335. Eight Famous Sayings: Were They Really Said?

Life Wounds, Books Heal -- American proverb

For a reprint of a five-star review of my historical novel Bill Hope: His Story, and a comment by me, go here and scroll down.  It's the kind of review authors dream of and rarely get.  To see my comment, click on "comment," in small print following the review.  And feel free to add a comment of your own.

SMALL TALK

Since the sayings that follow have little to do with New York, the presumed subject of this blog, I'll do some small talk about someone who is very New York, albeit Staten Island.  This comment is inspired by an article in the New York Times of December 21 by Alan Feuer, entitled "An Odd Staten Island Lawyer Now a Puzzle for Prosecutors."  The gentleman in question is Richard Luthmann, whom I had never heard of before.  A photo shows a man of 38, spectacled, his upper lip overlaid with a mustache resembling a hairy black caterpillar, and a black-bearded chin over a bow tie that is evidently his trade mark, this one being crimson in color and suggesting a small bat in flight.

          So why is Mr. Luthmann a puzzle?  First of all, being a devoted follower of "Game of Thrones," he once asked a judge to let him settle a lawsuit by dueling with his adversary's lawyer in what he called his "common law right to Trial by Combat." Also, when accused of creating phony Facebook pages to discredit his political enemies, he responded by writing on Facebook, "I am a bear with the taste of blood in my mouth."  These and other antics help explain why he's considered a local oddity, Staten Island's version of the trickster.  Perennially bow-tied, volatile and angry, he apparently resents his failure to qualify for a 2013 campaign for borough president, when he failed to obtain enough signatures to get on the ballot.  A month after that he crashed his car into a guardrail and was arrested for drunken driving, though the charges were later dismissed. 

          But now the plot thickens.  Federal prosecutors have accused him of a series of crimes that include the following:

• posting images on the Internet of a local politician with hash tages like "#targetpractice" and "#hunting season" 
• trying to pay a stripper $10,000 to claim she was raped by a candidate running for district attorney
• trying to sell shipping containers of cheap filler material to local businessmen as scrap metal
• asking a Mafia associate to beat up one enemy and murder another     

         These charges have left Staten Island agog.  Mr. Luthmann had been viewed as eccentric and flamboyant, but not violent -- in short, a harmless oddball -- but now, who knows?  He is currently jailed for lack of bail, but his lawyer hopes to free him soon. Meanwhile, though innocent until proved guilty, he is my prime candidate for New York rascal of the moment, succeeding Martin Shkreli, whom I have chronicled often in the past, and who now is lost to us, confined in Durance Vile (see posts #306 and #317). Shkreli, now inmate #87850-053 in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, awaits sentencing on January 16, and the lawyer who helped him in his misadventures has himself been convicted of fraud and faces a possible 20 years in prison. Meanwhile, we will follow Mr. Luthmann's adventures with interest.

EIGHT  FAMOUS  SAYINGS:  WERE  THEY  REALLY SAID?

In the age of Trump and the era of fake news, we don't need to be reminded that history at times risks being a blend of myth and legend, rather than solid fact.  Many of the sayings famously attributed to various historical figures often turn out to be fabrications.  Let’s have a look at eight of them and see if they are authentic.

1. Madame de Pompadour, “Après moi, le déluge.”  (After me, the deluge.)

As the reigning mistress of Louis XV, she supposedly said this, indicating a cynical indifference to what might follow after her.  In other words, she’d had her fun and didn’t care it might cost later generations.  Sometimes it has been attributed to the king himself, and sometimes it has been rendered in the plural, “Après nous, le déluge.”  In any case, the convulsions of the French Revolution have been cited as what indeed did follow, making the remark symptomatic of the blindness, folly, and selfishness of the ruling classes prior to 1789.

Madame de Pompadour, portrait by François Boucher, ca. 1750.

         The only authentic reference to this remark comes in a letter, circa 1788, of an actress named Marie Fel to a friend, recounting anecdotes told her by her lover, the artist Maurice Quentin de La Tour, who had painted a portrait of Madame de Pompadour in the 1750s.  La Tour said that, while he was doing the portrait, Louis XV entered the room, very despondent because of the French defeat at the battle of Rossbach (1757).  Madame de Pompadour then told the king he must not be depressed, lest he become ill, “au reste après eux le déluge” (“in any case, it would be after them that the deluge would come”).

         Assuming this anecdote is accurate, what did la Pompadour mean?  Was she cynically prescient, or was she simply quoting a popular saying already in use?  In a 1782 letter to the French philosophe d’Alembert, Frederick the Great said that he was glad to have been born in the time of Louis XIV, and added that, as a consolation in the face of the future, one should say “après moi, le déluge.”  For Frederick, the saying simply meant that the future was beyond our control.  The phrase was evidently in use prior to the Revolution in criticisms of the French government’s financial policies; as early as 1769, the reformer Mirabeau stated in writing that the government’s policies reflected that “dangerous sentiment “après moi, le déluge.” 

         All of which suggests that the saying was becoming common, and not necessarily linked to Madame de Pompadour.  The first such linking comes in an 1812 essay by the English writer Richard Edgeworth, who said it was one of her favorite maxims.  The first French linking is in a preface to the 1824 memoir of la Pompadour’s chambermaid, who quoted her mistress as responding to all threats of the future with the words “après nous, le déluge.”  But these sources obviously have the benefit of hindsight and so were well aware of the convulsion to follow.  So maybe Madame did say it, once or often, but with what meaning we can’t be sure.  It has been cited ever since as an example of cynical prescience, and as such will no doubt continue to be cited; it’s just too good to let go of.

         Am I a bit protective of Madame?  Perhaps.  As a high-school student long ago I fluffed up my hair in a style that bears her name: a pompadour.  And as a student of history I have to recognize how she, a commoner born with the last name “Poisson,” which in French means “fish,” had come a long way, helped by her parents who, realizing they had a jewel of a daughter, displayed her at a spot in the Bois de Boulogne where the king was known to pass in a carriage.  Sure enough, young Miss Fish caught the monarch’s eye, negotiations with the parents followed, and his majesty bedded the young beauty (or maybe she bedded him).  In the years that followed she was busy entertaining the bored king at Versailles, while France lost its first colonial empire to Perfidious Albion.  But she at least patronized the theater and the arts, and encouraged a style of furniture that is marvelously light and elegant.  And by dying in 1764, she – unlike her successor, Madame du Barry – got out before the Revolution. 

         Even today la Pompadour is with us, and not just because of my teen-age hairdo.  Who could resist sitting in a Louis Quinze chair, with its curved legs and padded seat?  All the more so, since it was in just such a chair that Madame settled her luscious body parts, when not consoling the king either vertically or horizontally.  Just sitting in a Louis Quinze chair can make you feel sophisticated, elegant, and superbly aristocratic.  Après nous, le déluge.

2. Marie Antoinette:  “Let ’em eat cake.”

In the early days of the French Revolution, when she was told that the people were in revolt because they had no bread, Queen Marie Antoinette supposedly said, “Qu’ils mangent de la brioche” (“Let them eat cake”).  Widely reported, the callous indifference of this remark made her a symbol of all that was wrong with the monarchy, and helps explain why she would soon, quite literally, lose her head.  “Let ’em eat cake” has ever since been used to indicate one’s indifference to some problem or situation.  A friend of mine, when deep in his cups, used to utter it with an enigmatic smile, though I was never sure who or what he was targeting.  But did the queen really say it?

Marie Antoinette, portrait by Le Brun, 1783.

         First of all, even if she did, the remark may not have resulted from callousness.  Sometime in the past year I encountered an article claiming that back in 1789 there was a kind of cake in France that cost little more than bread; ergo, her remark might simply have been a practical suggestion, nothing more.

         Still, did she really say it?  Historians say no, pointing out that the queen, despite her lavish life style, had genuine sympathy for the poor and donated generously to them.  Furthermore, in one form or another the expression had been floating around for years, attributed to various royals, including Louis XIV’s queen, Marie-Thérèse, and two aunts of Louis XVI.  So the attribution to her was probably just another bit of libel meant to besmirch the royal image and undermine the ancien régime.  What Louis XVI and his queen desperately needed nd never had was a good PR team.

3. Henry IV of France: “Paris vaut une messe.” (“Paris is well worth a mass.”)

Henry of Navarre, who later became the first Bourbon king of France as Henry IV, was a Huguenot (Protestant) at the time of the religious wars that were tearing sixteenth-century France apart.  When the last Valois king, Henry III, was assassinated in 1589, Henry of Navarre became the legal heir to the throne.  But many Catholics refused to accept him as their monarch, and Paris, the capital, refused to let him set foot within its gates.  What to do?  To put an end to the religious wars and win over the people of Paris, Henry converted to Catholicism in 1593, supposedly remarking, “Paris vaut une messe.”  Though he did indeed end the religious wars and in 1598 issued the Edict of Nantes, granting religious freedom to the Huguenots, his remark has often been cited as proof of his insincerity, his conversion being an act f Machiavellian self-interest.  But again, did he say it?  Probably not, since no contemporary source mentions it; only years later, in a satirical work of 1622, did the saying appear in connection with his name. 

         Even if Henry did say it, he is a colorful figure, albeit little known outside France, and his lusty sexual appetite gave him the name of “le vert gallant.”  I always thought this meant “the lusty gallant,” but it has been translated as “the green gallant,” which tells us nothing, and also as “the gay old spark” and “the old rake.”  Clearly, Henry didn’t let advancing years or his religion dim his appetite for female companionship of the most intimate kind.  How he would fare today, in the age of Weinstein, I hesitate to say.

4. Abraham Lincoln:  “You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.”

A noble thought that we are much in need of today (and perhaps every day), supposedly said by him during the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates in 1858, unless he said it two years earlier at the Republican convention of 1856.  But since these two attributions were made almost a half century later, we don’t know when he said it, or even if he said it.  A New York Times reporter, reporting a political convention in 1887, mentioned Lincoln’s saying the phrase, so by then it was obviously linked to him.  And not only linked to him, but used blatantly in advertising.  Clothing, dentistry, root beer, tobacco, pianos, whiskey, cigars, ice cream, and condensed milk – all these were promoted in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries  with the help of Lincoln’s alleged remark.

5. Abraham Lincoln:  “So you’re the little woman who wrote the book that made this great war!”

Harriet Beecher Stowe, ca. 1852.  No glamorpuss,
but her book helped bring on the Civil War.

These were allegedly the words with which Lincoln, in late 1862, greeted Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, when she was introduced to him.  Indeed, her best-selling book, published in 1852, is thought to have fed the fires of the North’s anti-slavery sentiment.  The story of the meeting is in the Stowe family tradition, but without any sound source from the time.  Only in 1896, the year of her death, did the story of her meeting with the President appear.  Significantly, Stowe herself never reported the meeting and the President’s words, even though she made a trip to Washington in late November 1862.  Three of her relatives claimed to have been present at the meeting, but their accounts differ.  Her son Charles recounted the episode in some detail in the second version of his biography of Stowe, published in 1911; the first version, published in 1889, makes no mention of it.  So maybe it occurred, and maybe not; we can’t be sure.

6. William Tecumseh Sherman:  “War is hell.”

A man who knew war and how to inflict the hell of it.

This brief, forceful statement has long been attributed to this Northern Civil War general, famous – and in the South notorious – for his march through Georgia to the sea, wreaking havoc on the countryside as he went.  His candid view of war – its cruelty, its destruction – is well documented, and in an 1879 address to the graduating class of the Michigan Military Academy he said: “You don’t know the horrible aspects of war. I’ve been through two wars and I know. I’ve seen cities and homes in ashes. I’ve seen thousands of men lying on the ground, their dead faces looking up at the skies. I tell you, war is hell!”  There are variants of this statement, but the basic thrust of it is consistent and clear.  Yes, Sherman did say it, and in different forms many times.

7. Theodore Roosevelt:  “What this country needs is a splendid little war!”

Roosevelt the Rough Rider, minus his horse, 1898.

So spoke Teddy Roosevelt, the future Rough Rider and, in time, president of the United States, in the late 1890s, when war with Spain over the Spanish colony of Cuba was looming.  Or so I always thought.  And the boisterous Teddy got his war: a conflict only three months long, in which the U.S. destroyed two Spanish fleets, invaded the Philippines and Cuba, and by defeating a once major world power then in steep decline, gained recognition for itself as a major power in the world.  Splendid, indeed, and at little cost.  And Teddy, having charged up San Juan Hill and by his own account killed a Spaniard in the process, vaulted himself into a vice presidency and then, with President McKinley’s assassination, into the presidency itself.  Impressive, to say the least.  But did he make that statement about a splendid little war?

         Evidently not.  Yes, the phrase got said, but by Secretary of State John Hay, who wrote Roosevelt in a letter dated July 27, 1898: "It has been a splendid little war, begun with the highest motives, carried on with magnificent intelligence and spirit, favored by that Fortune which loves the brave."  This did not anticipate the war, but followed most of it, Roosevelt and his Rough Riders having charged up San Juan Hill on July 1, 1898.  Mr. Hay, I might add, did not know war firsthand as General Sherman did.

The toothy grin I so detested.

         I rather like depriving the bumptious Teddy of the saying by attributing it to someone else, for this Roosevelt has never been a favorite of mine.  Not because he was an avowed racist and imperialist, but because my father, a great outdoorsman, seeing in me a wimpish introverted bookworm, praised the outdoors-loving Teddy to the skies.  Afraid of becoming a sissy, Roosevelt had gone west into the Dakotas, spent days in the saddle as a cattle rancher, and come back a man.  This paternal praise of the 26th president of the United States so irked me that, had I had a portrait of him handy, I would gladly have hurled a volley of darts into his toothy grin and then uttered his favorite exclamation, “Bully!”  On the other hand, he did give his name to the teddy bear, and in my childhood I had several.

8. Patrick Henry:  “Give me liberty or give me death!”

How it leaps off the page of grade-school history books, this dramatic exclamation of the Virginia politician at the outset of our Revolutionary War.  Like the preceding sayings, it’s almost too good to be true.  I always understood that he said it at some political convention in Virginia, and when hushed by its more cautious members, declared, “The gentlemen may cry peace, peace, but there is no peace.  Give me liberty or give me death!”  A hothead for some, a sterling patriot for others.  So did he say it?

An 1883 illustration.  No need to ask what he's saying; it can only be one thing.

         Yes, no question, he did.  On March 23, 1775, at a session of the Second Virginia Convention in Richmond, he gave a speech urging the colony of Virginia to form militias to defend itself against the British who, though outright war had not yet begun, were already threatening force against the Americans in Boston.  His words were not transcribed, but no one present forgot Henry’s impassioned closing words: “Give me liberty or give me death!”  Years later his biographer, William Wirt, reconstructed the speech by consulting men who had heard it long before.  His version concludes:

        It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace, but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!

Small wonder that his closing words became a rallying cry for the colonists in the war that followed.  But his concept of liberty had its limits.  Though he condemned slavery, he was in fact a slaveholder and, like so many of the Founding Fathers, saw no practical way to abolish the system in his lifetime.

BROWDERBOOKS  

All books are available online as indicated, or from the author.

1.  No Place for Normal: New York / Stories from the Most Exciting City in the World (Mill City Press, 2015).  Winner of the Tenth Annual National Indie Excellence Award for Regional Non-Fiction; first place in the Travel category of the 2015-2016 Reader Views Literary Awards; and Honorable Mention in the Culture category of the Eric Hoffer Book Awards for 2016.  All about anything and everything New York: alcoholics, abortionists, greenmarkets, Occupy Wall Street, the Gay Pride Parade, my mugging in Central Park, peyote visions, and an artist who made art of a blackened human toe.  In her Reader Views review, Sheri Hoyte called it "a delightful treasure chest full of short stories about New York City."

If you love the city (or hate it), this may be the book for you.  An award winner, it sold well at BookCon 2017.

Review 

"If you want wonderful inside tales about New York, this is the book for you.  Cliff Browder has a way with his writing that makes the city I lived in for 40 plus years come alive in a new and delightful way. A refreshing view on NYC that will not disappoint."  Five-star Amazon customer review by Bill L.

Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

2.  Bill Hope: His Story (Anaphora Literary Press, 2017), the second novel in the Metropolis series.  New York City, 1870s: From his cell in the gloomy prison known as the Tombs, young Bill Hope spills out in a torrent of words the story of his career as a pickpocket and shoplifter; his brutal treatment at Sing Sing and escape from another prison in a coffin; his forays into brownstones and polite society; and his sojourn among the “loonies” in a madhouse, from which he emerges to face betrayal and death threats, and possible involvement in a murder.  Driving him throughout is a fierce desire for better, a persistent and undying hope.

For readers who like historical fiction and a fast-moving story.

Reviews

"A real yarn of a story about a lovable pickpocket who gets into trouble and has a great adventure.  A must read."  Five-star Amazon customer review by nicole w brown.

"This was a fun book.  The main character seemed like a cross between Huck Finn and a Charles Dickens character.  I would recommend this."  Four-star LibraryThing review by stephvin.

Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

3.  Dark Knowledge (Anaphora Literary Press, 2018), the third novel in the Metropolis series.  Release date January 5, 2018, but copies now available from the author.  Adult and young adult.  A fast-moving historical novel about New York City and the slave trade, with the sights and sounds and smells of the waterfront. 

The back cover summary:

New York City, late 1860s.  When young Chris Harmony learns that members of his family may have been involved in the illegal pre-Civil War slave trade, taking slaves from Africa to Cuba, he is appalled.  Determined to learn the truth, he begins an investigation that takes him into a dingy waterfront saloon, musty old maritime records that yield startling secrets, and elegant brownstone parlors that may have been furnished by the trade.  Since those once involved dread exposure, he meets denials and evasions, then threats, and a key witness is murdered.  Chris has vivid fantasies of the suffering slaves on the ships and their savage revolts.  How could seemingly respectable people be involved in so abhorrent a trade, and how did they avoid exposure?  And what price must Chris pay to learn the painful truth and proclaim it?

Early reviews

"A lively and entertaining tale.  The writing styles, plot, pace and character development were excellent."  Four-star LibraryThing early review by BridgitDavis.

"At first the plot ... seemed a bit contrived, but I was soon swept up in the tale."  Four-star LibraryThing early review by snash.

"I am glad that I have read this book as it goes into great detail and the presentation is amazing.  The Author obviously knows his stuff."  Four-star LibraryThing early review by Moiser20.

Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

4.  The Pleasuring of Men (Gival Press, 2011), the first novel in the Metropolis series, tells the story of a respectably raised young man who chooses to become a male prostitute in late 1860s New York and falls in love with his most difficult client.

What was the gay scene like in nineteenth-century New York?   Gay romance, if you like, but no porn (I don't do porn).  Women have read it and reviewed it.  (The cover illustration doesn't hurt.)

Reviews

"At times amusing, gritty, heartfelt and a little sexy -- this would make a great summer read."  Four-star Amazon customer review by BobW.

"Really more of a fantasy of a 19th century gay life than any kind of historical representation of the same."  Three-star Goodreads review by Rachel.

"The detail Browder brings to this glimpse into history is only equaled by his writing of credible and interesting characters.  Highly recommended."  Five-star Goodreads review by Nan Hawthorne.

Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Sherman's march to the sea.  Bringing the hell of war to Georgia.

Coming soon:  Money -- Is It Even Real?

©   2017   Clifford Browder

         

334. Light: The Conquering of Darkness

Life Wounds, Books Heal -- American proverb

For a reprint of a five-star review of my historical novel Bill Hope: His Story, and a comment by me, go here.  It's the kind of review authors dream of and rarely get.  To see my comment, click on "comment," in small print following the review.  And feel free to add a comment of your own.

The author.
Hans Hillewaert

Small Talk

          Since we're at the winter solstice, marking the birth of light and hope, the subject of darkness and light seems appropriate.  Here in the city with our tall buildings obscuring the sky, and our (usually) reliable lighting, we miss the drama of nightfall and dawn, the death and birth of light.  Only in smaller towns and rural areas can this daily spectacle be viewed.  Which reminds me of the most impressive sunrise and sunsets I have ever witnessed or heard of.  The sunrise occurred when, long ago, I climbed Mount Canigou in the French Pyrenees, spent the night in a hostel near the summit, and woke up to see, through a window, the sky suffused with a ruddy glow the like of which I had never seen before, and haven't seen since.  Quickly I downed a light breakfast and rushed out to find not a trace of red, but a sky now milky white: another sight unique to my experience and never repeated since.  Fifteen minutes later, when I reached the summit with other hikers, French and Catalan, the milky white too had disappeared, leaving only the bright, clear blue of a cloudless summer day.

          As for sunsets, my partner Bob and I saw many while vacationing on Monhegan Island, ten miles off midcoast Maine.  Going out of our cabin and down the hill to the deserted dock, we would see the red or yellow orb of the sun slowly vanish over the distant mainland, while dozens of seagulls circled in the air above us, their cries the only sound in the magical stillness of the island.  

          Yet those sunsets seem mild, compared with a winter sunset viewed on Monhegan by a friend of mine.  Going out late on a sunny but snowy January day to photograph the fishermen rowing in to shore from their boats moored in the harbor, she suddenly saw clouds roll in and the sky darken. Then, low in the sky, a hazy, round sun burned through the clouds and, falling to the horizon, turned from pale yellow to bright red and finally an exquisite burnt orange. Everything around her -- harbor, boats, fish shacks, and snow -- was enveloped in a soft, hazy, stunningly beautiful yellow, then red, then orange.  Finally, as the sun dipped below the horizon, the sky and all around her became a menacing black and, with a storm approaching, she hurried back to her lodging.  The memory of this sunset remains vivid in her mind to this day.

          Sunrise and sunset instill in us a sense of wonder and redeem us from our drab daily lives.  There is magic around us, blatant or subtle, if only we will look.  What would we do without the miracle of light?

Light: The Conquering of Darkness

Gustave Doré, The Creation of Light

     “Let there be light,” said God in Genesis 1:3, “and there was light.”  In myths worldwide, light is associated with life and good, whereas darkness is associated with death and evil. Lucifer, the Light Bearer, rebelled against God and was cast down into hell to become the Prince of Darkness.  In many cosmic myths the forces of light and darkness are at war, nor is the victory of light guaranteed.  Prehistoric humans huddled around their fire at night, or used fire as a barrier at the entrance to their cave. For them, darkness meant risk and danger and prowling wild beasts, whereas light brought at least relative security.  And without light there could be no life, so they worshiped the sun, the source of life and light.  

     The story of lighting in the city of New York, like that of all cities, replicates these cosmic myths and beliefs, for it is the story of light versus darkness, of pushing back the frontier of night.  In our well-lit cities today, we have little experience of the night sky, the starry infinitudes of space – an experience both humbling and inspiring.  But back in the eighteenth century, before the coming of gaslight and electricity in the nineteenth, darkness was a part of people’s lives, something to wonder at, yet also something to be reckoned with, something to be fought.  And what means of illumination could they use, to fight back the darkness of night?  Outside, torches; in their homes, the fire on the hearth, candles, and lamps.

What we have lost.
Daniel Delli

     The torch, dating from prehistoric times, has been called the first portable lamp.  The fabled lighthouse of Alexandria, one of Herodotus’s Seven Wonders of the World, was simply a soaring tower with a torchlike fire at the top, visible for miles at sea.  In this country, well into the nineteenth century torchlight parades honored visiting dignitaries like the Prince of Wales in 1860, and rallied supporters during political campaigns.

A Byzantine oil lamp.

     Inside homes, the wood fire on the hearth was a source of light and warmth and, in the kitchen, the means for cooking meals.  Lamps too existed from prehistoric times: a small open or covered bowl containing some kind of inflammable liquid, and a porous wick that sucked up the liquid and could be lighted.  At first the bowls were improvised from rocks, shells, and horns; later they were fabricated.  The oil might be fish oil, nut oil, sesame oil, or any number of other plant oils, olive oil being the commonest in the Mediterranean countries.  These are the lamps mentioned in both the Old and New Testament of the Bible. 

A whale oil lamp.

     In the 1700s, however, the American colonists discovered that spermaceti, a semiliquid, waxy substance obtained from the head of the sperm whale, burned with a bright glow without any disagreeable odor.  It was therefore used more and more in both lamps and candles, and in street lamps as well, creating a profitable market that sent whalers out in great numbers to search the North Atlantic and later, in the nineteenth century, as the sperm whale population in the Atlantic declined, on voyages of several years into the far Pacific, as described in Melville’s Moby Dick.

     The candle is a relatively recent invention.  It was known in China and India before it was created in the West, where it was used by nomadic tribes in Europe in the late Roman period.  Beeswax candles were used in medieval church rituals, but since beeswax was expensive, ordinary people used tallow candles, which were smelly and smoky, dripped, and gave a feeble light.  (Tallow: a mixture of refined animal fats.)  Starting in the eighteenth century, for Americans who could afford them, candles using sperm oil were far superior.

    But what about the interiors of large buildings like theaters?  The theaters of ancient Greece and Rome relied on daylight; night performances were unheard of.  But during the Renaissance, theater moved indoors into the great halls of the nobles, and then into theaters as such, which were lit from overhead by chandeliers with candles – not the ideal lighting, since they dripped hot grease indiscriminately on actors and audience alike, but the best that the times could do.  So let's count our blessings today; in our theater seats we're quite safe from drippy candles, and risk only a crashing chandelier, if a Phantom of the Opera is lurking overhead.

    So eighteenth-century New Yorkers fought the night with means of illumination that had been used for centuries, even millennia: torches, hearth fires, lamps, and candles.  All these involved flame and, when used inside,  had serious drawbacks: they had to burn right side up, be supplied with air, be distanced from inflammable objects, and be protected from drafts. 

     Another problem: these fires were hard to start.  What, no matches?  Not until 1827, when the first friction matches, called lucifers (that name again!), were invented in England; they soon appeared in New York.  But before that, how did people light candles and lamps?  From other candles and lamps, if available, otherwise from fire struck with flint and steel.  And yes, there’s the old joke about doing it by rubbing two Boy Scouts together, inspired by the Scouts’ practice of rubbing two dry sticks together to produce the friction that creates a flame.  But however it was done, it was a lot of work.

     The nineteenth century brought changes that revolutionized lighting.  Candle making by machine made mass production of candles possible, so that cheap candles became available to everyone, and with the introduction of paraffin wax in the mid-1850s, candles were made that burned cleanly without the smell of tallow candles.  But by the second half of the century candles were on their way out, replaced by competing illuminants.  First  introduced in London in 1814, gaslight came soon afterward to New York, where the Common Council granted charters to competing companies to lay pipes in different sections of the city, replacing the whale oil lamps then in use.  In 1824 a banker’s residence in Cherry Street became the first house in the city to receive gaslight.  (Bankers and their friends have a way of getting the latest improvements first.)  In the 1820s and 1830s gaslight lit more and more of the streets, with lamp lighters lighting the polished glass boxes of the lamps at dusk and snuffing them at dawn. 

     But gaslight was not for every community, as it had several requirements.  A plentiful supply of coal, from which the gas was manufactured, was needed, and the means of transporting it.  New York City’s coal was mined in the mountains of Pennsylvania and shipped by barge via the Delaware and Hudson Canal to the Hudson River and then on to the city.  Gas works were also needed: clusters of red-hot retorts where the coal was burned to create gas, and gas containers, big bulblike structures of iron where the gas was held, before being sent by underground pipes to the streetlamps, fancy hotels and stores, and well-appointed homes of the affluent.  Gas works were ugly and smelly, and therefore confined to the Hudson and East River waterfronts, well out of sight – and smell – of the fashionable sections of the city.  

Inside a nineteenth-century gas retort.  
Not something you would want next door.

     Gaslight needed big money and a lot of effort to put up all those smelly gas works, so it was confined to the big cities; small towns and rural communities were not accommodated.  But it transformed New York, providing lighting such as had never before been possible.  Hotel lobbies glowed, and the front windows of Fifth Avenue brownstones blazed with light as arriving guests mounted the steep front stoops, while theaters offered Spanish dancers, waterfalls, and naughty cancans in a stellar glare, and pickpockets worked overtime in the evening, though second-story men lamented the illumination, so detrimental to their operations.  

     Another significant development came in 1859 with the discovery of oil in a farming district of northwestern Pennsylvania, which ended abruptly that region’s rural tranquility.  Oil rigs began drilling intensively, and kerosene, a petroleum derivative, became readily available and cheap enough to be widely used in lamps.  As an illuminant it quickly replaced whale oil, which could only be obtained in far distant oceans.  Characteristic of the kerosene lamp was a glass chimney that protected the flame and controlled the flow of air to it, and a knob that adjusted the size of the wick, and thus the size and brightness of the flame.  Kerosene lamps didn’t require the infrastructure of gaslight and so could be used anywhere.  My first awareness of these lamps came in the bad Westerns, often Saturday afternoon serials, that afflicted my childhood.  These were the “Meanwhile back at the ranch …” species, humdrum black-and-whites meant to lure their young victims back a week later for the next installment, which they rarely did.  Viewing them, I always knew that at some point a fight would erupt in the ranch house, a kerosene lamp would be knocked over, curtains would catch fire, and the whole place go up in flames; I was rarely disappointed. 

A kerosene lamp, ca. 1888.

     Later I encountered the lamps in real life.  In the 1960s, when I first went to Monhegan Island off midcoast Maine, kerosene lamps were still in use there; I learned such niceties as how to refill them, how to light them, and how to trim the wicks of these rather cumbersome contraptions.  Schooled by those dreary old Westerns, I was careful to keep them away from curtains.  Only with the creation some years later of a local company to supply electricity to the island – first for only a few hours, then for more, and finally all day and night – were the kerosene lamps supplanted, thus repeating the progress of mid-nineteenth-century New York.  Progress may be long in coming, but come it does … finally.

     By the late 1870s gaslight, so wondrous at first, and hailed as a clean source of light, had worn out its welcome in the city.  Gas jets emitted headache-inducing fumes of ammonia, sulfur, and carbon dioxide, turned ceilings black, and defiled the parlor, that sanctuary of middle-class gentility, with soot.  In the land of Go Ahead, in this progress-giddy age, surely something better could be devised.

     It was.  On December 20, 1880, all of Broadway between Union and Madison Square was suddenly bathed in light.  New Yorkers were dazzled, amazed.  Projecting the light were a series of twenty-foot-tall cast-iron posts, one per block, each with an arc light that cast a brilliant glow.  Arc lights, powered by steam engines and electric generators, were cheaper to install than hundreds of lampposts, so they were soon spreading illumination along the avenues and over markets, factories, railroad stations, and wharves.  But arc lights were too intense for use in homes, and they too gave off noxious fumes, and created power failures when assailed by storms.  (Sound familiar?)  Something still better was needed.

     In 1878 Thomas Edison, a young inventor already known for numerous inventions that included the phonograph, informed the press that was he going to develop an incandescent lamp suitable for homes.  Canny investors on both sides of the Atlantic perked up their ears, opened their wallets, and helped create the Edison Electric Light Company, of which Edison himself, wise now in the ways of Wall Street, retained significant control.  Vast sums and great hopes were invested in this ingenious experimenter, who in this matter so far had produced only promises – brash, glowing promises, but promises only, mere words.  Supremely confident, he got to work in his research laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey.  

A portrait of the young Edison.

     Months passed, progress was made.  Aldermen and councilmen were invited to Menlo Park for a gala demonstration of the new lights.  Edison established his power station on Pearl Street, had armies of workmen dig trenches to lay subterranean wires in massive insulated power mains, and installed powerful generators in the power station.  Then, on September 4, 1882, fifty square downtown blocks housing the city’s key financial, commercial, and manufacturing establishments were suddenly illuminated.  If gaslight had been a wonder, and arc lights magic, this was a miracle.  

     J.P. Morgan and the Vanderbilts (those bankers and their friends again!) immediately installed incandescent lights in their mansions, and within a year over five hundred wealthy homes were electrified.  The Stock Exchange followed, then office buildings, machine shops, piano factories, sugar refineries, department stores, and theaters, and middle-class homes as well, though tallow candles were still used in tenements.  People in New York, and then the world over, marveled: with a flick of a switch, there was light.  No lamp to fill, no wick to trim, no fumes, no flickering, just bright, steady light.

     Night life intensified, as hotels, restaurants, and shops, and brothels and gambling parlors too, turned radiant with light, and customers flocked.  By the mid-1890s people were beginning to call a stretch of Broadway blazing with illuminated signs the “Great White Way.”  The New York of today was coming into being, to be further enhanced in the 1920s and 1930s by the advent of neon lights, first developed commercially by the French engineer and inventor Georges Claude.  Today, if in our cities awareness of the night sky has all but vanished, no one seems to care, since there is so much to do at night down here.  Yes, darkness has been vanquished:
with a flick of a switch -- light!  We take it so for granted.

Times Square at night, the ultimate in neon lights.
Boris Dzhingarov

     

BROWDERBOOKS  

All books are available online as indicated, or from the author.

1.  No Place for Normal: New York / Stories from the Most Exciting City in the World (Mill City Press, 2015).  Winner of the Tenth Annual National Indie Excellence Award for Regional Non-Fiction; first place in the Travel category of the 2015-2016 Reader Views Literary Awards; and Honorable Mention in the Culture category of the Eric Hoffer Book Awards for 2016.  All about anything and everything New York: alcoholics, abortionists, greenmarkets, Occupy Wall Street, the Gay Pride Parade, my mugging in Central Park, peyote visions, and an artist who made art of a blackened human toe.  In her Reader Views review, Sheri Hoyte called it "a delightful treasure chest full of short stories about New York City."

If you love the city (or hate it), this may be the book for you.  An award winner, it sold well at BookCon 2017.
Review 

"If you want wonderful inside tales about New York, this is the book for you.  Cliff Browder has a way with his writing that makes the city I lived in for 40 plus years come alive in a new and delightful way. A refreshing view on NYC that will not disappoint."  Five-star Amazon customer review by Bill L.

Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

2.  Bill Hope: His Story (Anaphora Literary Press, 2017), the second novel in the Metropolis series.  New York City, 1870s: From his cell in the gloomy prison known as the Tombs, young Bill Hope spills out in a torrent of words the story of his career as a pickpocket and shoplifter; his brutal treatment at Sing Sing and escape from another prison in a coffin; his forays into brownstones and polite society; and his sojourn among the “loonies” in a madhouse, from which he emerges to face betrayal and death threats, and possible involvement in a murder.  Driving him throughout is a fierce desire for better, a persistent and undying hope.

For readers who like historical fiction and a fast-moving story.

Reviews

"A real yarn of a story about a lovable pickpocket who gets into trouble and has a great adventure.  A must read."  Five-star Amazon customer review by nicole w brown.

"This was a fun book.  The main character seemed like a cross between Huck Finn and a Charles Dickens character.  I would recommend this."  Four-star LibraryThing review by stephvin.

Available from Amazon.

3.  Dark Knowledge (Anaphora Literary Press, 2018), the third novel in the Metropolis series.  Release date January 5, 2018, but copies now available from the author.  Adult and young adult.  A fast-moving historical novel about New York City and the slave trade, with the sights and sounds and smells of the waterfront. 

The back cover summary:

New York City, late 1860s.  When young Chris Harmony learns that members of his family may have been involved in the illegal pre-Civil War slave trade, taking slaves from Africa to Cuba, he is appalled.  Determined to learn the truth, he begins an investigation that takes him into a dingy waterfront saloon, musty old maritime records that yield startling secrets, and elegant brownstone parlors that may have been furnished by the trade.  Since those once involved dread exposure, he meets denials and evasions, then threats, and a key witness is murdered.  Chris has vivid fantasies of the suffering slaves on the ships and their savage revolts.  How could seemingly respectable people be involved in so abhorrent a trade, and how did they avoid exposure?  And what price must Chris pay to learn the painful truth and proclaim it?

Early reviews

"A lively and entertaining tale.  The writing styles, plot, pace and character development were excellent."  Four-star LibraryThing early review by BridgitDavis.

"At first the plot ... seemed a bit contrived, but I was soon swept up in the tale."  Four-star LibraryThing early review by snash.

"I am glad that I have read this book as it goes into great detail and the presentation is amazing.  The Author obviously knows his stuff."  Four-star LibraryThing early review by Moiser20.

4.  The Pleasuring of Men (Gival Press, 2011), the first novel in the Metropolis series, tells the story of a respectably raised young man who chooses to become a male prostitute in late 1860s New York and falls in love with his most difficult client.

What was the gay scene like in nineteenth-century New York?   Gay romance, if you like, but no porn (I don't do porn).  Women have read it and reviewed it.  (The cover illustration doesn't hurt.)

Reviews

"At times amusing, gritty, heartfelt and a little sexy -- this would make a great summer read."  Four-star Amazon customer review by BobW.

"Really more of a fantasy of a 19th century gay life than any kind of historical representation of the same."  Three-star Goodreads review by Rachel.

"The detail Browder brings to this glimpse into history is only equaled by his writing of credible and interesting characters.  Highly recommended."  Five-star Goodreads review by Nan Hawthorne.

Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Luca Galuzzi

Coming soon:  As usual lately, no idea.  Inspiration will have to strike.

©   2017   Clifford Browder