Painting the Town -- Museum of the City of New York

Niblo's Garden, located at the intersection of Broadway and Prince Street, was one of the city's great places of recreation in the 1840s. Beginning in 1828, William Niblo developed what had been a private promenade into a public summer garden, where he offered evening entertainments -singers, dancers, and variety performers. As part of this venture, he enclosed the garden to form an indoor hall, one part of which later became a theater frequented by "the first families of the city."¹Niblo's, as the complex was known, became the site of the American Institute's annual fairs from 1834 until 1845.

The American Institute was incorporated in 1829 "for the encouragement of agriculture, commerce, manufactures, and the arts."²Housed in the west end of City Hall, the institute operated a public reading room that included a library and models of contemporary machinery. Through its annual fairs, the organization endeavored to promote domestic industry by exposing workers and manufacturers to new ideas and inventions, such as daguerreotypes. In the first volume of its journal the institute defined its "social influence" in bringing "together men of all conditions in society, and all vocations." The article further described goals of educating mechanics that might then enter "the most refined and respectable circle of society known in our country."³

The many couples shown in this watercolor examining art, home furnishings, and clothing underscore the fair's importance to New York consumers before the opening of large department stores along "Ladies' Mile" in the 1870s. Attendance statistics (the 1845 fair drew thirty thousand people, or one out of every twenty New Yorkers) emphasize the event's influence in establishing taste and promoting the desire for new goods. In the words of someone identified only as Judge Baldwin, "The effects of a display and public exhibition of the various specimens of the articles of consumption &promotes that competition & benefit[ing] the consumer and purchaser."⁴

Two small vignettes in the upper corners of the painting -the left one representing High Bridge (see plate 20) with a train crossing it (even though trains never ran on High Bridge) and the right one depicting ships, wharves, and lighthouses -celebrate New York City's modernity and energy. These elements were not part of the actual decor of Niblo's Garden but were fabricated by the artist.

Benjamin Johns Harrison was born in London in 1834 and came to America at age fifteen "in order to be free of the Church of England."⁵ Views of the 1844 and 1845 fairs executed by this amateur watercolor painter are listed in the American Institute Catalogue for those years and for 1856. Harrison conveys his apparent delight in the abundance of material goods with his meticulous visual inventory of the items on display, from mundane buckets to densely hung prints and paintings. As an inventor and energetic businessman (his patent for a folding chair became the foundation of his successful manufacturing business), he must have been particularly engrossed by the paean to American ingenuity expressed in these annual expositions.

Notes:

1 Harry Lines, "Niblo's Garden," unidentified article from the Museum Archives, n.d.

2 John Doggett, Jr., Cries of New-York (New York: John Doggett, Jr., 1846), p. 32.

3 Journal of the American Institute 1 (1836): 12.

4 "Fair of the American Institute," Journal of the American Institute 1, no. 9 (June 1836): 450.

5 Letter about Benjamin Johns Harrison's life from B. S. Harrison, the artist's son, to Miss Grace Mayer, n.d., Museum Archives.


Annual Fair of the American Institute at Niblo's Garden c. 1845 Benjamin Johns Harrison (1834 -1903) Watercolor on paper, 20 1/4 X 27 1/4 Bequest of Mrs. J. Insley Blair in memory of Mr. and Mrs. J. Insley Blair, 51.119
Niblo's Garden, located at the intersection of Broadway and Prince Street, was one of the city's great places of recreation in the 1840s. Beginning in 1828, William Niblo developed what had been a private promenade into a public summer garden, where he offered evening entertainments -singers, dancers, and variety performers. As part of this venture, he enclosed the garden to form an indoor hall, one part of which later became a theater frequented by "the first families of the city."¹Niblo's, as the complex was known, became the site of the American Institute's annual fairs from 1834 until 1845. The American Institute was incorporated in 1829 "for the encouragement of agriculture, commerce, manufactures, and the arts."²Housed in the west end of City Hall, the institute operated a public reading room that included a library and models of contemporary machinery. Through its annual fairs, the organization endeavored to promote domestic industry by exposing workers and manufacturers to new ideas and inventions, such as daguerreotypes. In the first volume of its journal the institute defined its "social influence" in bringing "together men of all conditions in society, and all vocations." The article further described goals of educating mechanics that might then enter "the most refined and respectable circle of society known in our country."³ The many couples shown in this watercolor examining art, home furnishings, and clothing underscore the fair's importance to New York consumers before the opening of large department stores along "Ladies' Mile" in the 1870s. Attendance statistics (the 1845 fair drew thirty thousand people, or one out of every twenty New Yorkers) emphasize the event's influence in establishing taste and promoting the desire for new goods. In the words of someone identified only as Judge Baldwin, "The effects of a display and public exhibition of the various specimens of the articles of consumption &promotes that competition & benefit[ing] the consumer and purchaser."⁴ Two small vignettes in the upper corners of the painting -the left one representing High Bridge (see plate 20) with a train crossing it (even though trains never ran on High Bridge) and the right one depicting ships, wharves, and lighthouses -celebrate New York City's modernity and energy. These elements were not part of the actual decor of Niblo's Garden but were fabricated by the artist. Benjamin Johns Harrison was born in London in 1834 and came to America at age fifteen "in order to be free of the Church of England."⁵ Views of the 1844 and 1845 fairs executed by this amateur watercolor painter are listed in the American Institute Catalogue for those years and for 1856. Harrison conveys his apparent delight in the abundance of material goods with his meticulous visual inventory of the items on display, from mundane buckets to densely hung prints and paintings. As an inventor and energetic businessman (his patent for a folding chair became the foundation of his successful manufacturing business), he must have been particularly engrossed by the paean to American ingenuity expressed in these annual expositions. Notes: 1 Harry Lines, "Niblo's Garden," unidentified article from the Museum Archives, n.d. 2 John Doggett, Jr., Cries of New-York (New York: John Doggett, Jr., 1846), p. 32. 3 Journal of the American Institute 1 (1836): 12. 4 "Fair of the American Institute," Journal of the American Institute 1, no. 9 (June 1836): 450. 5 Letter about Benjamin Johns Harrison's life from B. S. Harrison, the artist's son, to Miss Grace Mayer, n.d., Museum Archives.