Category: Albany

On May 26, 1910, inventor/aviator Glenn Curtiss was in Albany (we wrote about it here), alternating between his hotel room at the Ten Eyck and Van Rensselaer Island, where there was a two-poled tent that covered his flying machine, a cloth-winged biplane with a V-8 engine of 50 horsepower driving a wooden rear propeller.…

The Wright Brothers first achieved sustained, powered, heavier-than-air flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina in December 1903. Their first flight was 120 feet for 12 seconds; their fourth and final flight of that day covered 850 feet in 59 seconds. However famous that is now, the flight was barely noticed at the time. Their…

We aren’t very familiar with Mann & Anker (or Mann, Waldman & Co., for that matter), but can only imagine what their store was like in 1898 when Fashion’s Queen held court there and gave her devotees the opportunity to pay her homage. In 1899, both Mann & Anker, “makers of ladies’ garments,” and…

In its 51 years or so, the Albany Morning Express saw some tremendous changes, which it chronicled in its 50th anniversary coverage. They noted that when they began publication in 1847, the city of Albany contained 45,000 inhabitants, making it the 10th largest city in the United States at the time. There was only…

The Albany Morning Press lived through a time of a revolution in newspaper production, and quickly took advantage of the changing technologies, using the newly invented wire services, the Mergenthaler linotype typesetter, and Hoe’s latest presses, not to mention vacuum tubes for moving paper around the office. The telegraph was fairly new to Albany…

Continuing the story of the Albany Morning Express, once the city’s premiere newspaper, in circulation, at least. In marking its 50th anniversary in 1897, the paper recounted some interesting points of its own history. After its founding in 1847 by Alfred Stone and Edward Henly, the paper ran for five years with “varying success”…

Since we stumbled onto the topic of the Albany Morning Express and its various successors in interest, all the way down to the lamented Knickerbocker News, we thought we’d dig a little further into what was once Albany’s largest circulation daily. On May 4, 1897, the Express gave a bit of its own history…

From the Albany Morning Express of Jan. 23, 1892, a house ad for old papers: Old Papers (All Sizes) Suitable for Shelves, Putting Under Carpets, Packing Furniture, Etc. 10 Cents per Hundred, At this office. Probably used for insulation in a lot of old Albany homes, too.

It used to be that undeliverable mail was held by the Post Office, and every week the local postmaster was required to advertise all such unclaimed letters. According to the United States Official Postal Guide for 1896, “The names should be arranged alphabetically and the names of ladies and gentlemen in separate lists .…