Postcard Thursday: Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup

"The Mother's Friend," pictured above, was actually a tincture of opium and was wildly popular in the United States in the 19th century.

Earlier this week, James had a story published in The Guardian that traced some of the history of opiate use in America, which goes back at least as far as the Pilgrims who came over on the Mayflower.

One opiate user was President Thomas Jefferson, who grew his own poppies on his Monticello estate. Though this part got cut from the final Guardian story, it turns out that Monticello was still growing poppies in the 1980s in its historic garden. One day in 1987, the DEA raided. They yanked out the poppies, removed the seeds from the gift store, and scared the living daylights out of everyone who worked there. The gift shop employees were so spooked they even removed all the t-shirts that sported an image of a poppy and burned them so that they couldn't be accused of promoting drug use.

You can read James's entire opiate piece -- including more about Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup -- at http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/15/long-opiate-use-history-america-latest-epidemic

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SAVE THE DATE

Thursday, April 21, at 6:30pm

we will be talking about Footprints in New York at

The Mid-Manhattan Branch of the New York Public Library

details to come

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Read more about NYC history in

 

Footprints in New York: Tracing the Lives of Four Centuries of New Yorkers

Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City

Happy Independence Day

Happy July 4th, everyone. As readers of Inside the Apple and this blog know, today is just one of many days that holds a claim to being America's Independence Day. As we've blogged before, July 2 is probably the day we should celebrate the holiday, but we'd also make a strong case for July 9.

Did you also know that on America's fiftieth birthday, July 4, 1826, both Thomas Jefferson and John Adams died? Supposedly, Adams's last words were, "Jefferson survives," even though Jefferson had died a few hours earlier.

Have a safe and joyful holiday!

Michelle & James Nevius

Remembering Inauguration Day

For most of America’s history, today—March 4—marked inauguration day. When the Constitution was being drafted, an early March date seemed practical; votes in the general election were cast for electors, and those electors would have to find the time to make their way to the nation’s capital (then New York City) to choose the president.

The very first inauguration was actually April 29, 1789, when George Washington was sworn in on the balcony of Federal Hall on Wall Street. (Federal Hall National Memorial, an old US Treasury Building, now marks the spot.) Less than a week later, Congress convened in the same building for the first time, and from that point forward March 4 was the day that power transferred. The first March 4 inaugural was in 1797, when John Adams succeeded Washington in a ceremony in Philadelphia. Thomas Jefferson was the first president inaugurated in Washington, D.C., in 1801, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the last to be sworn in on that day. In 1933, the Twentieth Amendment to the Constitution was ratified, shortening the lame duck period for Congress and the President and moving the President’s swearing in to January 20.

Throughout the Nineteenth Century, there were plenty of Presidents who were sworn in on dates that weren’t March 4. If inauguration day fell on a Sunday, it was usually pushed to the next day (though sometimes it was Saturday instead). Beginning with John Tyler, a number of Vice Presidents had to assume the office upon the death of the President. New Yorker Chester Arthur, Vice President under James Garfield, was sworn in September 19, 1881, at his home on Lexington Avenue before heading to DC to assume the presidency.

Among the biggest commemorations today is the 150th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s first inaugural in 1861—which was, not at all coincidentally, also the day that the Confederate Stars and Bars were adopted as the flag of the states in rebellion. You can read Lincoln’s speech here. 

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Read more about the presidency in New York in
Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City.

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Should July 9th be Independence Day?

As we mentioned last week, the day we celebrate Independence Day in America, July 4th, isn't actually the day we voted to break away from Great Britain. While July 2 has a strong claim to be Independence Day, we'd also like to put forward today, July 9th, as a good candidate to celebrate America's birthday--at least in New York.

When the Continental Congress met in Philadelphia to vote on ratifying Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence, the delegation from New York balked. This wasn't so much because New Yorkers weren't interested in backing independence, but rather that the colony's delegation (which included such notable citizens as Lewis Morris and Francis Lewis) didn't think that New York's legislature had given them the authority to take such a bold step.

Some time after July 2, the New York delegation left Philadelphia to return home to debate the matter and on July 9 voted to back the independence resolution, making them the thirteenth and final colony to get on board.

Later that same day, the first copies of the Declaration of Independence arrived in New York and, that evening, it was read aloud for the first time to George Washington's troops. In a frenzy, soldiers and members of the Sons of Liberty stormed down Broadway, jumped the fence at Bowling Green park, and toppled the gilded equestrian statue of of George III. (This is a story that we tell in depth in Inside the Apple.)


So, if you are around Lower Manhattan today, here's a couple of places to visit to honor what could have been Independence Day:

• Bowling Green park, site of the George III statue and still surrounded by its British Colonial fence (erected ca. 1771).
  
• Federal Hall National Memorial, on the spot where the New York delegation voted for Independence (and, later, where George Washington was inaugurated and the Bill of Rights passed).
  
• Trinity Church, Wall Street, where Declaration of Independence signer Francis Lewis is buried in the north yard.

 * * *

Read more about the colonial and Revolutionary New York in

Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City.

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Also, you can now follow us on Twitter.

July 2nd: Happy Independence Day

As we approach the Fourth of July weekend, we thought it might be a good opportunity to remember that America actually declared its independence from Great Britain today, July 2nd.

As John Adams wrote in a letter the next day to his wife, Abigail:

"The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival."

Well, he was only off by two days. In fact, only twleve of the thirteen original colonies had voted to declare independence on July 2 -- the delegates from the thirteenth colony, New York, did not feel they had been invested with such power and retreated from Philadelphia to discuss their options.

Meanwhile, on July 4, the Continental Congress agreed to print the Declaration. Scholars guess that somewhere between 100 and 200 of these Dunlap Broadsides, as they've come to be known, were printed that evening*, probably under the watchful eye of Thomas Jefferson, the Declaration's lead author. On July 5 and 6, John Hancock had riders dispatch Dunlap broadsides to colonial cities and on July 9 a copy arrived in New York City, where George Washington's troops were stationed.

That same day, New York agreed to be the thirteenth and final colony to declare independence. (Good thing, since the printed Declaration begins, "The unanimous declaration of the thirteen united states of America.") That night, American troops and the Sons of Liberty tore down the gilded statue of George III in Bowling Green Park, signaling New York's new life as an independent American city.

So, what all this really means is that the we shouldn't celebrate Independence Day, but rather Independence Week from July 2 - July 9. Have fun!

* 25 Dunlap Broadsides are known to exist today.

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Much more about New York's role in the Revolution can be found in
Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City.

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