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History of New York City (1855-1897)
Encyclopedia
The history of New York City
(1855–1897) started with the inauguration in 1855 of Fernando Wood
as the first mayor from Tammany Hall
, an institution that would dominate the city throughout this period. There was chaos during the American Civil War
, with major rioting in the New York Draft Riots
. Later years saw the rise of the Gilded Age
which saw prosperity for the city's upper classes amid the further growth of a poor immigrant working class, and an increasing consolidation, both economic and municipal, of what would become the five boroughs in 1898.
between two gangs in Five Points
occurred in 1857 lasting two days, killing about 100 people, and stopped only by intervention of the state militia. It was the worst riot up to that time.
proposed New York City secession
from the United States as a neutral sovereign city-state to be called Tri-Insula as a way to avoid the ravages of the war. Despite strong local Copperhead
sympathies, the proposal was not well received. During the American Civil War
on July 13, 1863 opponents of conscription
began five days of rioting, the 'Draft Riots
', the worst in United States history.
has become proverbial, but equally for the foundation of New York's pre-eminent cultural institutions, the Metropolitan Museum of Art
, the Metropolitan Opera
, the American Museum of Natural History
, while the Brooklyn Museum
was a major institution of New York's independent sister city.
New York newspapers were read across the continent as editors James Gordon Bennett, Sr.
, Joseph Pulitzer
and William Randolph Hearst
battled for readership.
The flood of immigration from Europe passed first through Castle Clinton
(opened 1855) and then through Ellis Island
(opened 1892) in New York Harbor, under the eye of the Statue of Liberty
(1886).
The new European immigration brought further social upheaval, and old world criminal societies rapidly exploited the already corrupt municipal machine politics of Tammany Hall, while local American barons of industry further exploited the immigrant masses with ever lower wages and crowded living conditions. In a city of tenements packed with cheap foreign labor from dozens of nations, the city was a hotbed of revolution
, syndicalism
, racketeering, and unionization. In response, the upper classes used partisan hand-outs, organized crime groups, heavy handed policing and political oppression to undermine groups which refused to be coopted. Groups such as anticapitalist labor unions, native American patriot organizations such as the American Protective Association
, and reformers of all stripes were fiercely repressed, while crime lords that became too independent disappeared.
William Magear Tweed
, better known as Boss Tweed, had become the sole leader of Tammany Hall by 1867. From April 1870, with the passage of a city charter consolidating power in the hands of his political allies, Tweed and his cronies were able to defraud the city of some tens of millions of dollars over the next two years and eight months, most famously with the construction bill for a lavish courthouse
. The efforts of muckraking
newspaper accounts and the biting cartoons of Thomas Nast
helped in the election of opposition candidates in 1871, resulting in Tweed's conviction for forgery and larceny in 1873. Tweed's fall put an end to the total immunity of corrupt local political leaders, and was a precursor to the rise of Progressive Era
reforms in the city.
In the Orange Riots
of July 1871 and 1872, Catholic Irish attempted to stop Protestant Irish from celebrating the anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne
. These resulted in more than 33 deaths and many wounded.
In 1874, nearly 61% of all U.S. exports passed through New York harbor. In 1884, nearly 70% of U.S. imports came through New York. The eventual rise of ports on the Gulf of Mexico
and on the Pacific coast reduced New York's share of imports and exports to about 47% in 1910. The city's banking resources grew 250% between 1888 and 1908, compared to the national increase of 26%. Between 1860 and 1907, the assessed value of the land and buildings on Manhattan rose from $1.7 billion to $6.7 billion.
Muckraking pioneering photojournalist Jacob Riis
documented the poor conditions of immigrant tenement dwellers in his 1890 How the Other Half Lives
; he was befriended by mutual admirer, fellow progressive and future United States President Theodore Roosevelt
, who, after losing in the mayoral race in 1886, undertook a major reform of the New York City Police Department
in 1895-1897 during his term as President of the Police Commissioners.
In the late 19th century, the island's schist bedrock
helped facilitate the early development of the highrises which characterize its skyline today.
In 1855, Brooklyn annexed Williamsburg and Bushwick, forming what became the third-most-populous city in America. In 1870, Long Island City was formed in Queens
. In 1874, New York City annexed what is today the Bronx
west of the Bronx River
. The Brooklyn Bridge
completed in 1883 epitomized the heroic confidence of a generation and tied the two cities of Brooklyn and New York inexorably together, and as in the decade from 1886 to 1896 Brooklyn annexed the remainder of Kings County, the issue grew more pressing.
The modern city of New York — the five boroughs — was created in 1898, with the consolidation of the cities of New York (then Manhattan and the Bronx) and Brooklyn with the largely then-rural areas of Queens
and Staten Island
.
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
(1855–1897) started with the inauguration in 1855 of Fernando Wood
Fernando Wood
Fernando Wood was an American politician of the Democratic Party and mayor of New York City; he also served as a United States Representative and as Chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means in both the 45th and 46th Congress .A successful shipping merchant who became Grand Sachem of the...
as the first mayor from Tammany Hall
Tammany Hall
Tammany Hall, also known as the Society of St. Tammany, the Sons of St. Tammany, or the Columbian Order, was a New York political organization founded in 1786 and incorporated on May 12, 1789 as the Tammany Society...
, an institution that would dominate the city throughout this period. There was chaos during the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
, with major rioting in the New York Draft Riots
New York Draft Riots
The New York City draft riots were violent disturbances in New York City that were the culmination of discontent with new laws passed by Congress to draft men to fight in the ongoing American Civil War. The riots were the largest civil insurrection in American history apart from the Civil War itself...
. Later years saw the rise of the Gilded Age
Gilded Age
In United States history, the Gilded Age refers to the era of rapid economic and population growth in the United States during the post–Civil War and post-Reconstruction eras of the late 19th century. The term "Gilded Age" was coined by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner in their book The Gilded...
which saw prosperity for the city's upper classes amid the further growth of a poor immigrant working class, and an increasing consolidation, both economic and municipal, of what would become the five boroughs in 1898.
Pre-Civil War
The Dead Rabbits RiotDead Rabbits Riot
The Dead Rabbits Riot was a two-day civil disturbance in New York City resulting from what was originally a small-scale street fight between members of the Dead Rabbits and the Bowery Boys into a citywide gang war which lasted from July 4–5, 1857...
between two gangs in Five Points
Five Points, Manhattan
Five Points was a neighborhood in central lower Manhattan in New York City. The neighborhood was generally defined as being bound by Centre Street in the west, The Bowery in the east, Canal Street in the north and Park Row in the south...
occurred in 1857 lasting two days, killing about 100 people, and stopped only by intervention of the state militia. It was the worst riot up to that time.
Civil War
Prior to the conflict, in 1861, Mayor Fernando WoodFernando Wood
Fernando Wood was an American politician of the Democratic Party and mayor of New York City; he also served as a United States Representative and as Chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means in both the 45th and 46th Congress .A successful shipping merchant who became Grand Sachem of the...
proposed New York City secession
New York City secession
There are and have been several secession movements in New York state. The most prominent amongst these have been the movements for a state of New York City, a state of Long Island, a state of Niagara , and a state of Upstate New York....
from the United States as a neutral sovereign city-state to be called Tri-Insula as a way to avoid the ravages of the war. Despite strong local Copperhead
Copperheads (politics)
The Copperheads were a vocal group of Democrats in the Northern United States who opposed the American Civil War, wanting an immediate peace settlement with the Confederates. Republicans started calling anti-war Democrats "Copperheads," likening them to the venomous snake...
sympathies, the proposal was not well received. During the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
on July 13, 1863 opponents of conscription
Conscription
Conscription is the compulsory enlistment of people in some sort of national service, most often military service. Conscription dates back to antiquity and continues in some countries to the present day under various names...
began five days of rioting, the 'Draft Riots
New York Draft Riots
The New York City draft riots were violent disturbances in New York City that were the culmination of discontent with new laws passed by Congress to draft men to fight in the ongoing American Civil War. The riots were the largest civil insurrection in American history apart from the Civil War itself...
', the worst in United States history.
Gilded Age
The post-war period was noted for the corruption and graft for which Tammany HallTammany Hall
Tammany Hall, also known as the Society of St. Tammany, the Sons of St. Tammany, or the Columbian Order, was a New York political organization founded in 1786 and incorporated on May 12, 1789 as the Tammany Society...
has become proverbial, but equally for the foundation of New York's pre-eminent cultural institutions, the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...
, the Metropolitan Opera
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
, the American Museum of Natural History
American Museum of Natural History
The American Museum of Natural History , located on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City, United States, is one of the largest and most celebrated museums in the world...
, while the Brooklyn Museum
Brooklyn Museum
The Brooklyn Museum is an encyclopedia art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At 560,000 square feet, the museum holds New York City's second largest art collection with roughly 1.5 million works....
was a major institution of New York's independent sister city.
New York newspapers were read across the continent as editors James Gordon Bennett, Sr.
James Gordon Bennett, Sr.
James Gordon Bennett, Sr. was the founder, editor and publisher of the New York Herald and a major figure in the history of American newspapers.-Biography:...
, Joseph Pulitzer
Joseph Pulitzer
Joseph Pulitzer April 10, 1847 – October 29, 1911), born Politzer József, was a Hungarian-American newspaper publisher of the St. Louis Post Dispatch and the New York World. Pulitzer introduced the techniques of "new journalism" to the newspapers he acquired in the 1880s and became a leading...
and William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst was an American business magnate and leading newspaper publisher. Hearst entered the publishing business in 1887, after taking control of The San Francisco Examiner from his father...
battled for readership.
The flood of immigration from Europe passed first through Castle Clinton
Castle Clinton
Castle Clinton or Fort Clinton, once known as Castle Garden, is a circular sandstone fort now located in Battery Park at the southern tip of Manhattan Island, New York City, in the United States. It is perhaps best remembered as America's first immigration station , where more than 8 million...
(opened 1855) and then through Ellis Island
Ellis Island
Ellis Island in New York Harbor was the gateway for millions of immigrants to the United States. It was the nation's busiest immigrant inspection station from 1892 until 1954. The island was greatly expanded with landfill between 1892 and 1934. Before that, the much smaller original island was the...
(opened 1892) in New York Harbor, under the eye of the Statue of Liberty
Statue of Liberty
The Statue of Liberty is a colossal neoclassical sculpture on Liberty Island in New York Harbor, designed by Frédéric Bartholdi and dedicated on October 28, 1886...
(1886).
The new European immigration brought further social upheaval, and old world criminal societies rapidly exploited the already corrupt municipal machine politics of Tammany Hall, while local American barons of industry further exploited the immigrant masses with ever lower wages and crowded living conditions. In a city of tenements packed with cheap foreign labor from dozens of nations, the city was a hotbed of revolution
Revolution
A revolution is a fundamental change in power or organizational structures that takes place in a relatively short period of time.Aristotle described two types of political revolution:...
, syndicalism
Syndicalism
Syndicalism is a type of economic system proposed as a replacement for capitalism and an alternative to state socialism, which uses federations of collectivised trade unions or industrial unions...
, racketeering, and unionization. In response, the upper classes used partisan hand-outs, organized crime groups, heavy handed policing and political oppression to undermine groups which refused to be coopted. Groups such as anticapitalist labor unions, native American patriot organizations such as the American Protective Association
American Protective Association
The American Protective Association, or APA was an American anti-Catholic society similar to the Know Nothings.-History:The APA was founded 13 March 1887 by Attorney Henry F. Bowers in Clinton, Iowa...
, and reformers of all stripes were fiercely repressed, while crime lords that became too independent disappeared.
William Magear Tweed
Boss Tweed
William Magear Tweed – often erroneously referred to as William Marcy Tweed , and widely known as "Boss" Tweed – was an American politician most notable for being the "boss" of Tammany Hall, the Democratic Party political machine that played a major role in the politics of 19th century...
, better known as Boss Tweed, had become the sole leader of Tammany Hall by 1867. From April 1870, with the passage of a city charter consolidating power in the hands of his political allies, Tweed and his cronies were able to defraud the city of some tens of millions of dollars over the next two years and eight months, most famously with the construction bill for a lavish courthouse
Tweed Courthouse
The building is composed of a central section with two projecting wings, with an addition in the center on the south facade. The entry portico on the main Chambers Street facade rises three and a half stories from a low granite curb, supported by four Corinthian columns...
. The efforts of muckraking
Muckraker
The term muckraker is closely associated with reform-oriented journalists who wrote largely for popular magazines, continued a tradition of investigative journalism reporting, and emerged in the United States after 1900 and continued to be influential until World War I, when through a combination...
newspaper accounts and the biting cartoons of Thomas Nast
Thomas Nast
Thomas Nast was a German-born American caricaturist and editorial cartoonist who is considered to be the "Father of the American Cartoon". He was the scourge of Boss Tweed and the Tammany Hall machine...
helped in the election of opposition candidates in 1871, resulting in Tweed's conviction for forgery and larceny in 1873. Tweed's fall put an end to the total immunity of corrupt local political leaders, and was a precursor to the rise of Progressive Era
Progressive Era
The Progressive Era in the United States was a period of social activism and political reform that flourished from the 1890s to the 1920s. One main goal of the Progressive movement was purification of government, as Progressives tried to eliminate corruption by exposing and undercutting political...
reforms in the city.
In the Orange Riots
Orange Riots
The Orange riots took place in Manhattan, New York City in 1870 and 1871, and involved violent conflict between Irish Protestants, called "Orangemen", and Irish Catholics, along with the New York City Police Department and the New York State National Guard....
of July 1871 and 1872, Catholic Irish attempted to stop Protestant Irish from celebrating the anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne
Battle of the Boyne
The Battle of the Boyne was fought in 1690 between two rival claimants of the English, Scottish and Irish thronesthe Catholic King James and the Protestant King William across the River Boyne near Drogheda on the east coast of Ireland...
. These resulted in more than 33 deaths and many wounded.
In 1874, nearly 61% of all U.S. exports passed through New York harbor. In 1884, nearly 70% of U.S. imports came through New York. The eventual rise of ports on the Gulf of Mexico
Gulf of Mexico
The Gulf of Mexico is a partially landlocked ocean basin largely surrounded by the North American continent and the island of Cuba. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States, on the southwest and south by Mexico, and on the southeast by Cuba. In...
and on the Pacific coast reduced New York's share of imports and exports to about 47% in 1910. The city's banking resources grew 250% between 1888 and 1908, compared to the national increase of 26%. Between 1860 and 1907, the assessed value of the land and buildings on Manhattan rose from $1.7 billion to $6.7 billion.
Muckraking pioneering photojournalist Jacob Riis
Jacob Riis
Jacob August Riis was a Danish American social reformer, "muckraking" journalist and social documentary photographer. He is known for using his photographic and journalistic talents to help the impoverished in New York City; those impoverished New Yorkers were the subject of most of his prolific...
documented the poor conditions of immigrant tenement dwellers in his 1890 How the Other Half Lives
How the Other Half Lives
How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York was an early publication of photojournalism by Jacob Riis, documenting squalid living conditions in New York City slums in the 1880s...
; he was befriended by mutual admirer, fellow progressive and future United States President Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States . He is noted for his exuberant personality, range of interests and achievements, and his leadership of the Progressive Movement, as well as his "cowboy" persona and robust masculinity...
, who, after losing in the mayoral race in 1886, undertook a major reform of the New York City Police Department
New York City Police Department
The New York City Police Department , established in 1845, is currently the largest municipal police force in the United States, with primary responsibilities in law enforcement and investigation within the five boroughs of New York City...
in 1895-1897 during his term as President of the Police Commissioners.
In the late 19th century, the island's schist bedrock
Manhattan schist
The Manhattan schist is a formation of mica schist rock that underlies much of the island of Manhattan in New York City. It is well suited for the foundations of tall buildings, and the two large concentrations of skyscrapers on the island occur in locations where the formation is close to the...
helped facilitate the early development of the highrises which characterize its skyline today.
Consolidation, economic and municipal
Queens
Queens is the easternmost of the five boroughs of New York City. The largest borough in area and the second-largest in population, it is coextensive with Queens County, an administrative division of New York state, in the United States....
. In 1874, New York City annexed what is today the Bronx
The Bronx
The Bronx is the northernmost of the five boroughs of New York City. It is also known as Bronx County, the last of the 62 counties of New York State to be incorporated...
west of the Bronx River
Bronx River
The Bronx River, approximately long, flows through southeast New York in the United States. It is named after colonial settler Jonas Bronck. The Bronx River is the only fresh water river in New York City....
. The Brooklyn Bridge
Brooklyn Bridge
The Brooklyn Bridge is one of the oldest suspension bridges in the United States. Completed in 1883, it connects the New York City boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn by spanning the East River...
completed in 1883 epitomized the heroic confidence of a generation and tied the two cities of Brooklyn and New York inexorably together, and as in the decade from 1886 to 1896 Brooklyn annexed the remainder of Kings County, the issue grew more pressing.
The modern city of New York — the five boroughs — was created in 1898, with the consolidation of the cities of New York (then Manhattan and the Bronx) and Brooklyn with the largely then-rural areas of Queens
Queens
Queens is the easternmost of the five boroughs of New York City. The largest borough in area and the second-largest in population, it is coextensive with Queens County, an administrative division of New York state, in the United States....
and Staten Island
Staten Island
Staten Island is a borough of New York City, New York, United States, located in the southwest part of the city. Staten Island is separated from New Jersey by the Arthur Kill and the Kill Van Kull, and from the rest of New York by New York Bay...
.