Whitman and the City:

Nineteenth-Century New York

Below is a brief history of New York City. Like Whitman's catalogs in "Song of Myself," this timeline may initially seem to present random events, but the details hint at important patterns and historical shifts in urban culture. The rise of economic and cultural institutions is evident with the founding of schools, museums, and banks, while fires, economic panics, and tenement construction underscore the instablity of the city . The creation of the American Bar Association bespeaks the emergence of professionalism in the second half of the century, and the laying of streets further and further north records the rapid expansion of the city. The establishment of city newspapers testifies to an emerging sense of community that extends beyond neighborhoods. Whitman wrote for some of these papers, witnessed some of these events, and lived in New York or nearby for much of his life. This timeline offers some suggestion of an urban world that Whitman knew and responded to in his poetry. (The chronology is an edited and revised version of the chronology in "Manna-hatin," The Story of New York, 1929.)

1819 The first velocipede appears in New York. The "Savannah" sails from New York to England on the first trans-Atlantic voyage under steam.

1821 A first Court of Common Pleas is established in New York.

1822 Fulton Market is established.

1824 The Marquis de Lafayette, who served as one of General Washington's aides during the Revolution, revisits America and is enthusiastically welcomed in New York City. Fifth Avenue is opened as far north as Thirteenth Street. A monopoly given to Robert Livingston in 1798 on steam navigation is declared illegal and New York begins to profit from steam transportation. The Bank of Long Island, the first Brooklyn bank, is incorporated.

1825 The completion of the Erie Canal is celebrated in New York. The first grand opera is given in New York.

1826 All property qualifications are removed from voters in New York.

1827 The "Journal of Commerce" is established.

1830 Ground is broken for the Mohawk and Hudson Railroad, the first railroad line. A regular stage line is established on Broadway from Bowling Green to Bleecker Street.

1831 Gramercy Park becomes a private park for the benefit of adjacent property owners. New York University is established. The first trip is made over the Mohawk and Hudson Railroad between Albany and Schenectady.

1832 The New York and Harlem Railroad begins operating with horse cars. The "New York Morning Post" is established by Horace Greeley.

1833 The first opera house is built. The "New York Sun" is founded by Benjamin Day.

1834 Daniel Webster visits New York and makes a speech from his lodgings in Greenwich Street. Brooklyn is incorporated as a city. The charter of New York is amended to provide for the popular election of the mayor.

1835 The "Great Fire" destroys nearly 700 buildings, and property to the value of $17 million. James Gordon Bennett estabishes the "New York Herald."

1836 Judges are first elected by popular vote in the city.

1837 A national financial panic leads to a convention in New York of 136 delegates from banks all over the United States. Martin Van Buren, the first native New Yorker to hold that office, is elected President of the United States. The first vaudeville show is presented. The New York and Harlem Railroad inaugurates its service as far north as Harlem. Professor Samuel F. B. Morse of the University of New York invents a practical electric telegraph and transmission code.

1838 Flushing, Long Island, is incorporated as a city. The first Tombs Prison is completed.

1839 The first express service between New York and Boston begins. The Manhattan Company, New York's water company, erects a two-story granite building on Wall Street.

1840 The Cunard Steamship line is established. Edgar Allan Poe takes up residence in the city.

1841 Horace Greeley founds the "New York Tribune." The "Brooklyn Eagle" is founded with Isaac Van Anden as first editor. The first screw-propeller vessel is built, and the first "clipper ship" is designed, beginning the "Golden Age" of New York shipping. The first steam fire engine is tried in New York. The first section of the Erie Railroad is put in operation from New York to Goshen

1842 The Croton water system is completed, and its opening is celebrated. The Manhattan Company ceases to function as a water company, investing its entire capital in the business of banking. The New York Philharmonic Society is organized. Charles Dickens visits New York for the first time. The celebrated dwarf, Tom Thumb, is exhibited at Barnum's Museum.

1845 The Knickerbocker Baseball Club of New York, the first official baseball club in America, is founded.

1846 The sewing machine is patented, an invention that leads to the development of the garment industry in New York City. Fordham University is founded.

1847 The first evening free schools are opened. The Plymouth Congregational Church of Brooklyn is built.

1848 The New York newspapers join with the Telegraph Company to establish the Associated Press. The Park Theatre is destroyed by fire. The first prisoners are sent to Blackwell's Island. The Manhattan Company adds a third story to its Wall Street office building.

1849 The New York Free Academy is founded. A quarrel between American actor Edwin Forrest and English actor William C. Macready leads to the bloody Astor Place Riot.

1850 The first elevator is installed. "Harper's Weekly" is founded. P. T. Barnum introduces Jenny Lind at a Castle Garden concert.

1851 A clipper ship sails from New York to San Francisco in eighty-nine days and eighteen hours. The Hudson River Railroad is opened, from New York to Albany. Louis Kossuth, the Hungarian patriot, is welcomed to New York. Henry J. Raymond founds the "New York Times."

1852 The American Geographical Society is founded in New York City. William M. Thackeray visits New York. The city charter is amended, dividing the city into twenty-two wards and creating a board of police commissioners; uniforms are adopted for the police: blue coats with brass buttons and gray trousers. Adelina Patti makes her debut in New York at the age of eight years.

1853 Seven railroads consolidate, becoming the New York Central Railroad Company. A World's Fair is held at the Crystal Palace, in Bryant Park. "Uncle Tom's Cabin" runs for two hundred consecutive performances at the Chatham Theatre. The Central Park project is authorized.

1854 The Packer Institute for Girls is founded in Brooklyn. The Academy of Music is opened on Fourteenth Street and Irving Place.

1855 Bushwich and Williamsburg are added to Brooklyn. The Polytechnic Institute for Boys is established in Brooklyn. Castle Garden becomes an immigrant station.

1856 A "slave auction" is held in the Plymouth Congregational Church of Brooklyn as a protest against slavery by Reverend Henry Ward Beecher.

1858 Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux win the competition for a plan of development for Central Park. The Crystal Palace is destroyed by fire. A mammoth celebration of the first laying of the trans-Atlantic cable by Cyrus W. Field is held in New York.

1859 Voters register for the first time in New York. "Dixie" is sung for the first time, from the stage of Bryant's Minstrels at 472 Broadway. Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art is established in Astor Place.

1860 Abraham Lincoln, candidate for the presidency of the United States, makes a speech at Cooper Union which introduces him to New York City. The "Pony Express" links New York with San Francisco. Commissioners are appointed to lay out streets north of 155th Street. The first laws are passed requiring fire escapes on tenement houses.

1861 Abraham Lincoln is welcomed, en route to the White House. Fort Sumter is captured by the Confederates and the Union flag is saved by a soldier from New York. The Seventh Regiment of New York (the National Guard) departs for the front under Colonel M. Lefferts. The Committee of Union Defense is formed in New York under Jon A. Dix and sends the first ambulances to the seat of war. A seat on the Stock Exchange is sold for the first time at auction, for $460.

1862 The ironclad "Monitor," made famous by its engagement with the "Merrimac" during the Civil War, is launched at Greenpoint, Long Island. The first hansom cab appears on the streets of New York.

1863 The Union League Club is organized to aid in preserving the Union, and begins recruiting negro troops for the Civil War. On 13 July, poor whites riot in protest against the draft. The Draft Riots cause the death of over twelve hundred people.

1864 A Metropolitan Fair held in New York nets over a million dollars for the United States Sanitary Commission.

1865 The funeral cortege of Lincoln, en route to Springfield, Illinois, passes through the city, which is placed in deep mourning. Direct telegraph communication is opened between New York and San Francisco. The New York metropolitan fire district, including Brooklyn, is created, ending the old volunteer fire system.

1867 James G. Bennet establishes the "New York Evening Telegram." "Stock tickers" are first introduced. Plans are adopted to develop the West Side, including Riverside Drive.

1868 "Sorosis," the first women's club in New York, is incorporated. An experimental elevated railroad is erected. An attempt to build a subway from Fourteenth Street to Nassau Street is abandoned.

1869 Broadway is laid out as a "boulevard" north of Fifty-ninth Street. An attempt to corner the gold market on the New York Stock Exchange prompts the panic of "Black Friday."

1870 The New York Bar Association is organized. Work is started on the construction of Brooklyn Bridge. The first office building in New York is equipped with passenger elevators. Long Island City is incorporated as a city. An expedition sent by the "New York Herald" under Henry M. Stanley finds David Livingstone in British East Africa.

1871 Steam trains are first used on the elevated railroad in Greenwich Street. The "Tweed Ring" of corrupt politicians is overthrown. The first Grand Central Terminal is completed at Forty-second Street.

1872 East New York is annexed to Brooklyn. Forty thousand men are idle as a result of a disastrous general strike of all building trades.

1873 The towns of Kingsbridge, Morrisania and West Farms are added to New York, extending the city limits to Yonkers. The prison ship martyrs' remains are reburied at Fort Greene, Washington Park, Brooklyn. The failure of J. Cooke & Company precipitates a panic in Wall Street.

1874 Barnum's Great Roman Hippodrome opens at Twenty-seventh Street and Madison Avenue.

1876 The first through train runs from New York to San Francisco. Central Park is completed.

1877 The first high-wheeled bicycle appears in New York. The first tenement building with a central court is built.

1878 The New York Symphony Society is organized. The New York Museum of Natural History is opened. The first directory of telephones in New York is issued.

1879 The first Madison Square Garden is opened.

1880 The elevated railroad system is completed to the Harlem River. The New York Metropolitan Museum of Art is opened. Sarah Bernhardt makes her debut in New York. Broadway is electrically lighted for the first time, with British arc lights.

1881 The city goes into mourning upon the assassination of President Garfield.

1882 The "New York Morning Journal" is founded by Joseph Pulitzer. The Edison Company begins operating, inaugurating the first commercial lighting by electricity in New York City. The Metropolitan Opera House at Broadway and Thirty-ninth Street is opened.

1883 The Brooklyn Bridge, the longest suspension bridge in the world, is opened. The New York Telephone and Telegraph Company is incorporated. Henry Irving and Ellen Terry make their debuts in New York.

1884 A long distance telephone is established between New York and Boston. John Singer Sargent begins making portraits in New York. The failures of Keene, of the Marine Bank, and the firm of Grand & Ward help to precipitate a financial panic.

1885 The first cable cars are operated on Amsterdam Avenue. The first law is passed regulating the height of buildings in New York. General Grant dies in New York City, and the funeral procession is six miles long. The Fifth Avenue Bus Line is inaugurated. The Statue of Liberty is unveiled.

1887 Joseph Pulitzer founds the "New York Evening World." Charles A. Dana founds the "New York Evening Sun." Electric street cars are used for the first time.

1888 The "Great Blizzard" covers New York with twenty-two inches of snow. The first modern steel skeleton structure is erected. The Fulton Street elevated line is completed in Brooklyn. Electric trains are installed for the first time on the New York elevated railway lines.

1889 The centennial of Washington's Inauguration is celebrated in New York and an arch is erected in Washington Square.

1890 Coney Island is annexed to Brooklyn. A second Madison Square Garden is opened. The U. S. S. "Maine" is launched at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, destined to precipitate a war between the United States and Spain by its sinking in the Harbor of Havana, Cuba, in 1898.

1891 The Botanical Gardens are opened at Bronx Park. The first four-track bridge is completed over the Harlem River. Carnegie Hall, the gift of Andrew Carnegie, is opened.

1892 Ellis Island is established as an immigrant station. The first building of the Metropolitan Opera House burns. The Manhattan Opera House, under the management of Oscar Hammerstein, is opened. Mrs. Astor gives her celebrated ball at the Astor Hotel, originating the term "The Four Hundred." Reverend Dr. Parkhurst conducts a campaign against political corruption.