USA > New York > A short history of New York State > Part 69
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That a number of the big news, picture, and feature magazines make their headquarters in New York adds a certain flavor to the town. Time, Life, Fortune, Newsweek, Look, Pic, and many of their cousins are staffed, for the most part, with bright and agile people, skilled at their trade and intelligent far beyond the level of intellectual appetite which it is their business to satisfy. These big enterprises are part of New York City as the great midtown advertising agencies or broad- casting companies are part of the metropolis. Though they exist in the city, they are not really integrally connected with it; they are nuclei in a worldwide apparatus for collecting information, simplifying it, making it palatable, and disseminating it. In a word, they are com- mercial enterprises, as pure and as simple as such enterprises usually are.
Much more intimately related to the cultural atmosphere of New York City, and much more distinctly a New York contribution to the American scene, is the publication appropriately titled The New Yorker. Started as a weekly magazine just after World War I, it has steadily published short stories of distinction and comment of a dry, casual, understated character, framed in meticulous prose. The sense of econ- omy and easy, urbane intelligence which characterize this magazine render it unique among American periodicals. In a sense, The New Yorker is a local publication, for and about inhabitants of the metropolis;
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but it is also circulated nationally, and it exerts a national influence. If there is an occasional smart-aleck tone to be detected in its pages, the dry astringency of its wit and the humanity of its sentiment have cer- tainly been forces for the betterment of American writing.
Three publications which take as their audience the more or less professional literary public testify to New York's pre-eminence as a literary center. The Saturday Review acts in considerable measure as a clearinghouse for information about the book business. Its interest in the best books is sometimes rather diluted by a competing interest in the best-sellers; its taste is, in the cant phrase, middlebrow. Publishers' Weekly and Printers' Ink, on the other hand, are publications for the entire trade, including the retail bookseller, the production man, the printer, and the paper salesman. All these publications serve to keep publishers, authors, and bookmakers aware of one another and of the larger trends in the book business. As in every trade, there is a great deal of gossip in the book geschaft; one sometimes gets the impression, around New York, of a large and busy family, spread out over the entire city, which foregathers constantly at publishers' parties, and exchanges chit-chat through the columns of the Saturday Review, Publishers' Weekly, and the two Sunday book supplements of the Times and the Herald Tribune. The atmosphere is surprisingly amicable, and very congenial to those literary artists who are tolerant or appreciative of gossip and professional small-talk.
Higher of brow and smaller of circulation than the Saturday Review, are various literary publications which aim at reaching, or constituting, the avant garde. The names of these publications change from time to time, but their contents do not vary much. Lots of criticism, either literary or social or both, a few short stories, an occasional poem- this was the fare offered by The Dial or Hound and Horn thirty years ago; it is the diet provided by Partisan Review and Hudson Review today. Like the big news magazines, these little reviews and quarterlies are in New York only by accident. Probably they could not very well help being in a metropolis, but they might well exist in another metropolis, as Poetry exists in Chicago, The Criterion existed in London, and Little Review in Paris. Surviving as they do from hand to mouth, or angel to angel, they provide an unusual measure of intellectual stimulation and independent thinking, which frequently reverberates far beyond the limited circle of their subscription lists.
Among the poets who inhabit New York without making it the primary subject of their work, space allows us to distinguish only a few of the most eminent and most firmly-rooted. Mr. E. E. Cummings has been writing spry and cryptic verses, for more than thirty years now, from his home on Patchen Place in the Village. Mr. Langston Hughes,
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the unofficial poet laureate of Harlem, is another old-time resident who continues to publish. W. H. Auden, a bird of passage from Europe, described permanently one nostalgic aspect of the city when he stage-set his baroque eclogue, The Age of Anxiety, in a Third Avenue bar. And Miss Marianne Moore continues to produce exquisite ironic arrange- ments of words from her headquarters in Brooklyn. During the winter, these poets as well as their visiting confrères may be regularly heard by devotees of the art, reading their verses at the Ninety-second Street Young Men's Hebrew Association. Out of a differing environment and dealing with differing themes is the poetic work of Mark Van Doren.
Even more cheerful to consider was the situation of the decorative arts. The galleries and museums of New York have long held unques- tioned pre-eminence in the nation; the only peril which they present is that of swamping New Yorkers under an embarrassment of riches. In this respect, the Museum of Modern Art plays a central role in the city's cultural life. Since 1939 it has been a major force for clean, uncluttered, and functional design. As in any cosmopolitan metropolis, taste in New York has a tendency to indulge the dramatic, the showy and un- restrainedly eclectic; but the museum, by force of its example as well as of its precepts, has spearheaded a movement in the direction of restraint, simplicity, and artistic chastity. A single show may have repercussions in many different directions; for instance, the Japanese house and allied exhibits, which were on display in 1954-1956, provided ideas not only to architects but to designers of furniture and furnishings, to painters, fashion experts, and commercial artists of all sorts. And in the area of industrial design, as well as in the appreciation of good moving pictures and in the encouragement of experimental work in sculpture and painting, the museum has performed yeoman service.
Naturally, a steady trade in antiques and old masters continues to occupy the big commercial galleries; but painters in the modern manner flourish throughout the city, wherever they can find a good north light at a reasonable rental. Some years ago, all the apartments answering this description seemed to be located in Greenwich Village; nowadays, they are likely to be more widely dispersed throughout the five boroughs and the suburbs, even though the major display galleries continue to cluster around Washington Square and Fifty-seventh Street.
During the 1930's and early 1940's much art, like fiction, focused on social themes, and three artists who were trained in and have lived in the city were outstanding in this movement-Philip Evergood, Ben Shahn, and William Gropper. Gropper's cartoons have frequently ap- peared in the press, and Shahn has done murals for several public build- ings.
The most interesting recent developments in modern art seem to lead
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the painters further and further from surface realism, in the direction of free expression. Picasso, Braque, and their American counterpart John Marin made familiar enough the reduction of external reality to a set of interrelated planes and angles; but the newer schools (none of them sufficiently established as yet to be symbolized by a name) seem intent on transcribing mental states directly on canvas without the mediation of a "natural" form. The results are often disturbingly power- ful and immediate; but how far this trend can go without producing radical limitations on the communication between artist and audience, remains to be seen. Sculptors such as Julio Gonzalez who weld their statues in steel, and painters such as the late Jackson Pollock who pour enamel from the can over the canvas, have at least established one sort of direct pathway for the expression of their feelings. And feelings which are freely and fully expressed do not often fail of being, at least partially, communicated. Outside the metropolitan area, no painter has attracted more attention than "Grandma" Moses, lifelong resident of Eagle Bridge, Rensselaer County. Beginning late in life, she has depicted, in brilliant color, scenes with which she has long been familiar.
As a center of the publishing and advertising businesses, New York City is particularly hospitable to what might be called the applied graphic arts. And the generally high standards set by American books, both in beauty and legibility, may someday be recognized as a sig- nificant index of cultural achievement. Book designers and illustrators flourish here in profusion; many of the nation's finest typographers, calligraphers, photographers, layout men, and color-reproduction people are found in the city or within a short radius of it. One particularly notable exception is upstater Rockwell Kent, whose well-known wood- cuts and lithographs have complemented many books.
A particular influence on the cultural life of the metropolis is that exerted by the immense and growing fashion industry. New York has been a garment-manufacturing center for many years; but only after the outbreak of World War II, when it was cut off from the Paris designers, did the city develop in any major way as an independent originator of fashions. Nowadays New York designers create more models than Paris itself, set more styles, and influence more women in the all-important matter of dress. Most of the nation's fashion magazines-Vogue, Har- per's Bazaar, and Mademoiselle, for example-are published in or near the city; and designers Mainbocher, Claire McCardle, Anne Fogarty, and Jo Copeland hold their shows, release their designs, and sell their dresses from headquarters in New York.
What is more, New York is a city of beautiful women, beautifully dressed. There is no such heartwarming sight in all America as can be seen by strolling down midtown Fifth Avenue on a fine spring afternoon.
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Showgirls and shopgirls, models and housewives and actresses and secretaries-they dress up to the city, and like so many glowing flowers, illumine the dank canyons of New York's asphalt and concrete streets. Visitors from the great capitals of the world all pay tribute to the freshness and sophistication of the New York woman.
Finally, no discussion of New York's cultural atmosphere would be complete which did not make mention of the magnificent array of eating and drinking places which make New York the gourmet's par- ticular oyster. Of course there have always been fine restaurants in town; one hears tales of Luchow's which suggest Lucullan luxury at the turn of the century. And there are still restaurants like the Chambord where, for a mere twenty-five dollars or so per plate, one may eat a very good dinner indeed. But the real enchantment for the New York diner-out is the magnificent variety of good food available at everyday prices for his selection. One night he may eat pork sweet and sour, prepared as only a skilled Chinese chef can do it; the next night it may be arroz con pollo, a lavish smorgasbord, bouillabaisse, or shish- kebab topped off with delicious paklava and clotted cream-or a broiled lobster-or a succulent oyster stew-or something as simple as a three- inch charcoal-broiled steak. Many years ago New York committed a deadly gastronomical sin when it introduced the tomato into clam chowder; but the town has long since atoned for this atrocious crime, and there is now no city in the world which does such gracious rev- erence to seafood-even though it still puts tomatoes in its clam chowder.
Aside from formal restaurants, a word must also be said on the immense subject of the New York delicatessen. This home of the delicate bagel and the rosy lox, purveyor of the preroasted turkey, the smoked kipper, the creamy cheesecake, the infinite varieties of Danish pastry, and that mysterious, intricate, exalted structure known usually as "Max's Submarine Sandwich"-if this is not a cultural phenomenon, where shall we find one? The best foods from many lands are found here. Is it not true that the beer is always cold, the pickles always tart, and the hot pastrami always juicy between its slabs of crunchy rye bread? These happy thoughts are apt to press upon the nostalgic exile from Manhattan to the point of making him forget that one can also eat badly in the city. But if he has the mature discretion and the well-lined pocketbook which are essential, the wise New Yorker can make a fine art of dining-out.
In describing the social atmosphere prevalent in New York, one must draw upon reports so diverse as to be contradictory in every particular and from every angle. The man who came to town for a big time, stayed in a tourist hotel off Times Square, and frequented the night clubs set
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up for the out-of-town trade went home with an understandable view of the city. It was a cold, hard, brassy place, where everyone tried to cheat him. By frequenting the museums, libraries, and concert halls one could get an image of New Yorkers as dreamy, soft-spoken, slightly neurasthenic folk, rich in culture and indifferent to pelf. A nocturnal adventure in the lower Bronx or East Harlem might leave one with the impression that New Yorkers were ravening beasts, delighting in viciousness for its own sake. An evening of casual conversation with a circle of cultured acquaintances might equally well convince a visitor that New Yorkers were the warmest, most gracious and affable people in the world. What you saw in New York seemed to depend in large measure on the personality and interests you brought to it.
Still, certain characteristics can and should be described. New York society is surpassingly mobile. There are not many social circles into which an assured manner, a minimum concern with respectability, and an immense lot of money cannot carry one. Formerly the "Four Hundred" were a distinct, self-defined, and strictly limited body; in modern times, real society shades rather indistinctly into "café society," and café society does not always distinguish itself meticulously from "saloon society"-which is the next thing to no society at all. The woman who lives on Park Avenue cannot be distinguished by a casual eye from the woman who only works there; the pseudo-Oxonian who sells one shoes sometimes looks more like the genuine article than any real Oxonian would ever dare to do. New York taxi drivers are known to spend their vacations in Europe; the man who works in the sewer is as likely as not to correct your misquotation of La Rochefoucauld, and subway conductors can sometimes be inveigled, during the slack hours of early morning, into delivering a recitative and tenor aria from the third act of La Bohème. And when they parade into the psychoanalyst's office (as by mid-century practically every New Yorker seems to be doing) all social classes stand in humble equality before the immense tribal deities labeled Id, Ego, and Superego.
Because the New Yorker sees so many people every day, perhaps as an act of defiance against the masses of which he makes so small a part, he often cultivates rich veins of eccentricity and individuality. Where else in America are there so many waiters who will argue you out of ordering the soup you thought you wanted, give you a red-hot tip on the third race at Jamaica, and serve up their personal philosophies of life with the Nesselrode cream pie? Where else would the owner of a stationery store tell you that the delicatessen on the south corner of the street made better roast-beef sandwiches, but advise you to go to the one on the north corner because the proprietor there had a dry sense of humor? The New York taxi driver has been famous for many
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years as a source of universal wisdom and practical counsel in the deepest affairs of life. One would not dispute this judgment; but something of the same humane and cynical wisdom seems to be spreading throughout the whole metropolis. The cop on the beat, the girl at the hosiery counter, the newsboy, and the boot-black have become the repository of a wisdom which is more than individual. It is the wisdom of the city itself, flavoring the perception of the individual with a smoky and hard-bitten sentiment, for which the convinced New Yorker, whether he be native or adopted, can find no substitute through- out the world.
1
Bibliographical Essay
THE literature on New York and its history is voluminous and is constantly growing. The following bibliographical essay can necessarily refer to only a fraction of the books, articles, and manuscripts dealing with the Empire State. Our basic aim has been to include the most significant works and to give essential information about them. To assist the scholar and the general reader, the New York State Historical Association is making plans to compile and to publish an exhaustive bibliography of New York.
We have excluded whole categories of material in order to keep the bib- liography within bounds. Specifically we have not included (1) works of fiction, poetry, or drama, (2) most local histories such as those dealing with counties, villages, churches, and the like, (3) articles in historical journals except for a few of the most significant, (4) general histories of the United States all of which pay some attention to New York, (5) books for children, (6) the manuscript papers of individuals except for a few that have been pub- lished. In exceptional cases we have trespassed over these lines.
The bibliography is divided into three parts: the Introduction deals with gen- eral questions and discusses comprehensive histories, historical periodicals, and atlases. Part I covers the period from 1609 to 1865. Part II covers the period from 1865 to 1956. This part is divided into three sections organized around the topics of (1) politics and government, (2) population and eco- nomic changes, (3) social and intellectual history.
Many books are useful for several topics and periods. In order to save space we have shortened titles and dropped the date of publication after the first reference.
INTRODUCTION
Bibliographical Guides
The history of New York is so inextricably tied to that of the nation that readers will find useful almost any bibliography for the United States. The
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most convenient way to find such bibliographies is through H. P. Beers, Bibli- ographies in American History: Guide to Materials for Research (1942). Every student will find indispensable the Harvard Guide to American History (1954). Annual volumes of bibliography prepared by G. C. Griffin et al., Writings on American History, covering the years 1906-1940 and 1948-1950, list articles as well as books. Prior to 1906, articles are listed in A. P. C. Griffin, Bibliography of American Historical Societies, The United States and the Dominion of Canada (2nd ed., 1907), or as Volume II of the Annual Report of the American Historical Association (1905).
A useful list of books is given in C. E. Van Norman, ed., The Empire State Yesterday and Today (1944). There are also valuable references at the end of most chapters in A. C. Flick, ed., History of the State of New York (10 vols., 1933-1937). A valuable guide to economic history is A. R. Hasse, Index to Economic Material in Documents of the States of the United States: New York, 1789-1904 (1907). Advanced students will find a great deal of excellent material in dissertations at scores of colleges and universities. J. T. Dunn has compiled two useful lists in his articles "Masters' Theses and Doctoral Dissertations on New York History," New York History (Oct. 1952; April 1955).
Two indispensable guides to manuscript sources were published by the His- torical Records Survey of the Works Progress Administration in 1941: Guide to Depositories of Manuscript Collections in New York State and Guide to Manuscript Depositories in New York City. See also A Guide to the Principal Sources for Early American History (1600-1800) in the City of New York, ed. by E. B. Greene and R. B. Morris (1929; rev. 1953).
Atlases, Guidebooks, Manuals, and Maps
The most satisfactory atlas is J. R. Bien, Atlas of the State of New York (1895). W. P. Munger, Historical Atlas of New York (1941), was revised by Wallace Lamb and H. R. Shipherd in 1957. It includes much new material such as separate histories of eleven regions of the state. Old but still useful is J. H. French, comp., Gazetteer of the State of New York: Embracing a Com- prehensive View of the Geography, Geology, and General History of the State (1860). A convenient place to find miscellaneous information is the annual volume put out by the secretary of state, Manual for the Use of the Legislature of the State of New York. The W.P.A. sponsored two valuable guidebooks in the American Guide Series which also contain descriptions of historical developments in many fields such as music, religion, immigration, and the like. These are New York: A Guide to the Empire State (1940) and New York Panorama (1938). A good source for information on elections, governors, and agencies is E. A. Werner, comp., Civil List and Constitutional History of New York (1889).
Maps are the source of much valuable information, especially in regard to transportation and the rise of urban areas, and they are found in many places. The state government and its agencies have published many maps. See ap- propriate departments, such as the Canal Board, the Railroad Commission, and the Department of Commerce. Large libraries have excellent collections. Famous individual maps useful for New York include Lewis Evans, General
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Map of the Middle British Colonies in America (1755); Claude J. Sauthier, A Chorographical Map of the Province of New-York in North America (1779); Simeon De Witt, A Map of the State of New York (1802). David H. Burr pub- lished several maps of New York State between 1829 and 1834. Amos Lay was another early mapmaker of New York.
The student will find the more important maps included in various collections of source materials. See especially the collections, cited below, which were edited by I. P. D. Stokes and E. B. O'Callaghan. The various regional histories sometimes include important maps of different sections of New York State. For example, see Harold Hochschild, Township 34: A History, with Digressions, of an Adirondack Township in Hamilton County in the State of New York (1952), which contains reproductions of many maps of northern New York from colonial times to the present.
Natural Setting, Description, and Interpretation
A competent work is W. J. Miller, The Geological History of New York State (1914), and a parallel volume, D. H. Newland, The Mineral Resources of the State of New York (1921), each published by the University of the State of New York. R. S. Tarr, The Physical Geography of New York State (1902) is an early text. Elmer Fippin, Rural New York (1921), has several chapters dealing with soil, forests, plant life. U. P. Hedrick wrote several monographs on the fruits of New York as well as a broadly conceived History of Agriculture in the State of New York (1933).
The list of writers who have described New York City or the upstate region is almost endless. Alexander Klein, ed., The Empire City: A Treasury of New York (1955), is an anthology of short selections by many authors, American and foreign. This collection tends to stress the unusual and colorful aspects of metropolitan life. Better balanced and more scholarly is Bayrd Still, Mirror for Gotham (1956). It contains a long list of writers and visitors who have described the metropolis. The best guide to travel accounts and novels dealing with New York is C. E. Van Norman, comp., The Empire State Yesterday and Today (1944).
Twentieth-century observers have kept the stream of interpretive books about New York flowing from the press. Carl Carmer and S. H. Adams have probably done the most to interpret modern New York folkways by the light of the past. Carmer's books include Listen for a Lonesome Drum (1936), Dark Trees to the Wind (1949), The Hudson (1939), The Susquehanna (1953). S. H. Adams, Grandfather Stories (1955), is a delightful collection of tales of western New York life during the early part of the nineteenth century. The best volume on folklore remains Harold Thompson, Body, Boots, and Britches (1940). Edward Hungerford in Pathway to Empire (1935) has written a pleasant book of impressions of the various parts of the Empire State. The reader should supplement this book with Wallace Nutting, New York Beautiful (1927), which contains many fine photographs of scenery and famous buildings of New York.
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