USA > New York > New York City > Leslie's history of the greater New York, Volume I > Part 40
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its present building at 18 East 16th Street. The origin and some of the proceedings of the New York Historical Library have been duly traced. During this period, in the eventful year 1857, fifty-three years after its organization, it took possession of its present home on Second Avenue, corner 11th Street, facing the historie St. Mark's-in-the- Bowery, on the side where the stone tablet recording Stuyvesant's burial is sunk into the foundation wall. It wandered about from place to place before this, occupying rooms in the City Hall till 1809; in the Government House. built for the President on the site of the old fort, until 1815; in various other buildings until 1857. Then the grow- ing wealth of the citizens composing its membership and the gratify- ing interest in historical subjects that increasingly took possession of the public, enabled the Society to purchase ground in a fashionable quarter and to put up a handsome stone building, as another monu- ment to the city's higher life.
An advance was also made during this period in the system of pub- lic education. The schools were already the model of the country and the world; but even yet the city was not satisfied with the advantages of education which its youth were enjoying. In 1847 the Board of Ed- ucation addressed a memorial to the Legislature asking that the sys- tem under their care might be so extended by law as to permit them to establish a free academy or college for the benefit of young persons who had passed through the common schools. The Legislature passed the act in May, 1847. but with the proviso then usual and necessary that a vote of the people of the city be had on the measure. On Jime 9. 1847, the question was submitted to the citizens with the result that more than nineteen thousand voted for it. and only thirty-fonr hundred against it. A site was secured on the corner of Twenty- third Street and Lexington Avenue, and a spacious and tasteful build- ing erected upon it. In January, 1849, the Free Academy, as it was then called. was ready to receive scholars. In 1854 the Legislature gave it all the power and privileges of a college, and in 1866 the name was changed to the College of the City of New York. Dr. Horace Webster was president of the Academy or College until 1869. when he was succeeded by the present incumbent. General Alexander S. Webb. a graduate of West Point, who had distinguished himself in the battle of Gettysburg. The conditions of entrance were: Age, fourteen years; residence in the city; at least one year's attendance at one of the public schools of the city, and an entrance examination in all the branches taught in the schools. It thus opened the way for a college education to the poorest children in the city, to such at least as could afford to go through five more years of support by their fami- lies without becoming themselves wage-earners to help along the rest.
In the year 1857 began the excellent work of Cooper Institute. af- fording free lectures on scientific. industrial. and other subjects, and free instruction in evening classes in technical, mechanical. and busi-
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ness branches; and in drawing, artistic, architectural, or engineering. Peter Cooper, the prominent merchant and philanthropist, himself beginning life as a poor, uneducated boy, put up the building at a cost of $600,000, filling up the triangle formed by Third aud Fourth Ave- nues, aud Eighth Street, or Astor Place. The Young Men's Christian Association, which, although primarily a religious institution, aims to meet almost the same object by its evening classes and its library, although charging a moderate membership fee, was organized in 1852. Its library also contains some notable and valuable features.
This, too, was the age of the great literary monthlies. Several mag- azines had made their appearance between 1823 and 1832, but they all died in infancy. The first one to survive that tender period was the Knickerbocker Magasine, begun in 1833. It had a blue cover repre- senting old Father Knickerbocker in full colonial toggery, not omit- ting the ever-present pipe. This maga- zine held its ground in solitary glory for more than a dozen years, when a rival started up which is still in the most vig- orous kind of existence, while Knicker- bocker is known only to the antiquary. It has been seen that Mayor James Har- per began the printing business with three brothers in 1818. In 1847 the en- terprising quartet conceived the idea of a monthly literary magazine, and llar- per's Monthly began its career. At first foreign authors were specially solicited to write for it, and many of Dickens's monumental stories appeared serially first in Harper's in this country. Later CHARLES F. HOFFMAN. it became more patriotic in its literary ventures. It undertook early to procure the finest results in wood en- graving, and it is largely due to the friendly rivalry between it and later contemporaries that this branch of art has attained such a high degree of perfection. In 1853 the building then oc- cupied by the firm on Franklin Square was destroyed by fire, causing a loss of about a million dollars, while six hundred peo- ple were thrown out of employment. But their business had at- tained such proportions that even this great loss did not crip- ple them. The very next year they erected a large, absolutely fireproof building on the site, covering half an acre of ground. Here all the work necessary for the production of books is done, and over one thousand hands receive employment. Before the end of the de- cade Harper's Weekly supplied the illustrated news that had hitherto only come from London, and its pictures of the war in Italy in 1859 were particularly appreciated by old and young in the city. Up to
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1844 the Weekly Mirror of George P. Morris had furnished a few faint and feeble wood cuts of a primitive style, not in the least to be com- pared to what now came from the Harpers. In 1853 another famous publishing house started Putnam's Monthly Magazine, with Charles F. Briggs, George William Curtis, and Parke Godwin as a formidable trio to compel success. But somehow it failed in 1857, a fine feature of the catastrophe being that G. W. Curtis, by heroically assuming and paying a debt that did not come upon him through his fault, was per- mitted to repeat in American literary history the noble conduct of Sir Walter Scott. At about the same time with the Knickerbocker began the American Monthly Magazine, but it ceased in 1858. when its editor committed suicide. In addition to the existence of the periodicals. it was a sign of the higher life of the town that lectures by eminently learned or eloquent speakers were frequent, and were attended by crowds that filled and more than filled the audience-rooms. Dr llawks. on " The Period of Wash- ington," was considered a great treat. Henry Ward Beecher drew crowded houses to hear his words of wit and wisdom. Emerson's metaphysical and slightly puzzling disquisitions were none too much for the people that thronged the hall of the Historical Society. Ed- ward Everett, most polished of speakers, was a great favorite. There were also readings from authors, that drew select audi- ences. Dickens was most heartily welcomed as he read his inimitable scenes or characters; so was Mrs. JAMES K. PAULDING. Fanny Kemble and her selections from Shakespeare.
New York possessed a galaxy of authors and poets of her own of whom she might justly be proud, amid all her commercial supremacy; and that they found a congenial home within her precinets, showed that they were appreciated and honored by their fellow-citizens. The lion among them all was of course Washington Irving. He died nearly at the end of this decade in 1859, greatly lamented, because greatly beloved. "No one ever lived a more beautiful life." says Tuckerman, " no one ever left less to regret in life; no one ever carried with him to the grave a more universal affection. respect, and sor- row." At one time Irving lived on the corner of State and Bridge Streets, facing Battery Park and the Bay; later he occupied a com- fortable house on the corner of Sixteenth Street and Irving Place.
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thus named from this circumstance. He was by far the most famous author of the day, excepting Cooper, but Cooper had made himself disliked, while Irving's genial temper never excited any one's hostil- ity. It was with great delight and pride that his townsmen learned of his having been appointed Minister to Spain. James K. Paulding, living at 1. Whitehall Street, at one time partner with him in the " Salmagundi " papers, also received recognition from the administra- tion by being made Secretary of the Navy. In 1850 all of Cooper's sixty-seven works had been published, and some posthumous publica- tions carried the number to seventy-one. In September, 1851, he died at Cooperstown. But he had belonged to New York City all his liter- ary life, beginning with " Precaution," written at Mamaroneck. In New York most of his tales were published, even though some of them had first seen the light in Europe. It was with James Watson Webb, and the editors of the Tribune and the Commercial Advertiser, that he had his famous libel suits, managing his own cases in court with con- summate skill and indomitable pluck, and generally winning them, teaching the freespoken editors to be a little more mindful of saying hard things and assailing irreproachable reputations, however pro- voking a man might be. For indeed it is difficult even at this distance of time to read without a shiver Cooper's strictures on the crudities and vulgarities of American society. He may have meant well, and no foreign foe could assail American men and manners without draw- ing down upou himself sledge-hammer blows from the prolific and ready pen of our novelist. But, nevertheless, these books are exas- perating reading. Their extravagant denunciation of the merest foibles neutralized the good they might have done. Good humor while just as searching, would have been more edifying. But as Cooper had no humor, the seriousness of his tone made him appear bitterly hostile. when in reality he was only paternally anxious to improve our race. Still he was a man of mark, and his passage across the stage of New York literary life tended to confirm the conviction that America had won for herself a place in the republic of letters. It is bnt fair that among New York literary men should be found one with a name re- minding us of its origin. New Amsterdam had had its poets, Jacob Steendam in the vernacular, and Domine Selyns both in that aud in Latin. Gulian Crommeliu Verplanck, in all three parts of his cogno- men, smacked of the Dutch. Hle was a writer of elegance and versa- tility, and none the less active in public affairs. From a Professor- ship in the Episcopal Seminary, he turued to politics, and became a Member of Congress. He ran once for Mayor on an independent tic- ket, but the " regulars " got the place. He served till his death at 84 (in 1870) as President of the Board of Emigration. Que of the de- parted periodicals- the Talisman, an illustrated annual, was edited and issued by him. He gave particular study to Shakespeare, pub- lishing an edition of his plays in two volumes with prefaces to each
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drama, which are freely quoted in Rolfe's recent and valuable edi- tion of Shakespeare in small separate volumes. At one time he lived on Pearl Street, some four or five doors below Hanover Square. Al- together. New York has not often looked upon his like. Among the literary lights of New York may also be noted with especial pride the historian of the United States, George Bancroft. The first volume of his history was published in 1834, and by 1840 the first three had ap- peared. The solidity and power of these volumes at once gave Mr. Bancroft a commanding position in the land. Honors of a public na- ture were showered upon him. President Van Buren in 1838 made him Collector of the Port of Boston. Mr. Polk gave him the portfolio of the navy in 1846, and later in the same year made him Minister of the United States to England. On his return in 1849 he made New York City his residence, resuming there his work on the History. In 1852 he published Vol. IV: in 1853. Vol. V. and in 1854, Vol. VI. He frequently was asked to give addresses before the New York Historical Society, his most bril- liant one being considered that at the celebration of the Society's half century of existence. in 1854. on " The Necessity. the Reality, and the Promise of the Progress of the Human Race." Ile de- livered several commemorative dis- courses, one on Prescott and one on Irving, upon their death in 1859. He served with Irving and Bryant on the Central Park Commission, and his in- GULIAN C. VERPLANCK. terest in art was manifested in an able discourse on the " Culture. Support. and Object of Art in a Republic" in 1852.
The list of poets must begin with Fitz Greene Halleck. He was early identified with New York City. as we know, for we saw him skating in a familiar way with the future King William IV. on the Collect Pond in 1784. But unfortunately one who claims to be his biographer-in-ordinary. is so uncertain of his dates that after making this interesting statement, with the additional flourish of a life-saving episode. he calmly tells us on another page that he first came to New York in 1811. All through his career he resided in New York, his poetic triumphs and his personal attractiveness giving zest to liter- ary life in the metropolis. He may be far from being " the greatest poet the New World has yet prodneed." but we are grateful that he helped along to give tone to the higher life of the city. Charles Fenno Hoffman was a worthy brother poet. At the Café Français in Warren Street, the two congenial spirits were constant visitors. Many lyrics.
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born of the stirring scenes in the war with Mexico, came from his pen; " his songs have the melody of music, and his literary sketches strong drawing and rich colors." By birth and education (at Columbia) Hoff- man was a New York man through and through. N. P. Willis, al- though born in Maine, was in New York, publishing with George P. Morris the New York Mirror, when he was but twenty-two years old. As some one says of him: " Like Pope . he lisped in numbers, for the numbers came.' But unlike Pope, he wrote almost as beautifully and faultlessly in his lispings as at the latest period of his life." With what vividness stand before our eyes, as our schoolreaders of a gene- ration ago took care that they should, his stately scriptural poems, written when he was still at Yale College. He was a master of prose also, and tried many ventures in the newspaper line. A recent writer in a book-review of the day, from personal reminiscenses of the poet, places him in a somewhat nnexpected light: " It is not strange that those who saw Willis superficially considered him only a dandy and a triffer, for he was a dandy. He belonged to that age and that imme- diate phase of civilization which cropped out in England after George IV. had made all the men in love with small waists and flowing neck- gear." MInch serious work came from him, however, and the galaxy of New York authors cannot afford to lose this " bright particular star." With Willis is always inseparably associated George P. Morris, who wore also one of the high military titles that are now so common and often so meaningless, that of General. He came to New York from Philadelphia, and was one of the few men who reaped a financial harvest from literature in those days, his drama " Briar Cliff," based on Revolutionary events, clearing him some thirty-five hundred dol- lars. This good fortune, as per contrast, makes one think of another brilliant star that shone in the literary sky of New York. Edgar Allan Poe was in the city at various times. He lived here at the time of his beautiful wife's death, in 1847. The little cottage where they loved and suffered from hunger and cold. on the Kingsbridge Road at Fordham, still stands, and it is a sight to make one's heart ache to think that the author of " The Raven " was reduced to such a pass as to be compelled to live here; and even here to be without the means of getting the most necessary comforts for his sick wife. The cottage has been bought by the Shakespeare Club, and the danger of its de- struction is past. but it will have to be moved out of the way of the de- mon of improvement which is coming to widen the old road. If mis- fortune as well as madness is to genins nearly allied, and we needed a Burns or a Chatterton to offset our rather uniformly prosperous and decorous literary lights, poor Poe furnished the requisite exception. Joseph Rodman Drake passed away long before the present decade had arrived, but he belongs to the coterie of anthors whom New York may fairly claim as her own. Halleck and Drake were strongly bound together in personal affection, and in literary work; their joint
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production were the " Croaker Papers," good-natured criticisms of the ways of the age and society, in verse. Drake died in 1820, only twenty- five years of age. but " The Culprit Fay," and his lines on the nation's flag, have made his name one which neither the city nor the country shall willingly let die. And still does William Cullen Bryant live among us in his name and by his work. " Thanatopsis," the fruit of early years, and, while nobly supplemented, perhaps never surpassed by later productions,-was already published before he came to New York. This was in 1825, and until he died in 1878. fifty-three years later, he was thoroughly identified with the literary and social life of the city. The next year he became identified with the Evening Post. so that the mention of one calls up the thought of the other to this day; and the tone given to the paper by his connection with it still lingers as a tra- dition, and should help it to retain it as a fact. In many ways affairs of a public nature received the stimulus of his sup- port. by written words or personal ac- tivity. It was he who presided at the Lincoln meeting. and at the public gathering in honor of Cooper's memory he began that series of scholarly. elo- quent. and popular addresses ou de- ceased literary worthies which would have been sufficient to give him a high rank as an author. apart from the offu- sions of his muse. What is said of the Cooper address might be repeated of JOSEPH R. DRAKE. those he delivered on the others: " not only the most eloquent tribute that has been paid to the dead anthor, it has also remained, during all these years, the fullest account of the life he lived, and the work he did." City and State have indeed delighted to honor Bryant as one of her own. Nor must we forget in this list of anthors drawn to New York if not born and reared there, the many female writers of high repute. Lucretia Maria Davidson, who was of an earlier age, having died in 1825, and her sister Margaret Miller Davidson, who fol- lowed her to the grave twelve years later, received appreciative atten- tion and aid from Morse and Irving. Lydia Maria Child came to New York in 1841, the first perhaps of women to become noted as a correspondent of newspapers. Her letters and tales and romances in support of her anti-slavery views were hailed with pleasure by a large circle of readers. Susan and Anna B. Warner found that New York publishers and the New York public were friendly to conscien- tious literary work, and about this time (1849 and 1853) came to live among such hospitable surroundings. Mrs. Caroline M. Kirkland be-
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gan an industrious trade at authorship here in 1839 which lasted through all this period; while, last but not least, it must be noted by the loyal denizen of the metropolis that Alice and Phoebe Cary, sweet and tender and plaintive in their song, came to enroll their names upon our list of literary worthies in the years 1850 and 1851 respect- ively. There might be an " Augustan Age of American literature " studding the sky over Boston with stars of the first magnitude. There Emerson and Longfellow and Holmes and Lowell and Motley and many more, might be doing the work that will never be lost. Yet even Hawthorne depended largely upon New York for the appreciation of his literary labors. The circle of authors here has given quite as pronounced a character to American literature, and produced fruits that time will only mellow and enrich. And indeed one fact can not well be disputed. The two American authors whose books were first read abroad were New York men, Irving and Cooper. If this constituted (according to Syd- ney Smith's famous sneer) a test of literary quality beyond anything else, then we may well agree with Mr. Roosevelt when he says: " New York may fairly claim to have been the birthplace of American litera- ture."
An amusing anecdote is told by "Felix Oldboy " which illustrates better than anything else, what was LAURA KEENE. the view taken of art by some of New York's best society, before the middle of the century. A young artist had made love, and that with " reciprocity," to a cousin of Charles F. Briggs, one of Putnam's editors. " Society was shocked. Society drew the line at artists, and did not recognize them as eligible." The father of the young lady therefore put in his veto upon the affair. "One day as Mr. Briggs entered the house, the entire chorus of its women," the mother and a bevy of sisters, " threw themselves upon him and begged him to remonstrate with Emily and save the family honor. 'The family honor,' said Briggs, ' what has Emily been doing now?' 'Doing,' shrieked the chorus, ' she's going to disgrace us all by marrying an artist !' . Pooh,' came the quick reply, ' he isn't enough of an artist to make it anything of a disgrace.' When the sibylline utterance of Briggs was carried to the father, he was so amused by it that he withdrew his opposition to the marriage." But we have seen that art as a profession had already organized itself. Samuel F. B. Morse having founded the Na-
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tional Academy of Design as early as 1826, remaining its President until 1842, when all his time was needed for developing the telegraph system of the country. We come upon the name of Robert R. Living- ston again in a movement for the elevation of his fellow-citizens in this connection. Inr 1801 while Minister to France he urged in letters, under the inspiration of what he saw in Paris, that a fund be raised for the establishment of a public gallery and an art-school. As a re- sult the New York Academy of Fine Arts was founded in 1802, which obtained a charter in 1808 under the name " American Academy of Fine Arts." The city corporation came forward to show its apprecia- tion of the object in view, and granted the society a lease of ten years without pay, of rooms in the New York Institute on Chambers Street. Some controversy as to management or policy led to a split in the membership, and those who withdrew founded in 1825 the New York Drawing Association, " for art study and social intercourse." Morse had come to the city in 1815, and he was a leader in this separa- tion. The success of the new society led to the founding of the Na- tional Academy, as related, in 1826. At first, indeed for a long time. the Academy had no buildings of its own. When Clinton Hall was put up on the corner of Beekman and Nassan Streets in 1830, the ex- hibitions of the society were held here for nine years. From 1839 to 1849 it leased quarters in the Society Library Building on Broadway and Leonard Street. It was not till 1863 that the cornerstone was laid of the present building on the corner of Fourth Avenue and Twenty-third Street. While at other exhibitions a permanent collec- tion of the same pictures was presented to sightseers, the Academy. in order to stimulate work among its members, made it a rule to ex- hibit only pictures never before seen by the public. This whetted also the enriosity of the lay population, and drew it in crowds to its rooms when others were deserted. The " American Art Union " was another organization greatly promotive of art appreciation and art produc- tiveness. It began its successful career in 1840. Its practice was to purchase only American works of art, which were exhibited without charge to the public at their galleries, No. 497 Broadway, and after exhibition went by lot to its members. Among the earliest paintings exhibited at the Art Union were Durand's " Passing of a Summer Shower," and Lentze's " Landing of Columbus." Besides these there were, between 1844 and 1860. at least four or five other galleries in the city, not including that of the Crystal Palace, of which more anon. Among artists themselves there were " Sketch Chibs," of various de- scriptions, and descending to various associations or clubs of a later day. Cooper Institute embraced among its practical curriculum all branches of drawing. also modeling; and in 1859 there was a class in wood engraving established for women. At the same time a separate organization rented rooms in the building as a School of Design for Women including drawing and painting, as well as wood engraving.
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