Diaries of Real New Yorkers 1870s

From ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com

Peek into the diary of a Manhattan schoolboy growing up in the booming city of the 1870s

“This morning I got up and had breakfast and went to school,” wrote Addison Allen on September 10, 1877. “When I got home from school at 3 o’clock I went out and played marbles and then I came in and picked some grapes . . . .Today it has been a nice day.”

Addison Allen is a name few New Yorkers would recognize. Born in 1865, this schoolboy and his family lived a middle-class life in a house at 31 East 127th Street in the urbanizing district of Harlem (but not too urban that residents could not still pick grapes in their own backyard, as Addison did.)

What makes Addison significant is that he kept a diary for a few years in the late 1870s, which he started at age 12. Even more incredible is that his diary is now part of the indispensable collection at New York Historical, perhaps donated by a relative who deemed it to be valuable.

And valuable it is. Newspaper archives and nonfiction deep dives are wonderful references, but personal diaries offer an intimate view of how people lived day to day—the activities they pursued, the holidays they celebrated, and their family dynamics.

Addison’s diary isn’t a collection of his hopes and dreams; it’s more like a journal where he catalogs the highlights of a particular day.

But seeing his writing on notebook paper helps me imagine him sitting at a desk every night recording his day by gaslight: school events, family interactions, and how he and his friends entertained themselves.

“Today Papa stayed home as he felt real sick this morning and vomited. “This afternoon papa felt better and he Mamma, Mamie, and I all went down to the London (?) Circus, we met Aunt Rebecka down there . . . . Tonight Papa and Mamma went out. Today has been an elegant day. Last night Auntie was here. Today was Walt’s birthday.

Addison often mentions his immediate family as well as aunts, uncles, and cousins often. His father, John, worked as a bookkeeper, perhaps in a downtown office that required him to commute to the lower city via the new elevated trains.

We don’t know his salary, but it provided the Allens with a comfortable home in a burgeoning district centered around 125th Street. Though people from all backgrounds lived in Harlem in the 1870s, it had a largely white population at this time.

His mother, Mary, seemed to take care of the home, tending to his thee siblings: older brother Walt, older sister Grace, and baby sister Mamie.

Addison wrote about his parents’ health, spending time in the park with Mamie and Grace (probably Mount Morris Park on 124th Street, which by this time was landscaped), going on family outings, and even taking a family vacation in the Catskills.

With his mom and sometimes his father, Addison went on shopping trips downtown to Macy’s on 14th Street and Brokaw Brothers Fine Clothing at Astor Place, where Addison, Walt, and Papa bought new suits at the 1878 prices of $20 and $12 (above).

What was their house like? Aside from a mention of a new rug arriving and a window being replaced, he doesn’t describe it. A tenement completed in 1905 now occupies the site of his former home.

But two neighboring Italianate brownstones were built in 1877 (second image, above), according to the Reconnaissance Historical Research Survey, East Central Harlem. The Allen house likely resembled those brownstones.

“Today I went to school. This afternoon when I came home I went into the yard. . . . The other day the boys got their monthly report and I stand number one in the class.”

Outside of his home and family, Addison’s world revolved around school and his friends. The location of his school isn’t known, but Addison was a good student. He noted his number one standing in his class in the above passage from December 1878.

“Today I went to school and when I came home at noon Will Gillmore was here,” Addison wrote on June 8, 1877, a Friday. “He and I went to the park and Mamie too.”

Later that evening, Addison talks about going with a friend to a hall “to see the views of the magic lantern.” After they’d seen “all the views, they gave all the people each a plate of ice cream. We got home at half past ten.”

A magic lantern was an early projector of visual images like photos and paintings. Think of them as the forerunner of movies, with the images forming a narrative. Magic lantern shows were a popular entertainment in Gilded Age New York, and Addison and his friends must have enjoyed the more dramatic shows.

The growing acceptance of leisure time and public entertainment in the late 19th century played a big role in Addison’s life. He goes to Central Park to watch the fireworks at 4th of July. He gets a ticket to the circus. He plays jacks and marbles. He plays some kind of ball game (and loses the ball one afternoon, according to his diary entry on June 22, 1877).

I think my favorite entries detail the Christmas mornings Addison wrote about, excitedly listing the presents he and his siblings received.

“This morning I got up at about quarter of seven and went downstairs to get my Christmas things and I got a printing press and a book [and] a large paper of candies and as Aunt Harriet and Uncle Andrew came last night they gave me a nice two-bladed knife but I liked the printing press best of all,” he wrote on December 25, 1877.

The next year, Addison hit the jackpot with gifts again. “This morning, I got up very early for Christmas. I got a lot of candy, an orange, some figs, and a nice large magic lantern, a book, and a steam engine. Mamie got candy, a book, a chair, a locket, and other things. Grace got a necktie and bottle of cologne and other things. Walt got two pins, two books, and other things.”

Addison’s diary ends when he’s in his early teens, but that isn’t the end of his story. Census data and newspaper archives reveal that he graduated from law school at Columbia, became an attorney, and continued living at the 31 East 127th Street address for several years.

In 1901 he got married. Census records from 1910 have him living with his wife, a Pennsylvania native named Sally, and their maid in the East 127th Street house, yet there’s no mention of his parents or siblings sharing the home with them. By the 1920 census, he and his wife have relocated to Yonkers.

I couldn’t find any details of his later adult life. But a 1940 obituary announced his death at age 75. Fittingly, Addison was buried at Woodlawn Cemetery—returned to the city that nurtured his childhood and gave him much to write about.

[Diary entries: New York Historical; last image: The Herald Statesmen, Yonkers NY]

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