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HIST 3480: The History of NYC

THE MEDIA AND ENTERTAINMENT CAPITAL. HIST 3480: The History of NYC. Harrigan & Hart’s Patrick Day’s Songster (1874). The Elephantine Colossus or Elephant Hotel, West Brighton, Coney Island (1885-1896) . Harper’s Weekly from 1871. THE MEDIA AND ENTERTAINMENT CAPITAL.

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HIST 3480: The History of NYC

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  1. THE MEDIA AND ENTERTAINMENT CAPITAL HIST 3480: The History of NYC Harrigan & Hart’s Patrick Day’s Songster (1874) The Elephantine Colossus or Elephant Hotel, West Brighton, Coney Island (1885-1896) Harper’s Weekly from 1871

  2. THE MEDIA AND ENTERTAINMENT CAPITAL Informational Nerve Center • In the 1840s and 1850s, New York City consolidated its position not only as the nation’s commercial center, but its information nexus as well. • Newspapers, magazines, novels, and lithographs flowed forth from the city and out across the nation’s growing rail network; the city’s publishers and print shops pumped out reams of printed materials. • Stock quotes, news, and personal messages increasingly traveled in and out of the city electrically through telegraph wires.

  3. THE MEDIA AND ENTERTAINMENT CAPITAL The Telegraph • Samuel F.B. Morse (1791-1872), a painter, tinkerer, nativist politician and essayist, and professor of the arts of design at the recently incorporated University of the City of New York (later NYU), came up with the idea for a device to “transmit intelligence by electricity.” • He publicly demonstrates his invention in Oct. 1842 by submerging an underwater wire between Castle Garden at the Battery and Governor’s Island. It works briefly, but then the wire is snagged by the keel of a passing vessel and is cut by a puzzled crew. • In 1842, Morse convinced Congress to underwrite a telegraph between Baltimore and Washington, and using his dot-dash code, conveys the message, “What hath God wrought!” • Morse sets up the Magnetic Telegraph Company to convey messages between New York and Philadelphia, and in 1846, New York speculators used the telegraph to manipulate stocks on the Philadelphia Exchange.

  4. THE MEDIA AND ENTERTAINMENT CAPITAL The Telegraph • Morse is joined by several competitors by 1846 connecting New York to Washington, Boston, and Albany. • By the mid-1850s, more than fifty companies with thousands of miles of wire (often strung up besides train tracks) connected New York far off locales like Pittsburgh and Cincinnati. • Cyrus West Field became obsessed with connecting the U.S. and Europe telegraphically, and as a prominent paper manufacturer, had the capital to get it done. • Field, as well as Peter Cooper, ironmaster Abram Hewitt, banker Moses Taylor, and Morse secure a charter for a transatlantic telegraph company in 1854, creating the American Telegraph Co. in 1855. The company swallows up all of the smaller companies by 1860 except for the Rochester-based Western Union, which had acquired lines to the Midwest.

  5. THE MEDIA AND ENTERTAINMENT CAPITAL The Telegraph • In 1857, two side-wheeled steamships began spooling out 1,950 miles of cable across the Atlantic. The work was completed in 1858, and on August 16, Queen Victoria sent a message to President Buchanan conveying news. • A massive celebration ensued, the “Festival of Connection,” ensued, with featured booming cannons, a torchlight parade, and fireworks that nearly set fire to City Hall. But the celebration proved to be premature as the line ceased to work in September 1858, and was not restored to service until 1866.

  6. THE MEDIA AND ENTERTAINMENT CAPITAL 1858 Map of the Transatlantic cable Samuel F.B. Morse in 1840 Morse telegraph key ca. 1844

  7. THE MEDIA AND ENTERTAINMENT CAPITAL Journalism • The telegraph had a massive effect on the practice of journalism. • In June 1846, during the Mexican War, Moses Yale Beach (1800-1868), proprietor of the Sun, realizes that competition in telegraph-age news gathering is problematic, so he convinces the five other leading dailies—Tribune, Herald, Journal of Commerce, Courier and Enquirer, and Express—to share the cost of transmitting news from the front and from D.C. • By the 1850s, this combination service becomes known as the Associated Press (AP), and it soon garnered a monopoly on fast, wire-reported news across the nation with its own reporters.

  8. THE MEDIA AND ENTERTAINMENT CAPITAL Journalism • James Gordon Bennett’s New York Herald had a circulation of 52,000 by 1853, making it the nation’s most profitable newspaper. • Horace Greeley’s New York Tribune ran a close second to the Herald, but its weekly edition was perhaps the most widely read journal in the country. • By the 1850s, this combination service becomes known as the Associated Press (AP), and it soon garnered a monopoly on fast, wire-reported news across the nation with its own reporters. • In 1844, Greeley hired Margaret Fuller (1810-1850), a New England Transcendentalist, literary critic, editor, journalist, teacher, and political activist, as a correspondent. Fuller traveled to Europe to report on the fight for an Italian republic for the Tribune.

  9. THE MEDIA AND ENTERTAINMENT CAPITAL Horace Greeley (1811-1872) of the Tribune Moses Yale Beach (1800-1868) of the Sun James Gordon Bennett (1795-1872) of the Sun Margaret Fuller (1810-1850) of the Tribune Henry J. Raymond (1820-1869) of the Times Journalism

  10. THE MEDIA AND ENTERTAINMENT CAPITAL Journalism • New York inventor Richard Hoe (1812-1886) patented the rotary press in 1846, which was far more efficient and quick than the older models, capable of producing 20,000 copies an hour. In he 1850s, machines could make paper from wood pulp rather than linen rags, which could at last supply the volume the Hoe machines could put out. • Increasing circulation led to the development of the first advertising agencies: agents would buy space and then go around to dry goods merchants or patent medicine sellers, trying to convince them to buy. • Harper’s New Monthly Magazine (1850), Putnam’s Magazine (1853), and Robert Bonner’s New York Ledger established national audiences.

  11. THE MEDIA AND ENTERTAINMENT CAPITAL Reproductions • Currier and Ives • Matthew Brady • Harper’s New Monthly Magazine (1850), Putnam’s Magazine (1853), and Robert Bonner’s New York Ledger established national audiences.

  12. THE MEDIA AND ENTERTAINMENT CAPITAL Coney Island: A Moral Geography (from West to East) • Norton’s Point • West Brighton • Brighton Beach • Manhattan Beach

  13. THE MEDIA AND ENTERTAINMENT CAPITAL “The Bowery” “The Bowery” was a song from the musical A Trip to Chinatown with music by Percy Gaunt and lyrics by Charles H. Hoyt in 1891. Oh! the night that I struck New York,I went out for a quiet walk;Folks who are "on to" the city say,Better by far that I took Broadway;But I was out to enjoy the sights,There was the Bow'ry ablaze with lights;I had one of the devil's own nights!I'll never go there anymore. The Bow'ry, the Bow'ry!They say such things,And they do strange thingsOn the Bow'ry! The Bow'ry!I'll never go there anymore! I struck a place that they called a "dive,"I was in luck to get out alive;When the policeman heard of my woes,Saw my black eye and my batter'd nose,"You've been held up!," said the copper fly."No, sir! But I've been knock'd down," said I;Then he laugh'd, tho' I could not see why!I'll never go there anymore! The Bow'ry, the Bow'ry!They say such things,And they do strange thingsOn the Bow'ry! The Bow'ry!I'll never go there anymore!

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