Up and Down the River:
A History of the Hudson, 1609 - 2009
A hundred years ago this fall, New York City threw a two-weeklong public celebration
of a double anniversary: the tricentennial of Henry Hudson’s voyage up
the river and the centennial (plus two) of Robert Fulton’s first successful
steamboat crossing in 1807. One of the largest public anniversaries in the country’s
history, offices and factories closed and the number of commuter trains doubled
to handle the crowds for the banquets, parades, historical floats, theatrical
performances, lectures, fireworks and an airplane flight by Wilbur Wright around
the Statue of Liberty. Authentic recreations of Hudson’s ship the Half
Moon and Fulton’s steamboat the Clermont participated in a U.S. Naval
parade up the Hudson.
The Hoboken Historical Museum’s latest exhibition, Up and Down the
River: A History of the Hudson 1609 – 2009, joins many celebrations
along both sides of the river during this historic quadricentennial year. The
Museum’s exhibit, made possible through a special project grant from the
New Jersey Historical Commission, will extend through the end of the year to
accommodate a full agenda of talks, events, educational programs and art celebrating
our city’s relationship with the river that shaped its fortunes.
The exhibition and lecture series will trace the important roles the river
has played in the life of the Mile Square City:
• Providing food and commerce to the area’s first inhabitants, the
Lenni Lenape Indians;
• Connecting 19th century New Yorkers and sailing
enthusiasts to the Hoboken shoreline during its incarnation as a resort called
“Elysian Fields” and home of the cup-winning yacht America;
•
Bringing to its piers the grand passenger ships from Europe and later a bustling
cargo trade, as depicted in the film “On the Waterfront”;
•
Inspiring generations of students and professors at the Stevens Institute of
Technology to contribute to the legacy of groundbreaking maritime research;
and,
• Providing recreational activities along miles of New Jersey waterfront
walkway, thanks to the advocacy of citizen activists.
Though Robert
Fulton gets credit for inventing the first steam-driven ferry, Hoboken founder
Colonel John Stevens and his son Robert, both prolific inventors, weretinkering
at the same time with a steam engine and a screw propeller on a ferryboat. In
1811 Stevens launched the first steam-powered commercial ferry service to cross
the Hudson. Fulton’s designs and a biography of the inventor and others
who were instrumental in helping him develop and refine his steam engine will
covered. For the exhibition, the Museum has commissioned an original mural of
the outline of Hoboken’s waterfront along the entire length of the main
wall, painted by local artist Ray Guzman. Scale models of vessels from the Hudson
River will be on display, including New York Central Tug No. 18 by John Marinovich,
and excerpts from Hudson’s first mate’s journal describe the first
encounters between the Europeans and native inhabitants. A portion of the exhibit
features memorabilia from the 1909 Hudson-Fulton celebration. Items on display
come from the Museum’s own collections, as well as from the private collections
of a Hudson County-based model shipmaker, the South Street Seaport Museum, Stevens
Institute of Technology and the Bayonne Historical Society.
Speaker Series Continues with “Pioneering Research in Maritime Security”
On Sunday, Sept. 13 at 4 p.m., the Museum welcomes Dr. Julie Pullen, Director of the
Maritime Security Laboratory at Stevens Institute of Technology, who will provide
an overview of the lab’s research into detecting threats and reducing vulnerability in our
ports. If you attended Dr. Alan Blumberg’s talk in April, you know that Stevens’ MSL
conducts field experiments in the complex urban estuary of the Hudson River to measure
how currents, salinity, temperature, water level, vessel traffic and acoustic properties
fluctuate in both space and time.
Dr. Pullen will explain how MSL uses that research into the environmental complexities
of the Hudson in developing and fielding technologies to address threat prediction and
detection across multiple timescales, ranging from terrorist incidents to coastal hazards.
MSL’s assets include sensors, vehicles and models focused on the surface, underwater,
and urban realms. Dr. Pullen was a principal investigator on a Department of Homeland
Security grant, a member of a scientific steering committee of the Office of Naval
Research and is co-chair of the 2010 Ocean Sciences meeting.
Sept. 20: “Analyze This: Freud’s 1909 Visit to America through Hoboken’s Port”
A hundred years ago, one of the most important figures of the modern era passed through
Hoboken on his way to a speaking engagement at Clark University. The iconic event,
Sigmund Freud’s only trip to the United States in the fall of 1909, is often cited as a
symbol of the great cultural changes that came in the early twentieth century. As did so
many Europeans, Freud began and ended this momentous trip in Hoboken.
Dr. John Burnham, Research Professor of History at Ohio State University, will
visit the Museum on Sunday, Sept. 20, at 4 p.m., to commemorate the anniversary of
this visit. He will read passages from one of Freud’s previously untranslated letters
describing his arrival in the New World. On Monday, Sept. 21, the anniversary of Freud’s
arrival in Hoboken will be commemorated with a brief event in Pier A Park at 11 a.m.
Oct. 11: On the Waterfront: 1989 2009: Paving the Way for a Public Park
In the first half of the 19th century, before Central Park was completed, Hoboken was
popular with New Yorkers for its recreational waterfront, which included such attractions
as a River Walk, Elysian Fields and Sybil’s Cave. But by the late 1800s, Hoboken’s
waterfront was transformed into a bustling maritime port, serving passenger ships and,
later, cargo vessels, which dominated the water’s edge for most of the 20th century. By
1990, these waterfront industries had virtually disappeared, creating a once-in-a-century
opportunity to reclaim the Hudson River waterfront for public recreation.
In a referendum in July 1990, the voters of Hoboken rejected a massive development
proposal for Hoboken’s south waterfront, opening the way for the Fund for a Better
Waterfront (FBW) to propose a new vision, which called for a continuous public park
from the Hoboken Train Terminal to the Weehawken Cove, clearly delineated from the
upland private development on new, Hoboken-sized blocks. Today, much of this plan has
been realized after many successful legal battles to preserve the water’s edge for the
public.
On Sunday, Oct. 11, at 4 p.m., come hear Ron Hine, Executive Director of
FBW, relate this history and the tantalizing opportunity to finish the missing links.
Nov. 1: “On the Irish Waterfront: The Crusader, the Movie, and the Soul of the
Port of New York”
As one of the world’s busiest harbors in the first half of the 20th century, the Port of New
York, including Hoboken’s waterfront, attracted gangsters, politicians and union leaders,
each fighting for a piece of the huge economic pie, as depicted in the movie “On the
Waterfront.” A key character in the movie, a crusading priest who risked his own career
to help improve conditions for the dockworkers and their families, was based in large part
on a real historic figure, John M. “Pete” Corridan.
Historian and Fordham University professor James Terence Fisher visits the
Museum on Sunday, Nov. 1, at 4 p.m., to talk about his latest book, On the Irish
Waterfront: The Crusader, the Movie, and the Soul of the Port of New York, which tells
the story of Corridan’s ferocious advocacy and his role working with screenwriter Budd
Schulberg in shaping the film. A Jesuit labor school instructor, not a parish priest,
Corridan was resisted by the very men he sought to rescue from the violence and
criminality that ruled the waterfront.
The Museum’s exhibit, made possible through a special project grant from the New
Jersey Historical Commission, extends through the end of the year to accommodate a full
agenda of talks, events, educational programs and art celebrating our city’s relationship
with the river that shaped its fortunes.