Entries Tagged 'Same Today' ↓

Most recently the home of Arcadian Too Antiques, soon to be home of Ann Arbor coworking.

Being on Main street (a half block south of Huron) means the lot where the building stands has been platted from the beginning, and has been pretty much in continual use.

From the mid-1800’s to about 1900 the address was 18 South Main. This caused me some confusion because there also was a 118 S. Main which was a residence.

The earliest picture I found of the area is from ca. 1860. Our building is not entirely in the picture, as it is a picture of the “American Block” which (as you will see) later became the “Bank Block”.

Here, I’ve noted what I believe is the location of 18 S Main:

Notice that there’s a row of leather goods shops. I think that the theme continues along the street, and the noted building is also a boot and shoe shop.

Sometime between 1860 and about 1867 the American Block was torn down and the handsome building you see today was erected. When they replaced the American Block they stopped at what is now the north side of the building lobby.

Here’s a ca. 1867 picture of the site:

Let’s zoom in on the little building to the right:

Aha! A name with which to search. Jacob Vandawarker was a shoemaker, who arrived in Ann Arbor in 1834 and did very well for himself and his family. I believe the sign says “E Vandawarker” which would likely be his son Edwin, continuing on with the family business. There is also a Frank Vandawarker, but Frank went to medical school and didn’t get involved in the family business until his father’s death in 1881.

Also, the Michigan State Gazetteer and Business Directory for 1867 says “Vandewalker, Ed., boot and shoe maker, Main.”

At some point between 1867 and 1872, E. Vandawarker’s shop moved to 6½ Huron.

From about 1870 to about 1892, there were a series of small businesses housed in the space, which also had living space in it. About 1872, it was the home of “Ann Arbor Trading Association” doing business as “The Farmers’ Store”. In the late 1870s “Jonathan Sprague, tailor” was listed at 18 S. Main. The 1892 Glen V. Mills Directory of the City of Ann Arbor says that “Allmendinger Band, Henry Otto, leader” occupied the location. I haven’t been able to find anything out about the band yet.

At some point between 1892 and 1910 EF Mills, which provided “ladies’ furnishings” moved from 20 S Main to 118 S Main.

Past and Present of Washtenaw County, Michigan (1906) says that Goodyear was at 118 S Main in 1888, and bought out Mills in 1902 (and then moved to 120 S Main). But the 1910 directory gives Mills at 118. I don’t really trust the information in this book, because I have yet to see Goodyear’s location in 1888 (unless Goodyear gave over some space to Otto’s “Allmendinger Band” in 1892).

And that’s as far as I got. More research is likely to benefit only me; it’s pretty clear that the space has long housed retail establishments — starting with boots and shoes, moving to tailoring, general merchandise, ladies’ merchandise, antiques… and also briefly hosted a band office. It is not officially part of the Goodyear building (Bank Block), but over the century and a quarter(?) of its existence has become intertwined with it.

A new machine has been invented at Minneapolis which supersedes type-setting. By this machine, which is no larger than a small type-writer and operates on the same plan, a plate or matrix is produced, which is easily stereotyped, thus attaining the same result which is ordinarily reached by preparing a form of type for the foundry which has to be stereotyped and then distributed. The speed of the new machine will be from five to ten times as great as that of type-setting, and if successful it will enable an author to send his work to the stereotyper more easily than he can write it with the pen. When all ambitious would-be authors are let loose upon the world in this manner, what a flood of superfluous literature we shall have and what will become of the superfluous printers?

From Buchanan’s Journal of Man, December 1877.

In Boston, which sometimes calls itself our American Athens, the highest truths of psychic science are daily neglected by the more influential classes, while races, games, and pugilism occupy the largest space in the daily papers, and a leading daily boasts of its more perfect descriptive and statistical record of all base-ballism as a strong claim to public support.

The pugilist Sullivan is the hero of Boston; he received a splendid ovation in the Boston Theatre, with the mayor and other dignitaries to honor him, and a belt covered with gold and diamonds, worth $8,000, was presented, besides a large cash benefit. His departure for England was honored like that of a prince by accompanying boats, booming cannon, and tooting whistles, and he is said to swing a $2000 cane presented by his admirers. How far have we risen in eighteen centuries above the barbarism of Rome? There is no heathen country to-day that worships pugilism. Perhaps when the saloon is abolished, we may take another step forward in civilization. London has rivalled Boston, giving Sullivan a popular reception by crowds which blocked up the principal streets.

From: Buchanan’s Journal of Man, December 1877.

The Evils that need attention, mentioned in the Journal for May, are as rampant as ever. The big combination in Chicago to raise the price of wheat by a corner, utterly burst on the 14th of June, leaving a few ruined speculators. The Chicago News says: “What is called buying and selling futures in grain, is no more buying and selling in the innocent and proper interpretation of the words than the wagering on horse races is buying and selling horses. It is a species of gambling as pernicious to public morals as it is contrary to public policy.” The Chicago Herald says, “No one is in love with a cornerer who corners. Nobody wastes any pity on a cornerer who gets cornered himself.” Such crimes in a petty way may be punished, but we need law for the millionaire gamblers who not only rob each other, but fleece the entire nation at the same time.

From Buchanan’s Journal of Man, July 1887.

The industrial revolutions of the coming century will, without doubt, be brought about very largely through the utilisation of Nature’s waste energy in the service of mankind. Waterfalls, after being very largely neglected for two or three generations, are now commanding attention as valuable and highly profitable sources of power. This is only to be regarded as forming the small beginning of a movement which, in the coming century, will “acquire strength by going,” and which most probably will, in less than a hundred years, have produced changes in the industrial world comparable to those brought about by the invention of the steam-engine.

Lord Kelvin, in the year 1881, briefly, but very significantly, classified the sources of power available to man under the five primary headings of tides, food, fuel, wind, and rain. Food is the generator of animal energy, fuel that of the power obtained from steam and other mechanical expansive engines; rain, as it falls on the hill-tops and descends in long lines of natural force to the sea coasts, furnishes power to the water-wheel; while wind may be utilised to generate mechanical energy through the agency of windmills and other contrivances. The tides as a source of useful power have hardly yet begun to make their influence felt, and indeed the possibility of largely using them is still a matter of doubt. The relative advantages of reclaiming a given area of soil for purposes of cultivation, and of converting the same land into a tidal basin in order to generate power through the inward and outward flow of the sea-water, were contrasted by Lord Kelvin in the statement of a problem as follows: Which is the more valuable–an agricultural area of forty acres or an available source of energy equal to one hundred horse-power? The data for the solution of such a question are obviously not at hand, unless the quality of the land, its relative nearness to the position at which power might be required, and several other factors in its economic application have been supplied. Still, the fact remains that very large quantities of the coastal land and a considerable quantity of expensive work would be needed for the generation, by means of the tides, of any really material quantity of power.

It is strange that, while so much has been written and spoken about the possibility of turning the energy of the tides to account for power in the service of man, comparatively little attention has been paid to the problem of similarly utilising the wave-power, which goes to waste in such inconceivably huge quantities. Where the tidal force elevates and depresses the sea-water on a shore, through a vertical distance of say eight feet, about once in twelve hours, the waves of the ocean will perform the same work during moderate weather once in every twelve or fifteen seconds. It is true that the moon in its attraction of the sea-water produces a vastly greater sum total of effect than the wind does in raising the surface-waves, but reckoning only that part of the ocean energy which might conceivably be made available for service it is safe to calculate that the waves offer between two and three thousand times as much opportunity for the capture of natural power and its application to useful work as the tides could ever present. In no other form is the energy of the wind brought forward in so small a compass or in so concrete a form.

From: Twentieth Century Inventions. A Forecast., by George Sutherland, 1901.

The public mind has been greatly stirred upon the subject of monopolies and legislative abuses; but there are some glaring evils, which a short statute might suppress, that are flourishing unchecked.

Speculative dealers in the necessaries of life have learned how to build colossal fortunes by extortion from the entire nation, and the nation submits quietly because gambling competition is the fashion. The late Charles Partridge endeavored to show up these evils and have them suppressed. We need another Partridge to complete the work he undertook.

A despatch to the Boston Herald, March 5, shows how the game has been played in Chicago on the pork market:

“‘Phil Armour must have been getting ready for this break for three months,’ said a member of the board of trade to-day. ‘Since September last he has visited nearly every large city in the country. He knows from observation where all the pork is located, and, having cornered it, his southern trip was a scheme to throw his enemies off the scent, and enable his brokers to quietly strengthen the corner. His profits and Plankinton’s cannot be less than $3,000,000.’

“But if Armour and his old Milwaukee side partner have made money, so have hundreds of others here. A messenger boy in the board of trade drew $100 from a savings bank on Monday last at 11 o’clock and margined 100 barrels of pork. To-day the lad deposited $1,000, and has $300 for speculation next week.

“Those poor snorts who are expecting to have pork to-day to make their settlement, paid $21. Anything less was scouted. ‘You will have to pay $25 next Saturday night,’ was all the comfort afforded.

“An advance of 2 cents a bushel in wheat was also scored by the bulls to-day. The explanation is that the several big wheat syndicates encouraged by the action of pork have made an alliance. The talk at the hotels to-night is that Armour has started in to buy wheat.”

We have laws that forbid boycotting, and they are enforced in New York and New Haven by two recent decisions. Financial extortion is an equal crime, and needs a law for its suppression. Why is the metropolitan press silent? Have the syndicates too much influence? Will editors who read these lines speak out?

In the last North American Review, James F. Hudson, in an essay on “Modern Feudalism,” says:–

“The conquest of all departments of industry by the power of combination has just begun. But the mere beginning has imposed unwarrantable taxes on the fuel, light, and food of the masses. It has built up vast fortunes for the combining classes, drawn from the slender means of millions. It has added an immense stimulant to the process, already too active, of making the rich richer and the poor poorer. The tendency in this direction is shown by the arguments with which the press has teemed for the past two months, that the process of combination is a necessary feature of industrial growth, and that the competition which fixes the profits of every ordinary trader, investor or mechanic, must be abolished for the benefit of great corporations, while kept in full force against the masses of producers and consumers, between whom the barriers of these combinations are interposed.”

From Buchanan’s Journal of Man, May 1887.

ASSES MUST NOT EXPECT TO BE FONDLED

From The Baby’s Own Aesop, by Walter Crane. 1887 (Page 52)

Drums with Which the Natives are Able to Communicate

Capt. Five, a Belgian explorer, says that the people of the Congo have a curious and interesting method of telephoning. For a long time he refused to believe that the natives really had the power to communicate with others at a distance, though articles had been sent to him in answer to such communications. At length, one day, journeying on the river by pirogue, and being about fifty miles from Basoko, he determined, instead of stopping, to press on to the village. Then one of his people offered to telephone to the village that the party would reach the place toward evening and would like to have supper prepared on arrival.

A native with a drum then began to beat it after a peculiar fashion, and presently announced that he had heard a reply. He then rolled the drum for some time and tranquilly returned to his paddle. Capt. Five waited with much interest to see whether his approach would be expected and was astonished as he neared Basoko toward evening to recognize on the bank one of his fellow-explorers, Lieut. Verellen. A fire was burning ashore and supper was being made ready. Capt. Five, after greeting the lieutenant, inquired eagerly how he had learned of the approach of the expedition. The lieutenant replied that the news had been brought some hours before by a negro, who said that a white man was approaching by the way of the river and would need supper.

The drum used by the natives for this purpose is a small but noisy affair of wood. It is constantly employed in communicating short distances, in order to save time and trouble. In this instance there had evidently been relays of drummers along the whole fifty miles from the point where the original signal was given near Basoko. The natives are able, with their drums, to signal messages of considerable length. This particular instance is recorded in La Flandre, a Belgian publication.