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Phoenixville Phriday: Free rent and cannons
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A volume called “Chester County and Its People,” by W.W. Thomson in 1898, relates that during the War of the Rebellion, “At Phoenixville David Reeves, president of the Phoenix Iron Works, gave notice that any of his employes [sic] enlisted in the army they should have the houses they lived in, owned by the…
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From Albany to China – Stewart Dean
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Howell’s Bi-Centennial History of Albany tells us that in the mid-1700s, there were a number of sloops and schooners trading between Albany, New York and Boston, and sometimes beyond, but that none had ventured to foreign ports. In 1770, Captain Abraham Bloodgood made the first voyage from Albany to the West Indies carrying a…
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Van Doren’s Patented Sewing Machine Motor
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This ad from the Troy Daily Times in 1917 touts the patented factory sewing machine motor of E.I. Van Doren of River Street. “Saves one-third of current because motor stops and starts automatically every time sewing machine does.” Imagine! In an article on the same page (not an uncommon practice in those days for…
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Careers, 1911
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We now live in a place that still uses an ancient occupation tax, and as a result its list of occupations includes a number of jobs that don’t exist any more, such as IBM Key Punch, Paste-Up Artist, Teletypist and Photolithographer. It also lists a number of jobs that technically may still exist but…
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Wagar’s Confectionery
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Thumbing (digitally — although thumbs are digits, too, one supposes) through the 1909 Troy City Directory, we ran across this ad for Wagar’s Confectionery, which sounded vaguely familiar despite its way-backness. Turns out there’s a reason. At this time, the name of D. Lester Sharp was attached to Wagar’s Confectionery, “Manufacturer of Absolutely Pure…
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Schneider’s Blood Purifier
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You’re a resident of the Collar City in 1909, and you feel like your blood is just a little . . . impure. Perhaps a dose of Schneider’s Blood Purifier would be just the thing! Made up of sarsaparilla, cherry, dandelion, burdock, mandrake, prickly ash, “&c.,” three tablespoons a day probably couldn’t do much…
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Sejo Ice Cream
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The Al-Tro park program from 1909 included this ad for Sejo Ice Cream, which made us curious because we’d never heard of it. Perhaps we never heard of it because it was sold only at the ice cream cone stands at Altro Park (it was styled both with and without hyphens; and if you…
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Uncle Sam
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Just in time for Independence Day, Gettysburg Flag Works sent us a note highlighting their recent blog entry with a brief history of ol’ Sam Wilson, who put the “Sam” in “Uncle Sam.” The full entry is here. Gettysburg Flag Works is located in East Greenbush, not too far from the encampment where, during…
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A dust-up among bakers
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Just one of those things that catches the eye: an article from the Sept. 14, 1927 Albany Evening News described a fight between bakers: “Mixing fists and a rolling pin, instead of dough, brought John Novak, thirty-two, 26 Bassett street, a baker employed at the Star bakery, into police court today charged with assault,…
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The Mystery of Ivanhoe Bland
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Happened to be looking through the 1920 Albany City Directory, as one does, and looked up an address where I spent a lot of time over the past couple of decades. I knew that the building currently there had not been there that far back, and that there had been a little neighborhood of…