![Sample our Humanities journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5939/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Humanities.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
In order to appreciate the social dimensions of the industrial past, any research examining how working people both laboured and lived must recognise that sites of production and distribution may share a close relationship with the household, a relationship that will influence consumption and settlement patterns. Using artefactual and documentary evidence, this paper examines the initiation and growth of the Beechwood neighbourhood, a former streetcar suburb, located in the eastern section of the City of Rochester in western New York State. Streetcar suburbs in cities throughout the United States have received attention from geographers and urban historians for some time. This paper builds on previous studies by considering how transportation infrastructure — here, a maintenance facility and railyard for repairing inter-urban and intra-urban trolley cars — influenced the demographic and material patterns in one section of the neighbourhood in the first decades of the 20th century.
Acknowledgements
The 2009 Powers and Teremy, LLC field team consisted of Paul Powers, Jennifer Teremy, James Smith, Jonathan Reeves, Michelle Mulley, Elge Sirvaityte and the author. My thanks also to the anonymous reviewer for their helpful comments and observations. As always, my deepest gratitude to Marie-Lorraine Pipes and Paul Powers.
Notes on Contributor
Dr Kyle Somerville is the Principal Investigator for Powers Archaeology, LLC in Rochester, New York. His research projects include faunal analysis, Victorian children's toys, and household consumption practices at 19th-century farmsteads in Western New York State.
Notes
1 Biggs, L., ‘History of Technology: Influences on Materials, Form, and Style in the Built Environment’, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 65.1 (2006), 21–2.
2 McVarish, D., American Industrial Archaeology: a Field Guide (Walnut Creek, California: Left Coast Press, 2008).
3 Pearson, A.M., ‘Utopia Derailed: How the 1894 Pullman Strike Ended One Magnate’s Vision of a Working-class Paradise’, Archaeology, 62.1 (2009), 46.
4 United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places Inventory #66000233: San Francisco Cable Cars (Washington, D.C.: United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service, 1978).
5 New York Museum of Transportation, ‘HEADEND’, http://www.nymtmuseum.org/index.php [accessed 12 October 2015].
6 Jucha, R.J., ‘The Anatomy of a Streetcar Suburb: a Development and Architectural History of Pittsburgh’s Shadyside District, 1860–1920’ (PhD thesis, George Washington University, 1980).
7 Ward, D., ‘A Comparative Historical Geography of Streetcar Suburbs in Boston, Massachusetts and Leeds, England: 1850–1920’, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 54.4 (1964), 477–89.
8 Meints, G.M., ‘The Fruit Belt Line: Southwest Michigan’s Failed Railroad’, Michigan Historical Review, 31.2 (2005), 117–48.
9 Cummins, F.S., ‘Possibilities of Freight Traffic on Interurban Lines’, The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 37.1 (1911), 68–77.
10 Beutel, C.A., ‘The Interurban Electric Railway as a Modern Development of the Use of the Streets and Highways or as an Additional Burden’, The Virginia Law Register, 2.1 (1916), 17–23.
11 Eastman, A., ‘Express Business on Interurban Lines’, The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 37.1 (1911), 78–81.
12 Grant, H.R., ‘Arkansas's “Paper Interurbans”’, The Arkansas Historical Quarterly, 39.1 (1980), 53–63.
13 Ueda, R., ‘The High School and Social Mobility in a Streetcar Suburb: Somerville, Massachusetts, 1870–1910’, The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 14.4 (1984), 751–71.
14 McKelvey, B., ‘Early Rochester Illustrated’, Rochester History, 5.3 (1943), 1–23.
15 Lipman, A.D., ‘The Rochester Subway: Experiment in Municipal Rapid Transportation’, Rochester History, 36.2 (1974), 1–24; see also Somerville, K., ‘“This is Where I Love to Go”: the (Re)creation of Place at Ontario Beach Park and the Monroe County Lakeshore’, Rochester History, 75.1 (2013), 1–35.
16 Barnes, J.W., ‘The Annexation of Brighton Village’, Rochester History, 35.1 (1973), 1–24.
17 McKelvey, B., ‘The Physical Growth of Rochester’, Rochester History, 13.4 (1953), 1–24.
18 McKelvey, B., ‘Subdivision of the Nurseries’, The Rochester Historical Society Publications, 13 (1940), 121.
19 Peck, W.F., History of Rochester and Monroe County, New York From the Earliest Historic Time to 1907, Volume 2 (New York City: Pioneer Publishing Co., 1908), 991.
20 The Elstner Publishing Company, The Industries of the City of Rochester: a Rescue of her Past History and Progress (Rochester, New York: The Elstner Publishing Co., 1888), 152.
21 Gordon, W.R., Ninety-Four Years of Rochester Railways, Volume 1 (Albion, New York: Eddy Printing Corp., 1975), 19.
22 Ibid., 174.
23 Smith, F.C., ‘Irondequoit Bay: the Business of Pleasure’, Rochester History, 56.1 (1994), 1–36.
24 Smith, H.B. & B. McKelvey, ‘Rochester’s Turbulent Transit History’, Rochester History, 30.3 (1968), 1–24.
25 Board of Railroad Commissioners of the State of New York, Nineteenth Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners of the State of New York for 1901 (Albany, New York: J.B. Lyon Co., 1902), 733.
26 Ibid., 741.
27 Gordon, W.R., Ninety-Four Years of Rochester Railways, Volume 2 (Albion, New York: Eddy Printing Corp., 1975), 202.
28 Ibid., 202–4.
29 Ibid., 202–4.
30 Ibid., 202–4.
31 Electric Railway Review, ‘Shops and Shop Equipment’, Electric Railway Review 59 (December 1906), 1014.
32 Electric Railway Journal, ‘Improved Paint Shop Facilities in Rochester’, Electric Railway Journal, 59, 20 May 1922, 821–3.
33 Thornton, R., ‘American Foursquare, 1890–1930’, http://www.oldhouseweb.com/architecture-and-design/american-foursquare-1890-1930.shtml [accessed 28 October 2015].
34 United States Bureau of the Census, Thirteenth Census of the United States (Washington, D.C.: National Archives, 1910).
35 Gordon, W.R., ref. 21, 179.
36 Gordon, W.R., ref. 21, 12.
37 Environmental Design and Research (EDR), Addendum Phase IB Archaeological Survey: Rochester-Genesee Regional Transportation Authority Campus Improvement Project, City of Rochester, Monroe County, New York (Albany, New York: SHPO Project Review #09PR4014, 2015).
38 Powers, P., J. Teremy & K. Somerville, Phase IA and IB Cultural Resource Investigations for the Proposed Rochester-Genesee Regional Transportation Authority (RGRTA) Campus Improvements Project, City of Rochester, New York (Albany, New York: SHPO Project Review #09PR4014, 2009).
39 Dyer, W.A., ‘Lustre Ware’, Country Life in America, 14 (1908), 463–5.
40 Barton, C.P. & K. Somerville, ‘Sets and Sensibilities: a Tea Service and the Excavation of Ideology in a Rural Context’, The Journal of Social Archaeology (in revision).
41 Fitts, R.K., ‘The Archaeology of Middle-Class Domesticity and Gentility in Victorian Brooklyn’, Historical Archaeology, 33.1 (1999), 39–62.
42 Rippey, J., Business Directory of Rochester N.Y. (Rochester, New York: Joseph Rippey and Co., 1888).
43 Veit, R. & P.W. Schopp, ‘Who’s Been Drinking on the Railroad? Archaeological Excavations at the Central Railroad of New Jersey’s Lakehurst Shops’, Northeast Historical Archaeology, 28.1 (1999), 21–40.
44 Reckner, P.E. & S.A. Brighton, ‘“Free from All Vicious Habits”: Archaeological Perspectives on Class Conflict and the Rhetoric of Temperance’, Historical Archaeology, 33.1 (1999), 63–86.
45 Mrozowski, S.A., ‘Cultural Identity and the Consumption of Industry’, in Casella, E.C. & J. Symonds (eds), Industrial Archaeology: Future Directions (New York City: Springer, 2005), 243–60.
46 Casella, E.C., ‘“Social Workers”: New Directions in Industrial Archaeology’, in Casella, E.C. & J. Symonds (eds), Industrial Archaeology: Future Directions (New York City: Springer, 2005), 1–32.
47 Geismar, J.H., ‘Where Is Night Soil? Thoughts on an Urban Privy’, Historical Archaeology, 27.2 (1993), 57–70.
48 Wheeler, K., ‘Theoretical and Methodological Considerations for Excavating Privies’, Historical Archaeology, 34.1 (2000), 3–19.
49 McKelvey, B., ‘Snowstorms and Snow Fighting — the Rochester Experience’, Rochester History, 27.1 (1965), 19.
50 Riordan, T.B., ‘The Interpretation of 17th-Century Sites Through Plow Zone Surface Collections: Examples from St. Mary’s City, Maryland’, Historical Archaeology, 22.2 (1988), 2–16.
51 McKelvey, B., ‘The Italians of Rochester: an Historical View’, Rochester History, 22.2 (1960), 1–24.
52 McKelvey, B., ‘Rochester’s Ethnic Transformations’, Rochester History, 25.3 (1963), 1–24.
53 Yago, G., ‘The Sociology of Transportation’, Annual Review of Sociology, 9 (1983), 171–90.
54 Clark, K., ‘From Valves to Values: Industrial Archaeology and Heritage Practice’, in Casella, E.C. & J. Symonds (eds), Industrial Archaeology: Future Directions (New York City: Springer, 2005), 95–120. There is a rich literature for the archaeological study of industrial settlements and housing built by management for its workforce. For example, see Beaudry, M.C., ‘Public Aesthetics Versus Personal Experience: Worker Health and Well-Being in 19th-Century Lowell, Massachusetts’, Historical Archaeology, 27.2 (1993), 90–105, and Cowie, S.E., The Plurality of Power: an Archaeology of Industrial Capitalism (New York City: Springer, 2010).
55 Clark, K., ref. 54, 104–5.