The importance of the fur trade to the very existence of Albany cannot be overstated. Although Killian van Rensselaer tried to promote agriculture and tobacco-planting, and the Dutch East India Company tried to maintain strict control over the fur trade, it was river transport and an abundance of beaver within two hundred miles or…

You didn’t think one of the finest new buildings in Albany, the D&H headquarters,  would use anything other than Albany-made venetian blinds, did you? Of course not. Now send for your catalogue.

From 1940, an ad for John Ferris Jr., manufacturer of brushes since 1833. He was one of what seems to have been simply hundreds of businesses on Broadway at the time. It’s hard to imagine how different it must have been. It’s still a very busy place, but it’s all office work. No one’s…

1891, and what was probably one of Albany’s earliest advertising agencies was advertising “Brains To Let, For Advertising Purposes.” Delicious brains.

You’ll be shocked to learn that in the 1890s, there was scandal about the legislature. The water supply, however, was above reproach, thanks to the efforts of the Albany Steam Trap Company. “Every drop used there now for drinking purposes is as pure as if it trickled from ‘The icicle which hangs on Dian’s…

Baking powder wasn’t Albany’s only condensed and dry manufacture of 1891. We were also the home of Day’s Diamond Paste, the wallpaper paste that prevented moths and vermin in walls. Patented! More on The Diamond Paste Company.