New York's Capital Region in 50 Objects

New York's Capital Region in 50 Objects

Introduction

Each region of the nation has its own distinctive history and identity. The New York’s Capital Region—consisting of Albany, Rensselaer, Schenectady, and Saratoga Counties—is no different. But what best identifies the region? What events, objects, people, and ideas have contributed to its character and uniqueness?

To learn the answers, we presented these questions to the numerous museums, historical organizations, libraries, and residents of the Capital Region. The fifty objects that were ultimately selected present an exciting history of the Capital Region, including well-known favorites but also unexpected surprises. Some of the fifty objects characterize very broad topics like the textile industry and the Hudson River School of art, while others embody large populations of people who shaped the character of the region, such as the Dutch and the Iroquois. Many objects represent specific people or events, such as writer William Kennedy and the Battle of Saratoga. In some instances, the objects represent themselves, like the GE Monitor Top refrigerator and Albany’s beloved Nipper statue. A complementary image accompanies each of the fifty objects, providing context and additional information.

Overall, the fifty objects clearly demonstrate that this narrowly circumscribed part of New York State has played an astonishing role in shaping the history of the nation and, in several instances, the world beyond the confines of our national borders.

Shirt Collars

Troy, New York, is nicknamed the “Collar City,” a label that originated in the long-term presence of the detachable collar industry that began in Troy in the 1820s. According to some documents, the Troy blacksmith Orlando Montague complained to his wife Hannah back in 1820 that he had no clean white shirts to wear in the evenings after work. Hannah felt the problem could be solved by merely cutting off the dirty collars and attaching a clean one. Thus was born the detachable collar. Other histories suggest that the Reverend Ebenezer Brown, a retired Troy preacher and dry-goods merchant, was the first to recognize the need for detachable linen collars, and in 1827 or 1829 began paying local women to make them, which he sold in boxes at his store.

Throughout most of the nineteenth century the collar industry relied on handwork to cut, stitch, and finish collars. Collar makers worked from their homes and the skill required for making collars was frequently passed down from one generation to the next so that a trained and proficient workforce lived in the Troy area, although some collar makers lived as far away as Vermont and western Massachusetts. Shirt cuffs were added in 1845.

In addition to collars and cuffs, an entire shirt industry grew up in Troy. Shirts, however, early in the nineteenth century, became a factory business with nearly all the factories being located in Troy’s urban center. In 1851 or 1852, Nathaniel Wheeler of the Wheeler & Wilson Company brought the first sewing machine to Troy and introduced it into the shirt factories.

Cluett, Peabody & Co., Inc., grew to be the largest shirt and collar business in Troy. The company formed in 1901 and acquired the older business of Maullin & Blanchard. Cluett, Peabody & Co., Inc., made Arrow shirts and operated factories throughout the United States. The company maintained a presence in Troy until about 1990.

Box of Arrow Shirt Collars, “Duncan” Style

Peabody, Cluett & Co., Inc., Troy, New York | 1921

Maker: Peabody, Cluett & Co., Inc., Troy, New York

Credit: Gift of Cornelia H. Frisbee Houde

“Arrow Collars & Shirts” Advertisement

Designed by Joseph Christian Leyendecker

From The Saturday Evening Post

October 11, 1913

Photomechanical print on paper

Courtesy of Rensselaer County Historical Society, Troy, New York

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Steamships

Shortly after 1:00 pm on August 17, 1807, an ungainly vessel fitted with a smokestack pulled away from the dock on the Hudson River at Greenwich Village.Twenty-four hours later the steamboat docked at Clermont, Robert Livingston’s estate 110 miles upriver. The remaining eight hour journey to Albany continued the next morning. Upon arrival, the vessel’s inventor, Robert Fulton, immediately penned letters to friends describing his success. His maiden voyage started a steamship revolution on the Hudson River that lasted for more than a century.

Before steamships, travel and trade by stagecoach or sloop took weeks and months. After Fulton proved his invention would work, steamships regularly traveled the Hudson River between Albany and New York City, transporting passengers and cargo on regular schedules.

By the second half of the nineteenth century, steamships resembled floating palaces complete with interiors fitted with velvet upholstered seating, crystal chandeliers, fine paintings, and wall to wall carpeting. The Hudson River Day Line advertised its steamships in the 1880s as “strictly first-class—no freight.” A newspaper reported: “With rare exceptions, the passengers are nice people. The peanut and sausage eaters; the beer drinkers; the pipe smokers; the expectorators; the loud talkers; the life long enemies of soap and water, are never seen here.” Considerably larger than their predecessors, the new breed of steamships had steel hulls and six boilers. Better than 400 feet in length, these vessels serviced thousands of passengers per voyage.

Steamships eventually succumbed to the automobile and highway systems. On December 31, 1948, the Hudson River Day Line officially terminated service, ending the steamship era on the Hudson.

Model of Steamboat Swallow

F. Van Loon Ryder, Coxsackie, New York | c. 1968

Maker: F. Van Loon Ryder, Coxsackie, New York

Credit: Albany Institute of History & Art Purchase, funded by the Women’s Council of the Albany Institute of History & Art

Steamship Chancellor Livingston

Richard Varick DeWitt (1800-1868) | 1822

Medium: Watercolor on wove paper

Dimensions: 27 1/4 H x 38 W

Provenance: Descended in the DeWitt family to Sarah Walsh DeWitt (died 1924), daughter of Richard Varick DeWitt (1800-1868) and Sarah Walsh DeWitt (1805-1842)

Credit: Bequest of Sarah Walsh DeWitt

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Shakers

The United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing, more commonly known as the Shakers, were spiritual seekers from Manchester, England, who fled to America in 1774 to escape religious persecution. Their founder, Ann Lee, was an illiterate textile mill worker who sought a more personal faith than was offered by the official Church of England. When Lee and her followers arrived in the Albany area in 1776 and began building their Watervliet community near the current site of Albany International Airport, the small group was regarded with suspicion. They were persecuted for their religious beliefs and accused of being British spies.

The Shakers, however, persevered and passionately worked to create “heaven on Earth” through the practice of celibacy, pacifism, communal ownership of goods, and confession of sin. They believed that God was dual in nature, being both male and female. The Shakers practiced gender and racial equality within their communities and established a complex hierarchy of authority in which men and women shared power equally.

The Shakers made a significant contribution to American and European artistic traditions. Their expressions of spirituality included thousands of pieces of music, dance forms, and many works of art such as the famous Shaker tree of life. Today, they are best known for their elegant furniture and architectural style, and they continue to be a source of inspiration for artists, musicians, writers, choreographers and designers.

The Shakers of several communities made the iconic oval wood box and sold them to visitors and merchants from outside the community. This box, probably made at the Mount Lebenon, New York, community, includes the pencil inscription “William P. Van Rensselaer/Manor House/Albany N.Y./September 2nd, 1825.” William may have acquired the box from a peddler or from a local merchant.

Oval Shaker Box

Probably Mount Lebenon Community, New York

c. 1825

Maple and pine

Albany Institute of History & Art, gift of of Bernard and Jeanne Brown in memory of James Gwynn, 2016.13

Watervliet Shaker Village

Unidentified photographer

c. 1870

Albumen photographic print on card

Courtesy of New York State Museum

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