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Category Archives: Charles Loring Brace

Washington’s Birthday 1928

17 Sunday Feb 2019

Posted by Keith Muchowski in Alfred E. Smith, Brooklyn, Charles Loring Brace, Fiorello La Guardia, George Washington, Memory, Theodore Roosevelt Sr (Father)

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New York governor Al Smith reviewed the Kings County Volunteer Firemen’s Association on Washington’s Birthday in 1928 in the leadup to the presidential race.

I was reading a good-natured online debate the other between a couple of people arguing the merits and demerits of American holidays. One of the running threads–indeed, the instigation of the discussion–was the idea of President’s Day itself. Some were averring that the holiday we are observing this weekend is now a second-tier observance, which is tough to argue against. It was not always the case however. President’s Day began as George Washington’s Birthday, and is still legally considered as such in many of the fifty states. Up until around the Second World War however Washington’s Birthday was still considered one of our most prestigious holidays, ranking below Christmas and Easter and on par with the 4th of July. It makes sense that Americans would have two secular holidays–one in winter and the other in summer–of such consequence. From the early days of the Republic through the mass immigration of the early twentieth century these holidays gave Americans a shared narrative. The 4th of July is still part of that narrative, but Washington’s Birthday–or even the more general “President’s Day–not so much.

Some of the men assembled to speak at Brooklyn Borough Hall were in their 90s. Later that day Governor Smith and Congressman Fiorello La Guardia spoke at the Brace Memorial Newsboys’ Lodging House in Manhattan.

Here above we see a moment during which Washington’s Birthday was still very much part of our cultural fabric. In 1928 Governor Alfred E. Smith visited Brooklyn to review the organization of retired Kings County firemen. From the steps of Borough Hall he watched the procession of men, some in their 90s, as they hailed the man everyone knew would run for the presidency that coming November. The Eagle, whose offices were adjacent to Borough Hall, noted that “Only the Roman candles and fireworks of the old political campaigning [were] missing.” It was not just Brooklynites; firemen had come from throughout Long Island, Manhattan, and as far away as Philadelphia and Delaware to see and hear Smith.

The governor had been coming to this event throughout the 1920s. He had come down from Albany for a few days to appear at several events; after speaking to and lunching with the retired firemen in Brooklyn, Smith returned to Manhattan and dined at the Brace Memorial Newsboys’ House on William Street. Lodging houses like the one Smith spoke at on Washington’s Birthday 1928 dated back to the days when Charles Loring Brace and Theodore Roosevelt Sr. created them prior to the Civil War. There with Smith at the lodging house was U.S. Congressman Fiorello La Guardia. Smith’s message to the 1,200 assembled hardscrabble lads was to accept that life is difficult even under the best of circumstances. The governor and presidential aspirant understood difficulty, having been born a slum kid on the Lower East Side and toiling in the Fulton Fish Market before becoming a Tammany man and starting his rise.

(images/Brooklyn Daily Eagle)

Eliza Hamilton Schuyler, 1811-1863

20 Thursday Dec 2018

Posted by Keith Muchowski in Charles Loring Brace, Eliza Hamilton Schuyler (mother of Louisa Lee Schuyler), Incorporating New York (book manuscript project), Those we remember

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Eliza Hamilton Schuyler was a granddaughter of Alexander Hamilton. She died in December 1863 in the middle of the American Civil War. 

Elizabeth Hamilton Schuyler died 155 years ago today. Ms. Schuyler was a granddaughter of Alexander Hamilton, though they never met; she was born in 1811, seven years after the country’s first Treasury Secretary was killed in a dual by Vice President Aaron Burr. I took the photographs you see here in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery a few weeks ago.

The reverse side of Eliza Hamilton Schuyler’s headstone, Sleepy Hollow Cemetery

Ms. Schuyler was a friend and something of a mentor to Charles Loring Brace, whom she encouraged to become involved in philanthropy. She was also a neighbor of Washington Irving at her family’s country estate north of the city in the Hudson Valley. She and husband George also owned a house in Manhattan on 31st Street. Ms. Schuyler and daughter Louisa were active in the creation of the U.S. Sanitary Commission when the Civil War came in 1861. Sadly, she did not live to see Union victory, dying a she did December 1863 with the war still very much in the balance. She was only fifty-two.

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