Radio Script #707

Little Talks on Common Things

December 4, 1966

Occasionally on this program I like to mention some old publication that our grandparents or even our great-grandparents enjoyed, but which long ago ceased to appear on the old parlor tables. One such magazine was called “Gleason’s Pictorial and Drawing Room Companion”. A bound volume containing 26 issues of that magazine is the property of Mrs. Eileen Morris of the China Neck Road. Through the courtesy of Mr. Richard Bagley I had a chance to examine that interesting publication. The issues in the bound volume are dated January 3 through June 26, 1852, and therefore represent six months’ consecutive run of that weekly magazine.

Unlike so many periodicals of its time, Gleason’s Pictorial contained no ads. It was a large publication, of newspaper size pages, and except for the absence of ads was much like the country weeklies of that time. In the issue of January 3. 1852 appeared the first installment of a serial called “The White Rover” or “The Lonely Maid of Louisiana; a Romance of the Forest”. The same issue has the thrilling account of an encounter with a whale, telling how the big sea monster rammed and sank in the South Pacific one of the whaling ships out of New Bedford.

Another item concerned a floating church. It said: “The floating church is a great novelty and ornament in Philadelphia. Located at the foot of one of the level streets, it can be seen from miles away. The building, fastened to a substantial back 38 x 90 feet, rests on two boats of 80 tons each, placed ten feet apart and strongly held together. The Church will seat 500 persons and has a five-toned bell and organ. The top of the spire is 70 feet above the deck. The Church was designed especially for the benefit of seamen who frequent the port. All seats are free.”

The same issue has an editorial on Yankee Peddlers, a part of which reads as follows: “These itinerant merchants deserve a place in history. It is by their agency that the rich products, the choice fancy articles, and the fine arts of the Eastern U.S. are introduced into the backwoods. What a microcosm is the interior of a peddler’s cart. Thimbles, fine tooth combs, shoe brushes, wool cards, soap, jackknives, bracelets, ear rings, maple sugar and paragoric, as well as a history of U.S., and a life of General Jackson. The tin peddler, who barters his wares for rags, does a thriving business. Because they are sharp bargainers, the peddlers have been unjustly condemned. The tricks of a few have been charged against the whole class. Many now flourishing and wealthy tradesmen began their careers as humble peddlers.”

Scattered through the publication are a number of odd items. Here are a few of them: “Warning: A man in Providence, R.I. has suffered severely with delirium tremens, produced by immoderate use of cigars.”

“H.B. Conklin at Utica has been executed for arson.”

“On Thanksgiving Day Mr. Levi Ward of Rochester sent to the orphans’ home a chicken pie weighing 200 pounds.”

Listen to this picture of an old-time part of Boston: “Boston Neck is the broad thoroughfare of Upper Washington Street where it connects Roxbury to Boston. Here is a fine street 200 feet wide, extending for a straight mile. At times more than 100 sleighs may be counted on it at once. Races between teams are especially exciting.”

It is evident that the editor didn’t like tobacco. In addition to the man for whom cigars caused delirium tremens. we find this item: “A thousand tons of tobacco are annually squirted over the face of Creation, and 20 tons of ivory are worn out chewing the weed.” He was equally concerned because. as he put it, “Church going has declined 30% in New York during the last ten years, while theater attendance has increased 50%.”

The magazine has some interesting woodcuts. One of Haymarket Square, Boston, showing a load of hay drawn by oxen. a two-horse closed cab, a boy with a push cart, a pedestrian in tall hat and cut-a-way coat, a stage coach and a delivery wagon. Another cut pictures eel-spearing on Boston Mill Pond; another is a view of Cleveland from Lake Erie.

One of the issues has an editorial on discoveries. It says: “The fifty years since 1800 have produced greater discoveries than all the previous centuries.”

(I wonder what he would say today about discoveries since 1900.) The editorial continues: “The tremendous power of steam has revolutionized locomotion and machinery. More wondrous still is the taming of lightning to the docile use of man. The electric wire is the marvel of this age. Then there is the wonderful discovery of Daguerre. His daguerreotype has made the sun turn artist, to surpass the wildest fantasies of fiction. Already we can read the hidden secrets of the sky. Already we can travel over land and sea at whirlwind speed. Only the air remains unnavigated. But we may reasonably hope that its conquest will one day be achieved. It is not improbable that the arrival and departure of flying packets between Liverpool and Boston may be seen in the papers by some who read this sheet.

We may yet see members of Congress. at the close of a session. fly to their homes like migratory geese. Perhaps some day friends will drop in to see us through holes in the roof and wings will become as common as mackintoshes and rubbers.”

What about the speed of railroad travel in 1852? The magazine tells us: “Travelers now reach Pittsburgh daily from Philadelphia in 24 hours. The Hudson River R.R. is at present under water.”

In February the magazine called attention to one of Boston’s newest sights, a mammoth sleigh called the Mayflower. It was a huge, double-runner vehicle, built like a boat, seating 20 persons and drawn by six horses. What about wealth in those days? One of the magazine’s odd items says: “There is a man in Ohio so rich that he pays 18,000 a year in taxes. In the same column we are told that New York then had 800 policemen and the U.S. Navy had 75 war vessels.

The issue of February 14 showed a wood cut of people crossing from Manhattan to Brooklyn on the ice. The accompanying words said: “New York Harbor has been completely frozen over so that persons and even teams have crossed both to Brooklyn and to New Jersey.

Ever attentive to morals, the editor noted that two men had been fined $3.50 each in Boston for playing cards on Sunday. He didn’t like the increasing exodus to the gold fields, which had been going on for two years. So he published this warning: “During the last year the wives of nine men were sent to the Insane Hospital at Worcester, in every instance because of the departure of their husbands for California. Despite the stories of wealth to be gained there, we are not impressed. We would remind our young men of the untold obstacles and risks of that venture. There is still opportunity at home.”

Much of one entire issue was devoted to the Sandwich Islands, with wood cuts of the town of Honolulu, Captain Cook’s monument, and a native dance. The leading article began: “The islands are named for the Earl of Sandwich, who was First Lord of the Admiralty when Captain Cook came there in 1778. The natives are a peculiar race, tall, well-formed and handsome, with a clear olive complexion. Their language is a dialect of that spoken in the Society Islands.”

In March the magazine devoted space to the state house in the capital of Maine.

The wood cut shows a man with tall hat on horseback, a brougham drawn by two horses, many pedestrians, and behind them all the rising front of the State House at Augusta. The article says: “This elegant bUilding is situated near the west bank of the Kennebec, in the town of Augusta, between that village and Hallowell, on an elevated site from which is an extensive view. The building was erected about 18 years ago. It is built of granite and is of agreeable proportions. It has a spacious hall for the representatives, and two of convenient size for the senate and the executive council. There is a United States arsenal in Augusta, consisting of ten buildings of stone. Augusta is situated at the head of sloop navigation on the Kennebec, 43 miles from its entrance into the Atlantic, and sloops of 100 tons come to its wharves.”

In 1866 Portland would be swept by the most disastrous fire in its history, but this old magazine makes it clear that the conflagration of 1866 was not Portland’s first bad fire. This is what the magazine says about what happened there in 1852: “Fire lately devastated much property in Portland, consuming the American Hotel, stables and horses, with many dwellings and stores. The loss of property was immense, but only one life was lost, when a man was crushed by a falling wall. Grocery stores, oyster shops, dry goods stores, eating houses, and dwellings were swept away with such speed as to defy human intervention. The firemen did a heroic job in finally checking the spread of the flames.”

The modern visitor to West Point sees an expanse of stately, imposing buildings, stretching over several hundred acres. Note what West Point was like in 1852. This old magazine tells us: “An omnibus runs constantly between Azzer’s Hotel in the village and the Military Academy, which is a stone building 275 by 75 feet, three stories high, containing a riding hall, a number of recitation rooms, and several offices. The education given at West Point, both academic and military, is of a high order.”

In 1852 people were not accustomed to our modern euphemisms. They called a spade a spade. Cemeteries were graveyards, funeral directors were undertakers, indigestion was bellyache. Listen to this from one issue of Gleason’s Pictorial: “The State of Massachusetts has under its patronage a school intended for the idiotic. The school is in charge of Dr. Samuel G. Howe, who introduced into this country a system of teaching idiots.” Dr. Howe was a husband of the woman who, as Julia Ward Howe, would a dozen years later become famous as author of the Battle Hymn of the Republic.

As a final item from the old magazine, consider this lament on changes in Boston, and remember the editor is talking about a time that for us is more than a hundred years ago. “We sorrow”, he said, “at the destruction of Washington Gardens at the corner of West and Tremont Streets. Commercial Boston is elbowing fashionable Boston out of town. Pearl Street, once the height of fashion, is now a mart of trade.”

Year: 1966