Through the Wringer, 1865

If you were doing laundry in the 1860s, this was exactly the thing you needed: the Universal Clothes Wringer, to get the excess water out of washed clothing. It was endorsed by no less a person than the famous minister Henry Ward Beecher, who was quoted as saying, in an advertisement in the Halifax, Nova Scotia Morning Chronicle (March 25 1868):

After a constant use of the UNIVERSAL CLOTHES WRINGER for more than four years in my family, I am authorized by the "powers that be" to give it the most unqualified praise, and to pronounce it an indispensable part of the machinery of housekeeping. Our servants have always been willing to use it, and have always liked it.

And in July 1869, a classified in the Brooklyn Eagle praised this wonderful washing machine:

Be very particular about getting the "Universal Wringer" with cog-wheels. This is the only one we recommend, and our endorsement of this is without mental reservation or modification. - Universalist.* [July 10, 1869, p. 3]

The lady without the benefit of cog-wheels, on the right, looks like she has a mental reservation or two, doesn't she?

* The Universalist was a Boston newspaper published by the Universalist Church between 1864 and 1878.

[The advertisement is from a guidebook called Miller's New York As It Is (1865).]

Hazard's American Pearl Oil

Did Hazard's Pearl Oil really have pearls in it? This was the question on my mind when I first saw this 1868 patent medicine label in the Library of Congress collection several months ago.

C.G.C. Hazard was a Brooklyn druggist whose store was at Myrtle Avenue and Oxford Street, and he "prepared and sold" this American Pearl Oil as "the Great Pain Alleviator of the Age" - to be used externally or internally (or both) to cure anything from rheumatism to headaches, diarrhea and earache. Relief, Hazard cautioned, was "almost instantaneous" - although one would have thought that "the Great Pain Alleviator of the Age" could cure you more quickly than that.

Did American Pearl Oil contain real pearls? Perhaps. Actual pearls were often ground up and used as medicine. A remedy for the plague involved powdered pearls and the sap of ash trees (it didn't work very well). In Gem Magic (2004, p. 160), Brenda Knight writes that "pearl oil" was used for nervous conditions, but does not explain how the oil would have been made (I assume powdered pearls were simply added to a mineral oil) or in what period this was available.

At the Great Exhibition in London in 1851, pearl oil was one of the "artificial oils" displayed. It was said to have "an agreeable odour of Jargonelles, and [was] used for bonbons." [Journal of Horticulture and Practical Gardening, vol. 23, 1872, p. 51]. But the Journal of Horticulture did not specify what was in this particular pearl oil.

Pearl Oil was also sold as a fuel similar to what one writer called "lard oil," in the 1870s [Executive Documents, Minnesota, vol. 2, 1874, p. 1007, in which a letter to the Board of Health is reproduced, documenting several explosive accidents which occurred when people used Pearl Oil in their lamps].

Or perhaps the "Great Pain Alleviator of the Age" was simply - margarine. Pearl oil, writes Robert Allen Palmatier in Food: A Dictionary of Literal and Non-Literal Terms (2000, p. 258), was a poetic name for "butter substitute" dating from 1854. This is because the word oleomargarine comes from the Greek for oil (oleo) plus pearl (margaron, from which comes the name Margaret, too) - because it was made from pork fat, which looked (apparently) like pearls. Palmatier notes that margarine was available in France in the mid-19th century but did not arrive in the US until the 1870s.

Whatever was in American Pearl Oil, it does not appear to have been advertised much, nor does it seem to have been made for many years, as this label is the only trace of it that I was able to find.

[Image from the Library of Congress.]

Take A Public Sleigh to Bowling Green, 1860

Here is a winter scene in New York City - people taking public transport  on Broadway in 1860. But instead of taking an omnibus, you could take a public sleigh. Doesn't that look like fun? The passengers certainly look happier than the people I used to see on the Lexington Avenue bus when I went to school on it every day in the 1970s. 

The sleigh originated at Bowling Green, according to the sign on the side. Bowling Green is the oldest public park in New York, at Broadway and Beaver Streets in lower Manhattan. It was the site of the cattle market in 17th century New Amsterdam. After the Declaration of Independence was read in public there in 1776, people tore the little crowns off the spikes of the fence around the park - and the fence, sans crowns, is still there today.

Sleigh image from NYPL Digital Gallery, as is the postcard image of Bowling Green.

More on Bowling Green here at NYC Parks and Rec.

Hippodrome Redux

Franconi's Hippodrome, the subject of this post, only stood for a few years in the 1850s in New York. It took more than 50 years for New York to once again have a Hippodrome. In 1905 Frederic Thompson and Elmer S. Dundy (who built Luna Park) built the extravagantly large, magnificently decorated Hippodrome on an entire block of Sixth Avenue, between 43rd and 44th Streets. It was said to be the largest and most spectacular theater ever built - and it would be a New York attraction until 1939. Thompson and Dundy resigned as managers in 1906,

Consider the size of the stage, for example: 200 feet long and 144 feet wide, big enough for hundreds of people, all sorts of animals including elephants, and even automobiles. It was twelve times the size of  a regular Broadway theater stage. There were electric lights, an 8000-gallon glass water tank that could stand in as a diving pool, complete with waterfalls. And there was seating for over 5000 people.

In addition to concerts, circus acts and plays, the Hippodrome was used for all sorts of odd entertainments. In 1917, it was the site of an ice skating competition for the Hippodrome Cup; in that year, the Cup was won by Theresa Weld of Boston [New York Times, March 24, 1917, p. 8]. And for its first anniversary in 1906, the Hippodrome hosted a gala which ended with an invitation to the audience to take a swim in the huge water tank, which would be lowered to serve as a swimming pool of sorts. One thousand "bathing costumes" had been hired from Coney Island for that purpose [New York Times, April 11, 1906, p. 11].

In the 1920s it became a venue for huge musical revues and later still, for vaudeville shows, including Billy Rose's 1935 show Jumbo, which starred Jimmy Durante. By the time it closed in 1939, the Hippodrome was being used mainly for boxing matches and the screening of second and third  run movies.

Postcard image from the US GenWeb Archives; the scene from Neptune's Daughter, staged at the Hippodrome in 1907-8. is from NYPL Digital Gallery.

A Classified Glimpse of New York In 1855

I really, really like reading old newspapers. It comes in handy for researching when you're writing historical fiction, too. And that is a perfect excuse for delving into all the digitized old papers there are - right down to my favorite parts, the little classified ads. So today I wanted to share a little bit of the New York Times in February 1855 (the 27th, to be exact, page 5). I have not done the Situations Wanted or the Real Estate ads, as they will make up another post, another time.  These are just the particular items that caught my eye.

Lost and Found

-There was a bank clerk over at the Bank of America who was in deep trouble, having lost $18,500 worth of specie certificates on his way from the Clearing House back to the Bank. The ad was posted by "George Ellis, Cashier" - probably the unhappy clerk in question. How did he lose them? Did he drop them in the sewer? Did he put them down while he went off  to do something he wasn't supposed to do - like shopping, or having lunch and a drop of something fortifying in a saloon? George, we want to know. And also we'd like to know if anyone turned them in.

-E. Chapin lost a gold pen and pencil case; if you found it you could return it to 1 Hague Street in New York or you could go over to Jersey City and leave it at an address there. How convenient!

-And an anonymous lady lost a Scotch Pebble Bracelet between Abingdon-square and 24th Street. She wanted it back, of course, but offered no specific reward. Scotch Pebble meant Scottish agate, and this sort of jewelry had recently been made popular by Queen Victoria. The cross at the right is Scotch Pebble, and the image is from Celtarts.com. I can see why the lady wanted her bracelet back.

Matrimonial

-G.W.R., "a young man of genteel and prepossessing appearance" - and modest, too! - wants a wife. He is "tired of a bachelor's life." The lucky lady must be young (under 25), accomplished, of good family and "from the country." And I'm sure many young, accomplished rural ladies were eagerly scanning the Times for husbands.

Miscellaneous

-The Mayor of New York, Fernando Wood, had a notice published concerning the sleigh-driver who ran over and killed a 13 year old boy named John Betts at Broadway and 71st Street. He offered $500 reward to anyone who turned in the driver.

-At 349 4th Avenue they were selling all their furniture cheap. You could find bargains on "magnificent rosewood and yellow damask parlor furniture," crimson plush furniture, looking glasses, bedsteads and "fancy ornaments." In fact "all the house-keeping articles" were being sold. Why? Had someone gone bankrupt? Were they moving? The "Stylish Parlor" stereograph, though from 1885 (and from the NYPL Digital Gallery), shows the kind of elegant things that might have been on offer at 349 4th Avenue.

-The American Institute Farmer's Guild was having a meeting about gardening at the Repository and there was going to be a seed exchange, too. "Strangers are always especially welcome." They were, no doubt, even more welcome if they brought seeds.

-If only Samson had known about R.G. Graham's Unguent, he would still have his hair! "Now puffing aside" (writes Graham, after the Samson remark and assorted boasts about glossy whiskers) "it is good, as a trial will show." It cost a dollar a bottle and you could go over to 597 Broadway (in the basement) or even Albany of Philadelphia, to get some. In a publication called Young America (1856) we find the "Young New York's Soliloquy," a parody of Hamlet which begins "To shave or not to shave - that is the question," and contains the lines

The useless care of Phalon's mighty band,
The thoughts of Graham's unguent cosmetique,
And all those aids to dye and grow moustaches!

At the end, Young New York decides he might as well save himself Hamlet-like despair, and shave. Edward Phalon was famous for his hair preparations in the 1850s, including Vitalia, Or Salvation For the Hair (hair dye) and Paphian Lotion (aftershave lotion). The wonderful Phalon's ad is from the library of the New York City Bar.

-Mrs. Stone (at 443 Pearl Street) just got some lovely new "French and English wove corsets" in. You had better go and see them before you go anywhere else. Mrs. Gaynor, at 45 Third Avenue (near 10th Street), has some French Wove Corsets too, and continues to receive them "by almost every steamer"- she is clearly in touch with the very latest in corset fashions. The image, from NYPL Digital Gallery, is of an 1854 corset called the Tournure (I couldn't find a picture of the Wove Corset, unfortunately, but it was probably just as uncomfortable-looking as this one).

-And finally, Joseph N. White, a billiards player, was leaving New York and his friends were putting on a Benefit for him at the Eureka Billiard Saloon at Mercer and Grand Streets - which sounds like a fun place. Though not as much fun as the Saloon of Wonders, where "the Great Wizard Prince," magician Robert Heller, performed in the 1850s ("Amusements," New York Times, May 9, 1853, p. 8).

The New York Chocolate School

Who wouldn't want to go to class at the New York Chocolate School? The School was run by restauranteur and confectioner Henri Maillard, and was located at 114 West 25th Street (between 6th and 7th Avenues, approximately where a garage stands today). This was also the building in which Maillard had his confectionary factory.

Henri Maillard had been famous for his chocolates and confections since 1848, in which year he arrived in New York; he had served his creations to Lincoln in the White House and had taken a gold medal at the Paris Exposition in 1878. At this point I want to direct you over to Victualling, where there is an excellent post about Maillard's career. Here is a link to a photograph of his exhibit at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876. And in 1889, at the Paris Exposition, he displayed, in the entrance hall, "a Venus de Millo [sic] of the weight of 900 kilograms moulded in chocolate...One may remark that greedy visitors or those who doubted that it is true chocolate, have scratched the pedestal of this extraordinary statue."*

Moses King writes about this unusual school in his 1892 King's Handbook of New York City: 

Here free lessons are given on Monday, Wednesday and Friday afternoons, from October to June, in the art of making a cup of chocolate or cocoa, so that these delicious and nutritive beverages may be served in their perfection. [p.268]

By the 1890s, there were some brands of instant hot chocolate on the market (such as Cadbury's in Britain - I am not sure what there was available in New York). Hot chocolate has a long history, which is not the focus of this post - here is a good place to start if you want to delve into historic cocoa.

Maillard's version of the drink was sure to be as grand as his chocolate Venus de Milo. No instant powder for him! Fortunately, Maillard's luxurious recipe has been preserved by Mrs. B.C. Howard in her Fifty Years in a Maryland Kitchen (although if she truly was in a Maryland kitchen for that long, I don't know how she got M. Maillard's recipe):  

To Prepare Chocolate (Henry Maillard) 

Each half pound is divided into six pieces. Each piece is the quantity for a cup.

Take a tin pan and pour in half a glass of warm water; break the chocolate in small pieces and let it dissolve in the pan, stirring it over a bright fire. When the chocolate is dissolved, mix with it a cupful of milk, and stir it again over the fire until it boils about three or four minutes. Then the chocolate is done and perfect.

It is very necessary it should boil, to be good. It can be prepared also with cold water and cold milk, but it takes, of course, a little more time to get it to boil. **

This sounds quite rich, but also fairly simple as far as recipes go. Perhaps Maillard taught his pupils about other things one could make with chocolate. In any case, the New York Chocolate School was probably excellent publicity for his restaurant and confectionery.

The picture of Henry Maillard's chocolate factory, for sale at the New York Times Store, is taken from there (they said personal use was all right, and this is that, at least for now). The Little Lord Fauntleroy boy swigging Cadbury's instant cocoa circa 1890 (Maillard would not approve!) is from Vintage Ad Browser. The restaurant picture is from Victualling. I wish that there was a picture of the actual School, but I was unable to find one.

*Bertels, C.H. Universal Exhibition Paris 1889 (reprinted 2009), p. 84.
**Howard, Mrs. B.C. Fifty Years in a Maryland Kitchen (1881), p. 351.

"With A Juggler You Will Visit Many Lands"

Here is one of the books that fortune tellers like Madame Prewster and Madame Morrow (see links below for more on them) used when New Yorkers ventured into the seedier parts of downtown to consult them in the mid-19th century. The mysterious Madam Le Marchand - or an unknown writer posing as Madam - published this Fortune Teller and Dreamer's Dictionary in 1863.

Le Marchand's book told both the professional and amateur fortune teller how to read cards, tea and coffee grounds, eggs, apple-parings, the palm of a client's hand or the moles on their body. It contained a dictionary of dreams and a "Ladies' Love Oracle" with which one could foretell your matrimonial future. In addition, you would learn "the art of discovering truth from falsehood." This is, of course, precisely what a detective does, though by other means than apple-parings and eggs (unless the mystery involves a restauranteur, I suppose). Le Marchand's book will figure in Frozen Charlotte, though I will not tell you how (one of the central characters is a fortune teller, though).

The questions and answers given in the book are generally of the predictable you-will-marry-a-dark-man type - but some are quirky, seeming to be personal to the writer (whoever he or she was). Here are just a few of these odd writing prompts. The answers are more evocative than the questions: 

Questions To Which the Oracle Replies 

Where will my pranks lead me?
Shall I lose my law-suit?
Shall I receive what is promised me?
What is a wise woman?
Are not my advances imprudent?
When shall I begin to grow old? 

Answers to the Oracle 

Be careful, you are watched.
An afflicted woman, nineteen years old.
Yes; but you will be his dupe.
The prima donna of a foreign theater.
Yes, from an uncle in California.
The rival of Madame Blanc.
Like the reeds of Phrygia.
Not if you have a good lawyer.
Yes, with a mask.
Be not an ignoramus.
Something that does not really exist.
Before the year 1941.
With a juggler you will visit many lands.

I wonder what a client would make of some of these answers. After all, in the 1860s, it was a given that almost anything would happen before 1941. And how many non-circus people would really expect to travel with a juggler?


Sometimes - probably quite often - the fortune teller would not be able to come up with an answer that satisfied the client. Madam Le Marchand understood this dilemma and provided the following exit lines. All but the first two put the blame squarely on the client for asking the wrong sort of question:

The Oracle is mute upon this question.
I am too discreet to tell it you.
How curious you are! 
Ask not here, madame.
No answer to your foolish question.

For more about fortune tellers in Victorian New York City, here are some related Dime Museum posts about them:

Madame Lolo Lulu
The Astonishing Madame Morrow
The Dark Doings of Madame Prewster
"I Knew My Fortune Already": Mrs. Hillis and Madame Phebe
Countess Habeba
Fred Bell, Eastern Mystic
Mrs. Hicks: Brooklyn's Favorite Palmist
Lady Gonzales: "Diploma In Parlor"

I can confidently predict that there will be more of these. When? As Madam Le Marchand would reply: That depends on circumstances.