Two recent blogs described the work archivists have accomplished transcribing the original hand-written captions for the Brooklyn Grade Crossing Commission and Condemnation Proceeding photograph collections into searchable spreadsheets. The transcription projects began when the Municipal Archives closed to the public on March 16, 2020, and all staff began to work remotely from home. This week the blog describes the Early Mayors’ collection transcription project.

The Early Mayors’ collection includes correspondence and documents from New York City mayoral administrations from 1826 through 1897 and totals 157.5 cubic feet. The collection had originally been assembled by Rebecca Rankin during her 32-year tenure as the Director of the Municipal Library between 1920 and 1952. This was a core collection in the Municipal Archives when it opened in 1952 and remains one of the most important series documenting nineteenth-century government and policies.

In the early 2000s, the National Endowment for the Humanities awarded a grant to the Archives to microfilm the collection. Subsequently, the finding aid has been edited and made accessible on the agency website. More recently, the Archives began digitizing the microfilm edition to make it available for on-line research.

Typically, archivists catalog correspondence and office records to the ‘folder-level,’ meaning that descriptive information provided to a researcher includes only whatever had been written on the folder label by the record creator, e.g. “Mayor’s Correspondence, April – June 1897.”   What is unusual about the Early Mayors’ series is that the librarians and archivists who first cataloged the materials in the 1950s and ‘60s also typed brief descriptions of every letter or document in the collection. 

Archivist Alexandra Hilton, has been coordinating the work of the archival staff transcribing these descriptions while working remotely. Ms. Hilton explained how she stumbled across the typed description tucked away in one of the storage rooms in 2012:  “Back then, I was doing research for exhibits and events. Finding this was such a stroke of luck – I photocopied the whole thing, put it in binders, and read it cover-to-cover, marking it up with notes. It’s a great resource that depicts women and minorities, groups of people that are typically difficult to find in a collection of mid-to-late-19th century governmental records.

Ms. Hilton added, “I never thought we’d get a chance to transcribe the descriptions so I’m pretty thrilled that we are because it is so dense that browsing it as a physical document is only practical if you have a lot of time. At the start of the project, based on the number of pages scanned, I estimated that the index was a little over 2,500 pages, and described over 27,000 items.”

Archivist Amy Stecher has been transcribing indices of correspondence in the collection that relate to both larger departments such as the Department of Buildings and the Department of Docks, and smaller ones such as the Bureau of Weights and Measures, and the Dog Pound and the Public Pound (for animals other than dogs).

Ms. Stecher describes her work,  “I’ve been surprised by the amount of big-picture information you can derive from the indices alone. Everything I’ve transcribed so far, regardless of subject, is really about the exponential growth of the city’s population and the need to get control over it. This is obvious with something like the creation of the Department of Buildings. But it can also be seen in correspondence related to smaller agencies such as the Bureau of Weights and Measures and the documents indexed under “Lamps and Gas.” These records show the expansion of lamp-lighting services to parts of the city that never needed lighting before.  It reveals a fascinating story of the battle among private companies to win gas-supply (and later, electricity) contracts. 

Ms. Stecher noted a pervasive theme in the records—the amount of corruption evident in every department and at every level: “Political cronyism—Tammany Hall is mentioned across various indices—but also fake Weights and Measures Inspectors; drunken, thieving dog-catchers; complaints to the mayor about lottery and other scams; officials removed from office for taking bribes or stealing funds; dereliction of duty at the city-run asylums and hospitals. It is clear that many people took advantage of so much growth and too little oversight.”    

Ms. Stecher, continued, “There is also evidence of some remarkable parallels with the city today: the fascinating and timely Health Quarantines and measures the city took to deal with cholera and yellow fever epidemics, including the establishment of the Quarantine Islands. The Department of Charities and Corrections index lists voluminous correspondence among city officials, outside groups, and individual citizens trying to tackle the dual problems of the ever-increasing number of homeless and displaced persons, which resulted in the creation of the position of the Superintendent of Out-Door Poor. Increasing levels of poverty, despair, and mental and physical health issues highlighted the need for the perpetually-overwhelmed and continually-criticized city-run hospitals and asylums.”

“References to pandemics, the Civil War and its aftermath are evident as well as immigrants and displaced persons making their way to the city and needing help. Many people reach out personally to the mayors and sometimes get results in the form of inquiries and investigations. Reformers such as Henry Bergh turn up in more than one index.”

Based on the transcription work, Ms. Stecher concluded that “these documents make crystal clear that life in New York City was very hard for those with little money or few resources, and could be very rewarding for those with much and many.”

Look for future blog posts describing Municipal Archives transcription projects.