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The 19th Century: New Haven Flexes Its Industrial Muscle
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Business New Haven
09/29/2003
By: Priscilla Searles
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New Haven's economy flourished during the Civil War. In 1860, at the dawn of the conflict, New Haven had a population of 40,000. By the turn of the century it had swelled to 108,000.
Immigrant labor from Ireland, Italy and Eastern Europe supplied the manpower to produce rubber goods, carriages, clocks, beer, pianos and numerous other products. During the latter half of the 19th century the immigrant population continued to grow. By 1900, 28 percent of New Haven's population was foreign-born.
In 1860 New Haven had 216 manufacturing facilities employing some 4,900 men and 3,100 women. One-quarter of this group were manufacturing carriages.
New products - and the businesses to supply them - were continually being developed in New Haven.
New Havener Isaac Strouse founded the U.S. corset industry in 1860. He was the first to make a sewn corset with steel stays. Two years later Max Adler joined forces with Strouse and the two formed the Strouse Adler Co.
Also in 1860, New Havener Philos P. Blake developed the corkscrew - a pretty simple idea, but difficult to use on wooden stoppers. When cork became popular as a bottle-stopper, the corkscrew received wide acceptance.
No one likes to go to the dentist, but we can thank New Havener Joseph H. Smith for making it less painful. In 1863 Smith advertised painless dentistry. The first use of anesthesia at the dentist's office was so popular that in one month Smith pulled more than 1,000 molars.
In 1864 Joseph Bradford Sargent opened a hardware manufacturing plant at the intersection of Water, Wallace and Hamilton streets in New Haven. Attracted to New Haven because of its convenient location for trade, especially its harbor and four railroads, the company began manufacturing with a workforce of 150. Beginning with the production of approximately 1,000 items, the company became known for its production of locks, expanding later into builder's hardware and in Sargent's time producing 60,000 different items.
Credited with being first manufacturer in city to pay employees each week, Sargent's later would be responsible for passage of a state regulation requiring prompt weekly payment of wages.
Regarded as an extremely progressive employer, Sargent was very civic-minded and in 1890 he was elected mayor of New Haven, serving two terms.
In 1967, the Sargent family and company stockholders accepted an offer for the company from the Walter Kidde Co., beginning a period of ownership by various financial groups, lasting until January 1996 when Swedish conglomerate Assa Abloy AB acquired Sargent and several of its sister companies.
New Haven saw 420 of its sons killed in the Civil War. The war placed a nearly unbearable strain on all existing hospitals. In 1862 the State Hospital leased its building to the Union government for use as a military hospital. Regular hospital functions were carried out in rented quarters on Whalley Avenue.
The military hospital became Knight Hospital, named after Jonathan Knight, president of the board of directors of the General Hospital of Connecticut and a professor at the Medical School at Yale College. With temporary quarters built on the property, Knight Hospital could accommodate 1,500 patients. Between 1862 and 1865 25,340 soldiers were treated at the facility, with only 185 deaths.
After the Civil War the hospital continued to grow. In 1873 two wings were added, providing room for an additional 126 patients as well as housing for nurses. In 1903 there were 1,721 admissions with an average length of stay 30 days - virtually inconceivable in this era of "managed" care. In 1906 the main entrance was relocated to Cedar Street, with a stable on Howard Avenue to provide housing for the horse-drawn vehicles and motor ambulances.
Although the hospital and Yale had worked together from the outset, the first formal affiliation agreement wasn't signed until 1913. The agreement was based on "the belief that a closer alliance between them will render the Hospital more useful to its patients and to the community, and will benefit said University by enabling it to give the best clinical instruction to its students, and afford the best opportunities for advanced study and scientific research."
The hospital also agreed to permit the faculty of the School of Medicine to nominate, as vacancies occurred, attending physicians, surgeons and other staff, assuring "that the hospital shall secure for the treatment of its patients the greatest degree of medical and surgical skill that can be furnished by said Medical School."
The 20th century brought sweeping changes to the State Hospital, including name changes. Many firsts occurred, such as the first artificial heart pump. In 1965 an affiliation agreement with Yale University created Yale-New Haven Hospital.
In 1902 the New Haven County Anti-Tuberculosis Association was founded. Soon to become the Gaylord Farm Association, the association was one of the first public-health organizations in the nation. On September 20, 1904, Gaylord Sanatorium in Wallingford opened its doors to its first six patients.
New Haven's second major hospital appeared on the scene in 1907 when the Sisters of Charity of Saint Elizabeth in New Jersey responded to a request from 14 local physicians to come to New Haven and start a hospital.
On February 2, 1907 the sisters moved into a site at 1442 Chapel Street, converting the Victorian home into a 12-bed hospital. The Hospital of Saint Raphael was incorporated on March 14, 1907. In 1910 a new building was constructed.
One of the hospital's founding physicians was William F. Verdi, a Yale Medical School graduate. Forced to operate in private houses in the early days of his career, Verdi commented in 1913 "The worst drawback we had in this city and which is now entirely overcome was the lack of hospital facilities." At the time of Verdi's observation, New Haven's hospitals were handling surgery in their facilities, not in someone's front parlor.
Following the Civil War New Haven accelerated into the era of mass production, constructing new and ever- larger factories. According to Robert J. Leeney's Elms, Arms & Ivy: New Haven in the Twentieth Century, "By 1872 there were 29 carriage factories in town, 11 making carriage parts, eight iron and eight brass foundries, five machine tool shops, five makers of bolts, three match factories, three paper makers, three firearms plants, three wheel makers, and three piano builders. In addition, the city directory shows listings for makers of optical instruments, railroad signals, plows, whips, tape measures, candles, chairs, water pipe, buckles, other types of metal fabrication, corsets and cigars."
New Haven had managed to avoid the worst effects of the Civil War's end and the nationwide depression of 1873. According to New Haven, An Illustrated History, published by the New Haven Colony Historical Society, New Haven's growth "was possible because of the city's strong, diversified manufacturing industries, its direct transportation connections with New York and Boston and through them with the rest of America, and the separate but mutually reinforcing economic activities of Yale University, private business, New Haven city government, and federal government."
In 1867 Charles Hervey Townshend, sea captain, author and historian, proved that seed oysters cement to old, used oyster shells by conducting experiment in the moat at Fort Nathan Hale on New Haven's east shore. The result gave New Haven's economy a major boost, producing 12.5 percent of the nation's total output of oysters and seed oysters by the turn of the century.
Townshend didn't create the oyster industry in New Haven; he merely made it more profitable. Oysters were in fact plentiful from the earliest days of New Haven. Natural oyster beds stretched from the upper reaches of the Quinnipiac, Mill and West rivers to the entrance of the harbor four and a half miles downstream.
Eventually, however, the beds became overworked. By 1850 New Haven oystermen were using 250 schooners to import nearly two million bushels of seed oysters annually. Townshend's discovery was so successful that by 1900 no more oysters were imported to New Haven. That same year the oyster industry was the biggest fisheries industry in the U.S.
Over the next decade water pollution rendered it unsafe to eat oysters taken from the river or harbor. By the 1950s much of New England's oyster industry had been wiped out by hepatitis scares, hurricanes and predators such as starfish and oyster drills. In 1965, the federal government declared the shell fisheries a disaster.
Today the oyster industry continues its slow recovery. Oyster boats are still seen in the harbor. New Haven is also left with a constant reminder of its days of glory in the oyster industry in the form of homes along the Quinnipiac River in the Fair Haven section of New Haven, homes once owned by the oystermen.
Townshend, who like others dreamed of New Haven becoming a major port exporting and importing goods directly to and from Europe, also designed the breakwaters in New Haven Harbor that are still in use today. Townshend also wanted to deepen the harbor and in fact was responsible for getting the harbor channel deepened to 12.5 feet in 1871 and later to 16 feet over the Fort Hale Bar. In 1887 the harbor was dredged to a depth of 20 feet at mean low tide, 26 feet at high tide.
One of New Haven largest oyster companies was H.C. Rowe & Co., founded by Henry C. Rowe. One of the first to calculate that importing seed oysters from the Chesapeake Bay and elsewhere was simply not practical, Rowe was a pioneer in the propagation and cultivation of oysters in the deep waters of Long Island Sound.
Rowe was the first to own and employ steamers off New Haven. The use of steamers was so successful that in a single day, Rowe's company deposited 15 million embryo oysters in the bottom of the Sound.
In 1868 New Havener Alvin J. Fellows developed the spring tape measure, a tape measure enclosed in a circular case with a spring lock holding the tape at any desired point.
On August 3, 1870, the New York & New Haven Railroad entered into an agreement with the Hartford & New Haven to operate jointly. The trial proved successful, and on August 6, 1872, the two combined to form the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad Co. In 1893 the New York, New Haven & Hartford leased the Old Colony Railroad, giving the line 1,493 miles of leased and owned track.
The New York & New Haven owned a lease of the Shore Line Railway. The present shoreline route between New York and Boston did not become all-rail until 1889. Before that, train trips to Boston included a ferry ride across New London Harbor. The larger company had wisely waited for the costly Thames River drawbridge to be completed by the Stonington Railroad, and with some pressure from J. Pierpont Morgan (who wanted a route of his own to Boston for his growing empire) the New York, New Haven & Hartford took control of the Stonington and Shore Line roads in 1892.
By the latter half of the 19th century, southern New England was a maze of tracks controlled by more than 200 railroad companies, many only a few miles long. Over time the smaller railroads were absorbed by larger brethren, and by 1900 almost all rail lines in southern New England formed part of just three systems: the New Haven, New York Central and the Boston & Maine.
A pioneer in electrification, the New Haven line operated the first electrified train in the U.S. in 1895: the 6.5-mile Nantasket Beach branch. The company's four-track electrification project between New Haven and New York, considered progressive, was completed by 1912.
John Mahlon Marlin opened a gun shop on State Street in New Haven in 1870 and began manufacturing a line of revolvers, pistols and derringers. Determined to manufacture superior products to those of his competitors, Marlin wrote in an early catalogue of his company's Model 1897: "It costs more to make and will cost you more than other .22 rifles - but it's the best .22 caliber repeater in the world if you are willing to pay for it..."
In 1871 New Haven had a population of 50,000. Most young businessmen lived in rooming houses located within blocks where they worked. In order to keep up with local news, most spent much of their free time socializing with other young businessmen. It was in this atmosphere that the city's oldest social club, the Quinnipiack Club, was born.
Founded by 20 young businessmen as the "Ours Club," the organization first convened in two rented rooms in the elegant, brand new Hoadley Building at the corner of Church and Crown streets. The name was changed to the Quinnipiack Club in 1877. Now located at 221 Church Street in a Douglas Orr building dedicated in 1931, the organization has undergone a number of changes over the years. A major change was made in 1978 when the previously all-male organization admitted it first female member.
New Haven lays claim to many unusual inventions, among them the Frisbee. William Frisbie opened a small baking operating at 147 Kossuth Street in Bridgeport in 1871, later expanding into other areas, including New Haven. Yale students soon discovered his pie plates were good for tossing and Frisbie became better known for his pie plates than his pies. In 1892 George C. Smith of Bradley Smith Candy Co. in New Haven put sticks into balls of candy. The result was the lollipop.
In 1895 the first hamburgers were served in New Haven at Louis' Lunch sandwich shop. Founder Louis Lassen ran a small lunch wagon selling steak sandwiches to local factory workers. Because he didn't like to waste the excess beef from his daily lunch rush, he ground it up, grilled it, and served it between two slices of bread - and an American institution was born.
For 172 years New Haven was co-capital of the state with Hartford but following a six-year political battle with its neighbor to the north, in 1873 New Haven ceased to be co-capital.
That same year Georgeanna Woolsey Bacon established the Connecticut Training School for Nurses at New Haven Hospital.
In 1874 New Haven's Henry Palmelee invented the sprinkler. Developed to help deal with the real danger of fire in commercial buildings, it consisted of a perforated head with a value held closed by a heavy spring made of a low fusing material.
The Napier Co., originally known as Whitney & Rice, was founded in Meriden in 1875. In ten years it became the E.A. Bliss Co. After World War I it became Napier Bliss Co. and in 1922 it became the Napier Co. In late 1980s, the company, once the oldest fashion jewelry company in the country, was purchased by Victoria & Co. They closed the company in 1999.
The first facility of its kind in the nation, the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station was born in 1875. Today there is a station in each of the 50 states, but little Connecticut pioneered the way. Established by the state to develop sprays to protect crops against insects, the idea for the station was pushed by Samuel William Johnson, a Yale professor. Major discoveries have come from the station, including hybrid corn and Vitamin A.
On January 28, 1878 the world's first commercial telephone exchange began operation in New Haven. George C. Coy, inspired by Alexander Graham Bell's demonstration of the telephone at the Skiff Opera House in New Haven, to organize his own telephone business. Designing his own machines, Coy, along with Herrick P. Frost and Walter Lewis, founded the District Telephone Company, later known as the Southern New England Telephone Co.
The first crude equipment included a wooden telephone switchboard that required six separate connections and disconnections to complete a single call. The company went into operation with only 21 subscribers, who paid $1.50 a month for service - a not inconsiderable sum at the time.
The Knights of Columbus was founded by Father Michael J. McGivney in St. Mary's Church on Hillhouse Avenue in New Haven in 1882. It eventually became the world's largest Catholic family fraternal service organization with more than 1.6 million members internationally.
That same year John Kebabian opened a rug business at 47 Orange Street. Beginning primarily as an importer of oriental rugs, selling wholesale and retail, he later began providing in-shop washing and restoration services. Still in business, the shop, located on Elm Street, is run by John's descendants.
In 1886 the invention of steel spectacles by J.E. Spencer & Co. of New Haven gave American's a cheaper version of a product already available in Europe.
By 1893 street railroads were run by electricity and city government had contracted with the electric company to provide electric lighting for public buildings (although most city buildings continued to use gas illumination for a decade or more). In 1899 the New Haven Electric Light Company joined with the Bridgeport Electric Light Company to form the United Illuminating Co.
As New Haven slid into the 20th century, it had left its pastoral roots behind, becoming a major industrial city.
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