crescent City, but found a more profitable home in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. The census of 1850 showed the weakness of New Orleans in manu- factories, both in the few lines of industry that prevailed there and in the small output of products.
The industries singled out by that census as worthy special mention show the following output in New Orleans in 1850:
Agricultural implements
$ 25,610
Iron foundries
312,500
Lumber
112,967
Leather
47,000
Boots and shoes
203,212
Soap and candles 175,000
The output, it will be seen, was in those lines of goods which were successful
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STANDARD HISTORY OF NEW ORLEANS.
in New Orleans because they had for special reasons to be located there. Few, if any, factories had selected that city as their site through preference. The manu- facturers of machinery and the iron foundries were part of the same general busi- ness which owed its vitality to the steamboats and the sugar industry. There was `little else of any importance. Nor did the decade show any improvements worth mentioning. Indeed, the census of 1860 showed a decline in some lines, such as the manufacture of soap and candles, which was being cheapened by the competition of the West. The principal items of manufacture in New Orleans in 1860 were as follows :
Agricultural implements .$ 86,408
Machinery 318,400
Iron foundries 525,800
Lumber
Cotton goods 121,855
101,850
Leather
78,085
Boots and shoes
664,990
Soap and candles
156,310
Here is little to boast of. All the factories of New Orleans gave employment to scarcely 3,000 hands, and their united output was less than either the sugar refin- ing, rice-cleaning or manufacture of clothing amounted to in 1900. In fine, when the Civil War came on, New Orleans was practically without manufactories. The war naturally did not improve conditions, and, the city being without the commerce that supported it, a large part of its population was dependent on rations furnished by the Federal government during this period of great depression.
In 1865, when peace returned and New Orleans began to rebuild, it found so much to do in other lines that manufactories could not at first receive the attention they deserved, but the popular sentiment at this point was decidedly better than it had been. The disappearance of slavery alone had a beneficial effect, as it had shown itself incompatible with factories, crowding out free labor, while the negroes were not adapted to industries which required carc and skill.
Manufactories received more attention in the post-bellum period than ever before, and the city was in a more favorable condition to venture into them. They, indeed, were necessary to give employment to the large surplus population which commerce no longer required. There was a large supply of labor of excellent quality, even if somewhat unskilled. In the matter of raw materials there was all that could be asked for by any important industry ; and New Orleans had a better
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STANDARD HISTORY OF NEW ORLEANS.
supply of such materials at small cost than any city in the Union. It was the principal exporting port for cotton, hides and wool, the center of a vast lumber region, near to the iron fields of Alabama, and it had all the coal required for its factories floated to their very doors, via the Mississippi. In the matter of markets it was most favorably situated, having not only the neighboring districts of the South and West, but Mexico and Central America, within its reach.
The chief difficulties and hindrances under which it labored were the lack of capital and skilled labor and the prejudice which exists in most countries against home-made goods-a prejudice which New Orleans is only just overcoming. The lack of capital was the most serious objection, and the large number of failures in the factories which occurred must be credited to it. Such skilled labor as was needed was readily imported, and, as a matter of fact, most of the new industries re- quired only rough labor, the ventures being mainly of a simple and light character, the result of new discoveries and improvements.
Among the earliest industries to show vitality were the cleaning of rice, the manufacture of artificial ice and of cotton-secd oil. The use of machinery in rice- cleaning had been tried a couple of years before the war and it had been found that it was superior in every respect to the old farm process that had prevailed before that time, when a horse-mill had been employed in preparing the rice for market. A great development took place in the rice industry from 1865 to 1875, growing out of the fact that many of the sugar planters found it impossible, because of the bad condition of the times and the lack of the necessary capital and ma- chinery, to continue the manufacture of sugar. Much sugar land, therefore, was planted in rice, which costs less to cultivate, and the rice crop greatly increased. The New Orleans mills added to their machinery from time to time, improving the quality and consequently the value of their product. The result was that the city mills completely monopolized the product of the State, buying all the rice in rough, cleaning and polishing it, and selling the cleaned product. The output of the rice mills varied from $2,500,000 to $5,000,000 a year, dependent upon the greater or less success of the crop. Of late ycars, since the transfer of the rice industry to Southwest Louisiana, New Orleans has not enjoyed that monopoly of the rice- cleaning business it once maintained, for there are a number of rice mills in Crow- ley, Rayne and other country towns. Still the bulk of the rice crop comes to the city and is cleaned and marketed here. The rice-cleaning industry of New Orleans dates back nearly forty years. Previous to the Civil War nearly all the rice raised in Louisiana was grown in Plaquemines parish. The process of cleaning it was very primitive, and was done generally by the rice-grower himself. The rice was cleaned
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either by a large wooden drop pestle or by horse mills. The first steam mill in Louisiana was erected by Mr. W. N. Thompson in Plaquemines parish, in 1858. It was sold in 1875, and destroyed by fire in 1877.
In 1863 Mr. John Foerster erected the first mill in New Orleans, on Adele street. He erected a second mill on Magazine and Julia strect in 1882, and soon after a third mill on the corner of Magazine and Notre Dame streets, and known as the Orleans Mill. In 1899 the style of the firm was changed to the Orleans Rice Milling Company. It has a capacity of 800 barrels of rice per day.
In the meanwhile other mills were erected by Allen and Symes in 1868, on Magazine street, near Lafayette; on Elysian Fields avenue, near the river, by Siew- ard and Kip (the mill was recently destroyed by fire) ; and on Toulouse street, near the river, a mill, now known as the Crescent City Rice Mill, was erected by J. David, with a capacity of 400 barrels of rice per day.
T. J. Thompson, son of the pioneer in the milling business, erected a mill on North Peters street, which was conducted for some years under the firm name of Sieward and Thompson. It was sold in 1882 to Isaac Levy, and in 1886 to M. E. Legendre. It has passed through several hands since then and is known to-day as the Planters' Rice Mill, and has a capacity of about 500 barrels of cleaned rice per day.
The National Rice Milling Company entered the field in 1892 and erected a very large mill on the corner of Chartres and Montegut streets, with a capacity of from 1,500 to 2,000 sacks of rough rice per day.
The People's Rice Mill, located on North Peters street, has a capacity of 450 barrels of rice per day.
Thompson's Rice Mill, on Marigny street, erected in 1895, has a capacity of 325 barrels per day.
Lanaux's Rice Mill, located on Decatur street, near Conti, employs about 20 hands and has a capacity of about 500 sacks of rough rice per day.
Socola's Rice Mill, located on Decatur street, near St. Peter, has a capacity of about 750 sacks per day.
Levy's Rice Mill, on Julia, near Magazine, has a capacity of about 800 bar- rels of rough rice per day.
The latest rice mill to be established in New Orleans is Rickert's Mill, at the corner of South Peters and Notre Dame streets, erected in 1898 by Frank Rick- ert, Jr., with a capacity of 400 barrels of rice per day.
Other rice mills are the Crescent City and Ward's, on Toulouse street, and the Dixie, on Tchoupitoulas street.
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STANDARD HISTORY OF NEW ORLEANS.
The manufacture of cotton-seed oil from cotton-seed also dates back to a few years before the Civil War, when Messrs. Fisk and Maginnis were successful in extracting the oil from the seed of the cotton plant; but the industry was of little practical value until 1865 and 1866, when improved processes used made it an exceedingly profitable one. The period from 1865 to 1885 may be con- sidered the most prosperous in the cotton-seed industry in New Orleans, and during part of that time it was the most important and profitable industry in this city, there being no less than eight mills employed in the manufacture of cotton- seed oil and its by-products. The mills refined and steadily improved the quality of the oil turned out by them. The bulk of their output was shipped to Europe, whence it returned to America labeled "olive oil." Indeed, cotton-seed oil was found so useful as an adulterant, and even as a substitute for olive oil, that the olive- producing countries, like France and Italy, took steps to prevent its introduction or to compel it to pay such a heavy duty as would prevent it from being used to any great extent as an adulterant. The uses of cotton-seed oil greatly increased from year to year. It was found to be an excellent adulterant in the manufacture of lard, and thousands of gallons of it are so used in the lard refineries of Chicago and Kansas City. An attempt to use it in the manufacture of artificial butter has not been so successful. The oil, however, proved a magnificent material from which to manufacture soap, especially the higher grades. An excellent imitation of the castile soap of Spain, which is made from olive oil, was obtained from cotton-seed oil, and in their earlier days several of the cotton-seed oil mills used their entire product in the manufacture of soap.
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