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American Farm Heritage Museum by lukedrich_photography

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Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenville,_Illinois

Greenville is a city in Bond County, Illinois, United States, 51 miles (82 km) east of St. Louis. The population as of the 2010 census was 7,000. It is the county seat of Bond County.

Greenville is part of the St. Louis Metropolitan Statistical Area. It is also considered part of the Metro East region of Illinois.

Greenville celebrated its Bicentennial in 2015 as one of the oldest communities in Illinois. It is home to Greenville University, the Richard Bock Museum, the American Farm Heritage Museum, the Armed Forces Museum and the Demoulin Museum and a federal prison, Federal Correctional Institution, Greenville (FCI Greenville). It is also home to internationally known companies, including Nevco Scoreboard, the largest privately owned scoreboard company in the world, and DeMoulin Brothers, the world's oldest and largest manufacturer of band uniforms.

Source: www.americanfarmheritagemuseum.com/about-us.html

The American Farm Heritage Museum was one man's dream. The Museum became a reality when a group of men, mostly farmers, sitting in coffee shop, talked about the dream of building a museum to preserve the farm heritage. Sixty farmers, collectors, and civic leaders held a meeting to share their ideas with the public in April of 2002. It was agreed that Bond County, being near the middle of the state and right along 1-70, would be the perfect place. Meetings were conducted, fundraisers were held, and ideas were passed around. In 2002 the land for the museum was acquired and a name for the museum was chosen.

The American Farm Heritage Museum would sit on seventeen acres, along the south side of interstate 70, just east of the Route 127 overpass. Its goal would be to promote and share the heritage of America's rural life: living, farming and travel. One very generous family purchased the land and leased it for ninety-nine years to the American Farm Heritage Museum, NFP organization. After a year of planning, the first 32'x64' building, with a gambrel roof, was completed. It was finished just days before the first Heritage Days Show in July 2004. This building, originally was to be a tractor maintenance shop, but later became known as the Lil' Red Barn Museum.

In the winter of 2005, owners of a truck terminal building in St. Louis gave the building to the Museum, if we took it down. Several members went to work and got the 200'x100' building moved and rebuilt. Since then other buildings and groups have been added to the show grounds.

We are growing with each passing year. Our Main building is the site of numerous events throughout the year. The Lil' Red Barn is a little piece of history, with collections of items from the past. In 2009 this building received the Illinois Governor's Home Town Award. The Tractor Shed displays different makes of tractors and tools of the past. Our Christmas building, which operates as a work shop and houses all the Christmas boxes for The Christmas Lights Wonderland, partners with The Lil' Red Barn, Railroad, Hill's Fort and the Armed Forces Museum to put on a spectacular Christmas display.

The American Heritage Railroad, established in 2003 is a division of the American Farm Heritage Museum. Many rail-enthusiast members realized as farms were connected by the American Railroad so should the Museum have an operating railroad for its historic value, as well as provide a fun ride for visitors. May 10, 2005 the railroad division was officially formed and an intensive search began to procure equipment. Many thousands of hours of volunteer labor, by friends of the railroad, have resulted in over a mile of 13" gauge track being laid, on the grounds. It is our desire to honor the great railroads that have served Bond County, such as the Vandalia, Nickel Plate, Pennsylvania and CB & Q. In 2005 the Ben Winter's Museum railroad was purchased which provided a G-15 diesel train set. The final move of the Ben Winter's railroad was completed in November, in three days with 20 volunteers, 9 trailers and one semi-truck. The collection has grown to include both diesel and steam engines and a variety of rolling stock. The railroad owns three steam locomotives. It is hoped the 1926 Wagner 4-4-2 steam engine will be ready for operation for the 2015 season.

2005 Hill's Fort also joined the Museum. Hill's Fort played an important part in the opening of Northwest Territory. Hill's Fort may have started as early as 1806 when early settlers first arrived. The Fort's location appears on an 1808 survey map by Capt. Isaac Hill, leader of a team commissioned by President Thomas Jefferson to survey the Illinois Territory. The Legislature fixed Hill's Fort as the temporary county seat. Earliest records are preserved from Hill's Fort and include court and marriage dockets. The Bond County seat was later moved to Perrysville and, in 1821 to Greenville, Illinois. No longer useful as a fort or county seat, Hill's Fort was abandoned and fell to ruin.

Following excruciating study of the original site, a replica of the Fort has been recreated on the grounds of the Farm Museum. It is open to the public on the 1st Saturday of the month from May through October and also open, for tours and special occasions. At Christmas time they are open Friday and Saturday nights for the Christmas lights. They dress in period dress and cook over the open fireplace in the cabin, and are eager to answer questions.

In 2012 The Armed Forces Museum, "Memories of Steel", joined our Museum. It maintains as its sole mission, to preserve these important pieces of military history. The Museum houses one of the largest collections of military vehicles in the County. It currently watches over approximately 15 privately-owned and 25 museum-owned vehicles. The members are involved in a program called "Living history" which furnishes displays of t1istoric vehicles and memorabilia and, works with re-enactors at civil events like Armed Forces Day and Veterans Day. Each of these vehicles has an historic story and plays a very important role in connecting us with the soldiers who lived and died in their service to the country.

La Mama Experimental Theatre Club by Emilio Guerra

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Aschenbroedel Verein (later Gesangverein Schillerbund / now La Mama Experimental Theatre Club) Building, East Village, Manhattan, New York City, New York

The four-story, red brick-clad Aschenbroedel Verein Building, in today’s East Village neighborhood of Manhattan, was constructed in 1873 to the design of German-born architect August H. Blankenstein for this German-American professional orchestral musicians’ social and benevolent association. Founded informally in 1860, it had grown large enough by 1866 for the society to purchase this site and eventually construct the purpose-built structure. The Aschenbroedel Verein became one of the leading German organizations in Kleindeutschland on the Lower East Side.

It counted as members many of the most important musicians in the city, at a time when German-Americans dominated the orchestral scene. These included conductors Carl Bergmann, Theodore Thomas and Walter Damrosch, and the musicians of the New York Philharmonic and Theodore Thomas Orchestras. After the Aschenbroedel Verein moved to Yorkville in 1892, this building was subsequently owned for four years by the Gesangverein Schillerbund, one of the city’s leading and oldest German singing societies. The design of the main facade, altered at this time with the addition of cast-iron ornament by German-born architects [Frederick William] Kurtzer & [Richard O.L.] Rohl, combines elements of the German Renaissance Revival and neo-Grec styles with folk motifs (including hearts), and features a variety of pedimented lintels, quoins, fraktur-like incising, three composers’ busts over the second-story windows, and a prominent cornice with a large broken pediment.

After 1895, the building housed a variety of disparate uses, including a series of public meeting and dance halls, the Newsboys’ Athletic Club, a laundry, and a meatpacking plant. Since 1969, it has been the home of the renowned La Mama Experimental Theatre Club, established in 1961 by Ellen Stewart, and today considered the oldest and most influential off-Off-Broadway theater in New York City. The building remains one of the significant reminders of 19th-century German-American cultural contributions to New York City, as well as the continuing vitality of off-Off-Broadway theater in the East Village.

DESCRIPTION AND ANALYSIS

The 19th-Century Development of (Today’s) East Village Neighborhood

The area of today’s Greenwich Village was, during the 18th century, the location of the small rural hamlet of Greenwich, as well as the country seats and summer homes of wealthy downtown aristocrats, merchants, and capitalists. A number of cholera and yellow fever epidemics in lower Manhattan between 1799 and 1822 led to an influx of settlers in the Greenwich area, with the population quadrupling between 1825 and 1840. Previously undeveloped tracts of land were speculatively subdivided for the construction of town houses and rowhouses. Whereas in the early 19th century many of the wealthiest New Yorkers lived in the vicinity of Broadway and the side streets adjacent to City Hall Park between Barclay and Chambers Streets, by the 1820s and 30s, as commercial development and congestion increasingly disrupted and displaced them, the elite moved northward into Greenwich Village east of Sixth Avenue.

To the east, during the 17th and 18th centuries, was Dutch Governor Peter Stuyvesant’s Bowery farm. In the vicinity were Native American trails, today’s Broadway and Bowery, that the Lenape Indians traversed from the southern tip of Manhattan to Inwood and Harlem. St. Mark’s-in-the-Bowery Church (1799) was built on a higher, dry piece of land, while the area to the east of today’s Second Avenue, known as Stuyvesant Meadows, remained an undeveloped marshy area. In the late 18th century, the area east of Second Avenue was the estate of Mangle Minthorn, father-in-law of Daniel Tompkins (1775-1825), governor of New York (1807-17) and

U.S. vice president under James Monroe (1817-25). Both Stuyvesant and Minthorn were slave owners. In 1832, the Common Council created the 15th Ward out of the eastern section of the large 9th Ward, its boundaries being Sixth Avenue, Houston and 14th Streets, and the Bowery. According to Luther Harris’ history Around Washington Square, during the 1830s-40s “this ward drew the wealthiest, most influential, and most talented people from New York City and elsewhere. For a brief period beginning in the 1820s-30s, Lafayette Place, including the grand marble Greek Revival style LaGrange Terrace (1832-33, attributed to Seth Geer), St. Mark’s Place, and Bond, Great Jones, East 4th and Bleecker Streets were also among the city’s most fashionable addresses. Lower Second Avenue and adjacent side streets remained prestigious through the 1850s.

Commercial and institutional intrusions and the continual arrival of immigrants ended the fashionable heyday of these wealthier enclaves before the Civil War. In the 1850s, Broadway north of Houston Street was transformed from a residential into a significant commercial district. Also beginning in the 1850s, after the political upheavals in Europe of 1848 and the resulting influx of German-speaking immigrants to New York City, the Lower East Side (the area bounded roughly by 14th Street, the East River, the Bowery/Third Avenue, and Catherine Street) became known as Kleindeutschland (“Little Germany”). Aside from their presence as residents, these immigrants contributed in significant ways to the vibrant commercial and cultural life of the neighborhood and the city at large. By 1880, this neighborhood constituted one-fourth of the city’s population (as one of the most densely populated neighborhoods in the world) and was the first major urban foreign-speaking neighborhood in the U.S., as well as the leading German-American center throughout the century. A massive exodus of Jews from Eastern Europe from the 1880s to World War I led to approximately two million Jewish immigrants settling in New York; most lived for a time on the Lower East Side, establishing their own cultural and religious institutions there.

Beginning in the 1850s-60s, the vicinity of 14th Street and Union Square developed into a center of musical and theatrical culture. The Academy of Music (1853-54, Alexander Saeltzer), East 14th Street and Irving Place, an opera house with the world’s largest seating capacity at the time, quickly became the center of musical and social life in New York, presenting such notable performers as Adelina Patti (who made her debut here in 1854), and events such as the grand ball in honor of the Prince of Wales in the autumn of 1860. The building burned down in 1866, and was replaced by a new Academy of Music (1868, Thomas R. Jackson). Irving Hall (1860), a ballroom, concert, and lecture hall annex to the Academy, served as the home of the New York Philharmonic in 1861-63. The Steinway piano company opened Steinway Hall (1866), a combination showroom and recital hall at 109 East 14th Street, which for many years was the foremost concert hall in the country (it closed in 1890 and was demolished). By the mid-1860s, a number of legitimate theaters were also opening in the vicinity of Union Square, which during the last quarter of the nineteenth century became the center of New York theater. These included Wallack's Theater (1861, Thomas R. Jackson), 728 Broadway at 13th Street, the most prestigious dramatic theater in the country during this period; the Union Square Theater (1870), an adjunct of the former Union Place Hotel; Chickering Hall (1875), Fifth Avenue and 18th Street; and Amberg Theater (1888, Theodore G. Stein; Irving Place Theater after 1893), 11 Irving Place (all demolished). The Germania Theater, which along with the Amberg catered to a specifically German clientele, was located in Tammany Hall in 1874-81, in Wallack’s Theater in 1881-82, and until 1902 in the former Church of St. Ann, East 8th Street near Broadway. Union Square, after the Civil War, became the traditional site for workers’, union, and political protests and rallies.

As wealthier residents moved northward in the 1850s, their single-family residences were converted into multiple dwellings or boardinghouses, as well as other uses, such as clubs or community cultural institutions. For instance, the former Ralph and Ann E. Van Wyck Mead House at 110 Second Avenue in 1874 became the Isaac T. Hopper Home of the Women’s Prison Association, and, of the Federal style houses on the westernmost block of St. Mark’s Place: No. 29 became the Harmonie Club, a German-Jewish singing club (1856-59); Nos. 19-21 housed another German musical club, the Arion Singing Society (1870-87), and these buildings, along with No. 23, became Arlington Hall, a ballroom-community center in 1887. Most of the remaining houses were demolished for denser development with French flats and tenements between 1874 and 1902.

Hastening the change in the residential character of this section of the Lower East Side after mid-century were a wide variety of major cultural, religious, commercial, and educational institutions, including the Astor Place Opera House (1847; later Clinton Hall/Mercantile Library; demolished), Astor and Lafayette Places; Astor Library (1849-52, Alexander Saeltzer; 1856-69, Griffith Thomas; 1879-81, Thomas Stent), 425 Lafayette Street; Bible House (1852; demolished), home of the American Bible Society and other religious organizations, Astor Place and Third Avenue; and Cooper Union (1853-58, Frederick A. Petersen), Astor Place and Third Avenue. The New York Free Circulating Library, Ottendorfer Branch, and German Dispensary (1883-84, William Schickel), 135 and 137 Second Avenue, among others, catered to the German community. Assembly halls such as Webster Hall and Annex (1886-87, 1892, Charles Renz, Jr.), 119-125 East 11th Street, became important neighborhood social centers. The Third Avenue elevated railroad opened in 1878.

The Aschenbroedel Verein

A social and benevolent association composed almost exclusively of German-American professional orchestral musicians, the Aschenbroedel Verein was founded informally in 1860, with its name, “Cinderella Society,” supposedly a play on the last name of one of its members (and first president), August Asche. After initially meeting at Schneider’s Hall, 371 Broome Street, by 1866 the group had grown large enough with some 300 members for it to acquire a building on East 4th Street. The Aschenbroedel Verein became one of the leading German organizations in Kleindeutschland on the Lower East Side, and counted as members many of the most important musicians in the city, including conductors Carl Bergmann, Theodore Thomas, and Walter Damrosch, as well as all of the members of the Theodore Thomas Orchestra and most of the members of the New York Philharmonic. According to Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians in 1880, this was also “the headquarters” of the New York Philharmonic Society, though the Philharmonic’s Minutes books illustrate that this was one of several locations in the neighborhood where its directors’ and business meetings were held, between 1873 and 1888. Howard Shanet, in Philharmonic: A History of New York’s Orchestra (1975), stated that the Aschenbroedel Verein was the first organization in New York to advance the unionization of musicians, as early as 1860, an effort that culminated later with the formation of the Musical Mutual Protective Union. Shanet called Aschenbroedel “at once a cultural, a benevolent, a social, and a labor association.” He further emphasized the total domination of the symphonic world in New York by the German community, with nearly all of the Philharmonic men of German birth or parentage by 1892. The Aschenbroedel Verein’s motto was “Freundschaft, Geselligkeit, Befoerderung der Kunst” (Friendship, Sociability, Advancement of the Art).

By 1870, there were an estimated 64 German musical societies within New York City, and a number of them were located in the vicinity, either in converted structures or purpose-built ones. These included the Arion Singing Society (founded 1854); Liederkranz (founded 1847), 31-35 East 4th Street; and Beethoven Maennerchor (founded 1859), located in a hall built in 1870 (William Graul, architect) at 210-214 East 5th Street. In addition, Turnverein Halle (1871), 66-68 East 4th Street, was built just down the block from the Aschenbroedel Verein.

In 1873, the Aschenbroedel Verein, under president George Matzka (died 1883), constructed this purpose-built structure, clad in brick and four stories (plus basement; the rear portion is only two stories), at an estimated cost of $24,000. Construction began in June and was completed in October. The architect was August H. Blankenstein (1830-1914), who was born in Germany and immigrated to the U.S. in 1860. Active from 1872 to 1899, he designed tenement, flats, and factory buildings for a mostly German clientele, as well as the addition to the Centre Market Armory (1873-74; demolished), Grand and Centre Streets; work on the 55th Regiment, 23rd Regiment, and First Cavalry 22nd Regiment Armories (c. 1878); and St. Joseph’s R.C. Orphan Asylum School (1883, demolished), Avenue A and 90th Street. A 1894 lawsuit indicated that Blankenstein had been a partner of architect Henry Herter prior to 1886 (Herter then became a partner in [Ernest W.] Schneider & Herter). Blankenstein was also listed as an architect in an 1890 directory in Buffalo, N.Y.

The Times reported on November 7, 1873, that the Aschenbroedel Verein had “inaugurated its new club-house... last night, by an entertainment of music and social festivities.” Considered “one of the most commodious German clubhouses in the city,” its amenities included a restaurant, a library, a billiard room, and a bowling alley in the basement. Among activities conducted here were meetings of the Ancient Lodge of Perfection (Scottish Rite) in 1873, and the 1876 funeral of Philharmonic conductor and Aschenbroedel Verein member Carl Bergmann. For unknown reasons, the building was listed for sale in 1882, but the Aschenbroedel Verein remained here until it sold the building in September 1891. The society, then having some 700 members, moved in November 1892 into a new clubhouse (George H. Griebel, architect; demolished) at 144 East 86th Street in Yorkville.

The Gesangverein Schillerbund and Schillerbund Halle

In June 1892, the Aschenbroedel Verein Building was acquired by the Gesangverein Schillerbund (Schillerbund Singing Society), one of the city’s leading and oldest German singing societies. Founded in 1850 and named after the poet Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (1759-1805), the Schillerbund had been meeting since 1872 in Turnverein Halle. The purchase price of its new building was $1.00, subject to $37,500 in mortgages held by the Bachmann Brewing Co. of Clifton, Staten Island. This structure was altered between September and October 1892 by the architectural firm of [Frederick William] Kurtzer & [Richard O.L.] Rohl. Interestingly, Kurtzer was a member of the Beethoven Maennerchor. In partnership from about 1888 until 1901, Kurtzer & Rohl specialized in tenements and flats buildings for a largely German clientele; examples of its work include Nos. 95 Bedford Street (1894) and 285 West 4th Street (1900), located within the Greenwich Village Historic District, and No. 121 East 10th Street (1899), located within the St. Mark’s Historic District. The firm was also responsible for the First German Reformed Church (1897, demolished), 351 East 68th Street, and its Sunday School (1901). Richard O.L. Rohl (1857-1923), an immigrant from Prussia in 1880, maintained an independent practice from 1902 until around 1919. No. 391 West Street (aka 8 Weehawken Street) (1902), located within the Weehawken Street Historic District, was his first independent commission, and he also designed the double tenement buildings at Nos. 35-39 Christopher Street (1907), located within the Greenwich Village Historic District. Frederick William Kurtzer (c. 1849- ), emigrated from Germany around 1870. He worked independently in 1901-02, then became a partner in Kurtzer & Rentz in 1903-06, with Charles Rentz, Jr. (1855-1906), an architect who was born in New York City of German descent. Rentz was extraordinarily prolific in the design of flats and tenement buildings in the 1880s, but is best known for the design of Webster Hall and Annex (1886-87, 1892). Kurtzer continued to practice in Manhattan and the Bronx until around 1925.

The Dept. of Buildings 1892 alteration application for the Gesangverein Schillerbund Building, as well as the dockets, only listed $1,200 in work, involving interior partition alterations in the basement (and a new bowling alley) and second story. In an article on the building’s opening in November 1892, however, the New York Times indicated that it had been “almost entirely rebuilt and refitted,” and that “the building cost in all about $45,000. ... On the ground floor are fine bowling alleys, the kitchen and restaurant. The second floor is used for assembly and meeting rooms, the third for lodge rooms, and the top of the house is occupied by the tenant.” The 1892 tax assessment for the property increased by more than 25 percent, and the structure was later described in the Times as “one of the best Maennerchor clubhouses in that section of this city.” The design of the main facade, altered at this time with the addition of cast-iron ornament, combines elements of the German Renaissance Revival and neo-Grec styles with folk motifs (including hearts), and features a variety of pedimented lintels, quoins, fraktur-like incising, three composers’ busts over the second-story windows, and a prominent cornice with a large broken pediment.

A Schillerbund Fair was held here December 10-20, 1892. By 1895, the membership of the Schillerbund was around 400, and the hall, managed by Gustav Schunemann, reportedly enjoyed “much popularity among the merrymakers of that neighborhood.” In November 1896, however, the Gesangverein Schillerbund sold the property and moved to Yorkville (later returning to another building on East 4th Street). This building was purchased for $40,195 by the Bachmann Brewing Co., holder of the mortgage. The company was founded by the German-born Frederick Bachmann (1839-1905), who had immigrated to New York in 1859, and worked at the Lion Brewery in Manhattan, prior to moving to Staten Island, where he was employed by the Schmidt Brewery and Gabriel Meyer Brewery, becoming the co-owner with David Meyer until it was destroyed by fire in 1881. As indicated by Charles L. Sachs in Made on Staten Island, “The successful breweries were not just efficient manufacturing enterprises. To market and distribute their products the breweries acquired real estate holdings and developed close ties with the restaurant, recreation, and tourism businesses. The major breweries owned, operated, and rented saloons, taverns, beer gardens, hotels, and even resort complexes.”

This building became a rental assembly hall, and there are references in newspapers calling it “Schillerbund Halle” as late as 1901. A sampling of meetings and events held here included: pattern makers (1895); Eastern Star chapter of the Order of Chosen Friends (1897); New York branch of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers (1897); New York Engineers & Machinists Society (1897); New York Engineers’ Protective Association (1900); and Poles celebrating the 1863 insurrection (1901).

Krywaczy’s Hall, Saenger Hall, and McKinley Hall

The building continued to be used as a public rental hall and social center, under three different names, and like such sites as Webster Hall (though on a smaller scale), was a venue for organizational meetings and political and union functions, particularly for the working-class and immigrant population of the Lower East Side. As opined by historian Kathy Peiss:

For the working-class population packed into small tenement apartments, large halls that could be rented for dances, weddings, mass meetings, and other gatherings were a requirement of social life. The number of public halls in Manhattan rose substantially in a short period; business directories listed 130 halls in 1895 and 195 in 1910, an increase of 50 percent. While some of these, like Carnegie Hall, were cultural spaces of the privileged, most were located in working-class districts. The largest East Side halls... were always in great demand.

In a September 12, 1901, New York Times announcement of a meeting here of the Polish community to denounce Leon Czolgosz, an anarchist who had shot President William McKinley on September 6, the location was referred to as “Krywaczy’s Hall” (McKinley died on the day of the meeting). John Krywacsy (Krywaczy) was listed in directories as a liquor dealer on Forsyth Street. City directories in 1901-03, as well as the 1903 Brooklyn Daily Eagle Almanac, called this “Saenger Hall.” The Bachmann Brewing Co. leased the property in April 1903 to Max Sapiro and Ike Lifschitz. Sapiro was listed in the 1910 Census as a Polish/Austrian-born café proprietor, though he was not listed in directories in connection with this property, while Issac Lifshitz (Ike Lifschitz) was Russian-born according to the 1900 Census, and was listed in directories in this building in 1903-05 (in 1903 as partner of Joseph Lublinsky) operating a saloon. Among groups meeting here were the Heinrich Heine lodge (1902), Smoking Pipe Makers’ Union (1903), and East Side Restaurant Keepers (1903). Apparently in commemoration of the assassinated President, the name of the building was changed to “McKinley Hall” by 1904. Organizations that met here included the formation of the New-York Rent Payers’ Protective Association (1904), Lady Lining Makers (1904), and Cloth Hat and Cap Makers of North America (1904-07). Frederick Bachmann was judged to be incompetent in July 1904 (he died in January 1905); in November 1904, Bachmann’s trustees transferred this property to Combined Securities Co., which held an auction in January 1905. The auction advertisement listed “Bowling alleys in cellar. Store, meeting, lodge, music rooms, and apartments above.” After passing through several owners, the building was acquired in February 1906 by Malka Marder; the wife of Benjamin Marder, a cloak contractor in the 1910 Census, both were Polish/Austrian-born.

The Newsboys’ Athletic Club

In September 1905, the three upper stories of the former McKinley Hall were leased for use as the Newsboys’ Athletic Club, founded by Jack Sullivan (ne Jacob A. Reich), known as the “King of the Newsboys,” a former newsboy and prizefighter who then sold papers to newsboys. The Club had a gymnasium and showers, a reading/classroom, and a lodging room for over fifty boys. The club depended on donations from New York’s society – one benefit, held in March 1907 at the Academy of Music, was directed by impresarios George M. Cohan and Sam Harris. By May 1911, with the expiration of its lease, the Club, by that time serving some 2,000 newsboys, purchased the former home of the New-York Historical Society at Second Avenue and 11th Street. The basement and storefront of the Newsboys’ Athletic Club building had been leased for use as a laundry in 1905-07 to Paul C. Port (also at 88 East 4th Street), and from 1908 to March 1912 to the New System Napkin, Towel Supply & Steam Laundry Co., until legal action against the company was taken by the Marders.

Floral Garden Hall

Malka Marder sold the building in February 1913, and it was purchased the following month by Sarah Hirsch, the wife of Charles Hirsch, proprietor of the Manhattan Lyceum (formerly Turnverein Halle) at 66-68 East 4th Street; both Hirsches were born in Romania. Operated as Floral Garden Hall, it was altered into a dance hall on the ground story, with meeting and banquet rooms above. Among the many events held here were: the annual convention of the Federation of Rumanian Jews of America (1913); Brotherhood Welfare Association gathering on behalf of New York’s hoboes (1913); Women Dressmakers’ Association and Journeymen Barbers’ League strike meetings (1914); a planned meeting of the Anti-Militarist League, which resulted in a riot after the owner reneged on the use of the hall (1914); Sheet Metal (Automobile) Workers’ meetings (1914); garment workers strike meetings (1916); Messenger Boys’ Union strike headquarters (1916); and Branch No. 578, Arbeiter Ring (Workmen’s Circle) of the Socialist Party, and Sholom Aleichem Lodge of the Jewish National Workers’ Alliance of America (1917-18). In 1916, the ground story was altered for a storefront, incorporating 1892 cast-iron pilasters (which survive). The property was foreclosed in January 1919 and sold at auction.

Standard Provision Co./ Hygrade Food Products Corp.

After 45 years of use as a social and meeting hall, the former Aschenbroedel Verein Building for the next four decades served as meatpacking plant. The property was purchased in February 1919 by the Standard Provision Co. (Isidor Chorney, president) at 102 Rivington Street. A Dept. of Buildings application indicated that the building would be used for meatpacking, with storage in the basement, shipping and receiving on the ground story, a meat provisions and drying factory on the second story, and offices on the third story. In December 1927, Standard Provision was acquired through a merger of nine wholesale provisions companies by the Hygrade Food Products Corp. (Hugo Slotkin, president), 152 Broadway. The Washington Post called this “the first consolidation of delicatessen food properties ever effected.” According to a notice in the New York Times, the constituent companies

manufacture and sell frankfurters, bolognas, salamis, smoked and cured tongues, spiced, pickled and corned beef and various other ready-to-serve meat products. The companies are among the most important serving New York and Philadelphia. Their success individually and collectively has established an enviable record in the industry. Their products are sold to over 5,000 customers, including delicatessen stores, chain stores, drug stores, meat markets, clubs, grocers, hotels, restaurants, steamship and railroad companies, etc., throughout the United States and in foreign countries.

City directories over the years variously listed divisions of the corporation here: Hebrew National Food Products (c.1928-29); Carmel Kosher Provision Co. (c. 1933-45); and Hod Carmel Kosher Provision Co. (c. 1950-57). Hygrade sold this property in February 1960.

20th-Century History of the East Village

After a period of decline, Greenwich Village was becoming known, prior to World War I, for its historic and picturesque qualities, its affordable housing, and the diversity of its population and social and political ideas. Many artists and writers, as well as tourists, were attracted to the Village. By the 1910s, property owners and merchants attempted to improve the Village’s economy and rehabilitate its physical condition, with “shrewd realtors beg[inning] to amass their holdings of dilapidated housing.” These various factors and the increased desirability of the Village to upper-middle-class professionals lead to a real estate boom – “rents increased during the 1920s by 140 percent and in some cases by as much as 300 percent.”

After World War II, the ethnic make-up of the Lower East Side changed again, becoming dominated by Latin American immigrants, especially those from Puerto Rico. Their immigration was encouraged by the government as a source of cheap labor, particularly for the garment trades, hotels, and small manufacturing. The community named itself Loisaida to symbolize the second generation Hispanic roots that had developed in the context of the African-American and Latino movements for social and economic justice, equality, and identity. The residential and cultural desirability of the neighborhood that came to be known as the “East Village” increased with the removal of the Third Avenue El in 1955. As indicated by Terry Miller,

the psychological barrier that had marked the eastern boundary of Greenwich Village was gone. Blocks that once had no prestige were suddenly seen as intriguing, and apartments here were less costly than those in Greenwich Village. ... As artists and writers moved east, the blocks from St. Mark’s Place to Tenth Street were the first to hint that the Lower East Side was being transformed. Realtors began marketing the area as “Village East,” and by 1961 as the “East Village,” a name that stuck.

From World War I to the 1940s, Second Avenue between East 14th and Houston Streets had been considered the heart of New York’s Jewish community, known as the “Yiddish Rialto” for its role as the world’s center of Yiddish theater. As Yiddish theater declined, the East Village gave rise in the 1950s to “Off-Broadway” theater, including the Phoenix Theater (1953-61) in the former Louis N. Jaffe Art Theater (Yiddish Art Theater) building (1925-26, Harrison G. Wiseman), 181-189 Second Avenue; the Tempo Playhouse and Pyramid, Key, Bowery, New Bowery, and Bridge Theaters (1955-67) in the former Hamilton-Holly House, 4 St. Marks Place; and the Orpheum Theater (1958), 126 Second Avenue. An “off-Off-Broadway” theater also emerged in the late 1950s, characterized by the small size of the venues and total avoidance of commercialism and its pressures. Joe Cino’s Caffe Cino (1958), 31 Cornelia Street, is generally recognized as the first, and other significant early off-Off-Broadway theaters were Judson Memorial Church (1961) under Rev. Al Carmines; Ellen Stewart’s Café La Mama/ La Mama Experimental Theatre Club (1961), 321 East 9th Street (after 1969 at 74 East 4th Street); and Theater Genesis (1964) in St. Marks in the Bowery Church under Michael Allen and Ralph Cook. Off-Off Broadway theater coincided with the emergence of gay theater in New York.

In the 1950s, the East Village also became home to a number of key Beat Generation writers, including Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Norman Mailer, and W.H. Auden, and was renowned for its protest art and politics, galleries, poetry and coffee houses, bookstores, clubs, with a “counterculture” scene centered on St. Mark’s Place.

Rodale Press, Inc.

The 74 East 4th Street building was purchased in February 1960 by Rodale Press, Inc., of Emmaus, Pa. Jerome Irving Rodale (1898-1971) was a New York accountant who, with a brother, in 1923 founded Rodale Mfg. Co., which made commercial and residential electrical connectors. After relocating the firm to Emmaus, Rodale became interested in organic farming. Rodale Press began publishing Organic Farming & Gardening (1942) and Prevention (1950), a magazine devoted to nutrition and personal health, and later, other magazines and health books. In order to promote his concepts, he was also a playwright and theatrical producer. Rodale apparently originally intended to use No. 74 as a theater – the Times listed building plans as such in 1960; instead, Rodale in 1962 purchased No. 64 East 4th Street with the intention to “convert it into an intimate playhouse, theatre workshop and acting school.” A directory in 1963 listed Rodale Press and the Rodale Theater at 62 East 4th Street, and Rodale Mfg. Co. at No. 60. Rodale sold the property in September 1967.

La Mama Experimental Theatre Club

In November 1967, the former Aschenbroedel Verein Building was acquired by the La Mama Experimental Theatre Club, an off-Off-Broadway theater company that had been founded in 1961 by Ellen Stewart. After her arrival in New York in 1950, Ms. Stewart worked in retail clothing and fashion, becoming a freelance designer. She opened a basement Café La Mama at 321 East 9th Street in 1961, intended as a combination boutique and theater, the latter partly inspired by the experience of a brother who was an aspiring playwright. The café’s first play in July 1962 was Tennessee Williams’ “One Arm,” and later that year Stewart put on the first American production of a Harold Pinter play, “The Room.” She was forced, however, to move several times: to 82 Second Avenue in 1963, after being closed by the Dept. of Buildings due to a zoning violation; and to a loft at 122 Second Avenue in 1964, after being closed twice by the Police, Fire, Licenses, and Health Departments. In March 1964, the company was renamed the La Mama Experimental Theatre Club, and Stewart was acclaimed during its first European tour in 1965. An Actors’ Equity crackdown in 1966 on coffee houses and theater workshops nearly ended the company, but the union relented in recognition of the importance in New York of experimental theater (La Mama then adhered to a policy of no formal admission charge – instead there was a $1 per week membership fee – and a maximum of ten performances). By 1967, the Times called Ms. Stewart “the most active producer in New York City,” with a new American play every two weeks. Her abiding philosophy has been that La Mama is “dedicated to the playwright and all forms of theater.” She notes that “I started La Mama so there would be a place where a playwright could write, see and learn. Why should a new playwright be regarded on the same terms as an experienced playwright the very first time out – which is what most professional criticism does?” She has personally selected and invited these playwrights, who then act as their own producer, with La Mama considered an attractive venue due to its lack of censorship.

La Mama received major Ford and Rockefeller Foundations grants in 1967, allowing the purchase and renovation of the 74 East 4th Street building, which was then “in ruins.” In June 1968, its Second Avenue theater closed, with plays temporarily produced at 9 St. Mark’s Place, while renovations occurred on East 4th Street. The current La Mama Experimental Theatre Club opened in March 1969, with repertory and ensemble theaters on the first and second stories, rehearsal space on the third story, and Stewart’s apartment on the top story. The first two productions inaugurating the theaters were the musical “Caution: A Love Story,” by Tom Eyen and Bruce Kirle, based on the story of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, and Julie Bovasso’s “Gloria and Esperanza.” The first-story theater was renovated in 1972. A National Endowment for the Arts grant in 1974 allowed for the expansion into an Annex at 66-68 East 4th Street (former Turnverein Halle).

Today, La Mama, the oldest off-Off-Broadway theater in New York City, is widely considered the most influential and has been called “the most prolific of all the off off-Broadway stages,” to date having produced an estimated 1,900 plays in New York City, and countless more around the world. La Mama has received more than sixty Obie Awards for Off-Broadway theater (including a Special Obie for its 20th anniversary in 1981), as well as dozens of Drama Desk, Bessie, and Villager Awards. Ellen Stewart, recognized as a pioneering African-American theater impresario, was the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship Award (1985) and MacArthur Fellows Award (1991), and was inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame (1993). Though commercial theater has not been its focus, a number of La Mama plays achieved success on Broadway, including “Godspell” and “Torch Song Trilogy,” and its resident director, Tom O’Horgan, later produced the influential hit “Hair.” Among the notable playwrights associated with La Mama have been Jean-Claude van Itallie, Paul Foster, Ruth Yorck, Tom Eyen, Julie Bovasso, David Starkweather, Sam Shepard, Lanford Wilson, Harvey Fierstein, William Hoffman, Adrienne Kennedy, Charles Ludlam, and Terence McNally; eminent directors have included O’Horgan, Joseph Chaiken, Andrei Serban, Wilford Leach, John Vacarro, Marshall Mason, and Meredith Monk; and performers of note have included Bill Irwin, Billy Crystal, Nick Nolte, Danny De Vito, Bette Midler, and Estelle Getty.

Description

The four-story (plus basement; the rear portion is only two stories) and three-bay, red brick-clad Aschenbroedel Verein Building was originally built in 1873; the front facade was altered in 1892 with the addition of cast-iron ornament that combines elements of the German Renaissance Revival and neo-Grec styles with folk motifs.

Ground Story: Four 1892 cast-iron pilasters survive, which are fluted at the base, paneled above, and ornamented with incised blocks that are surmounted by bosses and inverted hearts. The iron entablature once supported by the pilasters has been removed (post-1939); the story is terminated by a painted stone stringcourse. Alterations dating from 1969 (or after) include: the central metal-and-glass entrance doors (with stone threshold), which are surmounted by a wooden panel and sign; brick infill between and above the pilasters; announcement board on the east side of the facade; and two light fixtures placed above the entrance.

Second through Fourth Stories: The upper stories are flanked by vermiculated cast-iron quoins (many blocks and/or vermiculation are missing). All windows have cast-iron surrounds, ornamented with hearts on the sides and incised motifs on the sills, and are linked together and to the quoins by panels with fraktur-like incising. Many of the moldings once located above the hearts on the windows are missing. The second-story windows are double-height, are capped by round-arched pediments ornamented with three composers’ busts, and have six-over-six double-hung wood sash (the outer windows have transoms, while the central window has double pairs). The third story windows have segmental broken-scroll pediments (only the eastern window has a surviving acroterion ornament) and six-over-six double-hung wood sash (paired in the center). The central fourth-story window is capped by a pediment, while the outer windows have entablatures (the western window’s was replaced in pressed metal c. 1980s-90s; all have six-over-six double-hung wood sash (paired in the center). The prominent metal cornice has stylized modillions ornamented with hearts (the easternmost is missing), rods, and incised ends and is surmounted by a large molded, broken pediment, ornamented at the ends by sunbursts.

Western Facade: This facade, currently visible above the first story, has keyed returns of the front facade’s quoins, and a portion of red brick facing; the rest of the facade is unarticulated and parged.

Eastern Facade: Attached to the eastern side of the building [and not on the designated Landmark Site] is a tan brick wall, constructed as part of a light court for No. 63-65 Second Avenue (aka 76-82 East 4th Street) (1926, Charles B. Meyers).

- From the 2009 NYCLPC Landmark Designation Report

Col George Taylor Denison by Shannon Stafford

DENISON, GEORGE TAYLOR, lawyer, militia officer, author, politician, police magistrate, and imperialist; b. 31 Aug. 1839 in Toronto, eldest child of George Taylor Denison* and Mary Anne Dewson; m. first 20 Jan. 1863 Caroline Macklem (d. 1885) in Chippawa, Upper Canada, and they had three sons and three daughters; m. secondly 1 Dec. 1887 Helen Amanda Mair in Perth, Ont., and they had two daughters; d. 6 June 1925 in Toronto.

Known by contemporaries as the “watchdog” of the British empire, George Taylor Denison inherited a family legacy of antipathy to the United States, loyalty to the crown, conservative political values, and military service. His great-grandfather, a brewer and farmer from Yorkshire, was induced to immigrate to Upper Canada in 1792 by the province’s receiver and auditor general, Peter Russell*. For managing Russell’s estate at York (Toronto), he received a 1,000-acre grant. His grandfather George Taylor Denison I, who married the daughter of a prominent landowner and United Empire Loyalist, added to the family tradition of imperial service by enlisting with the 3rd York Militia during the War of 1812. The tradition continued with his father, George Taylor Denison II, who served during the rebellion of 1837–38, played an important role in the reorganization of the Canadian militia in 1855, and commanded the 1st Volunteer Militia Troop of Cavalry of York County (designated the Governor General’s Body Guard in 1866). As well, he was an alderman for St Patrick’s Ward in Toronto. The burden of tradition and expectation thus weighed heavily upon George Taylor Denison III.

As befitted his family’s social status, Denison was educated at Upper Canada College, where his performance was unspectacular. Expelled from Trinity College by provost George Whitaker* for insubordinate behaviour, he transferred to the University of Toronto and earned a degree in law. Called to the bar in 1861, he would later go into practice with his brother Frederick Charles*. The law, however, held no interest for him. His heart was with the militia. Gazetted cornet in his father’s troop in the fall of 1854, he rapidly rose through the ranks, from captain in 1857 to lieutenant-colonel and commander in 1866.

Denison’s passion for military matters and gift for polemics first became evident in 1861 when, in the wake of the Trent affair [see Sir Charles Hastings Doyle*], he anonymously published Canada, is she prepared for war? (Toronto). This pamphlet, which urged British North Americans to uphold their forefathers’ martial valour and to ready themselves against a possible attack from the United States, ignited a lively newspaper debate and soon resulted in another tract, The national defences . . . (Toronto, 1861), in which Denison argued for a properly trained and equipped mounted infantry. In A review of the militia policy of the present administration (Hamilton, 1863) he responded (under the pseudonym Junius) to the defeat of John A. Macdonald*’s Militia Bill of 1862 with a scathing attack on the government’s neglect and ignorance of military matters.

Denison aspired to a career as a professional soldier, but his sympathy for the South during the American Civil War ultimately cost him his ambition. His identification with the South came naturally: it represented an idyllic society that embodied the social order, conservative values, and chivalric traditions he wished to see maintained in British North America. He drew parallels between his loyalist ancestors, who had fought to uphold their principles against the demagoguery of American patriots, and the southerners, who were struggling to preserve their identity and way of life. Fearing the consequences of a northern victory for the future of British North America, Denison actively backed the Confederate cause despite Britain’s official neutrality. In September 1864 he received a visit from his uncle George Dewson of Florida, who had been commissioned to assess support for the Confederacy in British North America. Denison’s farm home, Heydon Villa, on his father’s estate in west Toronto, became a haven for Confederate agents, exiles, and sympathizers and a clearing house for smuggled documents. He also became involved in efforts to purchase the steamer Georgian, which was to be used as a raider on the Great Lakes. The diplomatic crisis and lawsuits that followed the discovery of this plan effectively ended his prospects for a full-time military career, a disappointment that repeated promises from politicians and his own tireless efforts could not reverse. A frustrated Denison entered local politics and served as a councilman for St Patrick’s Ward from 1865 to 1867. He commanded the Governor General’s Body Guard during the Fenian raids of 1866 and wrote Modern cavalry: its organisation, armament, and employment in war . . . (London, 1868), an impassioned case for mounted infantry based on his own experience and close study of the Civil War. He suffered another blow to his ego when British critics dismissed the book as the work of a mere colonial.

Appalled by the lack of national spirit following confederation, disillusioned by the state of Canadian politics, and fearful of the United States, Denison joined with Charles Mair, William Alexander Foster*, and others to found the Canada First movement in 1868. Inspired by Thomas D’Arcy McGee*’s vision of a northern nation, Canada First celebrated the new dominion’s rugged landscape and climate and its Anglo-Saxon/Protestant heritage. This small social group was hurled into national prominence by the Red River uprising of 1869–70. Seeing the actions of Louis Riel* and his followers as an affront to Canada’s territorial ambition, the group launched a vigorous assault upon the “traitors.” Denison led the charge, writing bellicose letters to the newspapers, organizing demonstrations, and appealing to all loyal English-speaking Canadians to defend their birthright. Special venom was reserved for Sir George-Étienne Cartier*, the militia minister who had blocked Denison’s advancement to the post of adjutant general of cavalry and who, in Denison’s eyes, represented French Canadian opposition to the force sent to Red River.

The success of these tactics had a lasting effect on Denison. The same belligerent rhetoric and fearmongering would characterize his later campaigns against closer economic relations with the United States and on behalf of imperial unity. His immediate priority, however, was ensuring the Anglo-Saxon character of the northwest. He and his Canada First associates created the North West Emigration Aid Society in 1870 to assist in the recruitment of desirable settlers. Denison outlined his national vision in an address he first delivered in Weston (Toronto) in early 1871, “The duty of Canadians to Canada,” in which he attacked British indifference and warned of the dominion’s vulnerability. Canada’s destiny, he insisted, depended on the cultivation of pride and patriotism, the development of its resources, and the creation of politics freed of faction and dedicated to the national good. Such a course would allow Canada to assume its rightful place as a full partner in the empire. Disillusioned with the governing Conservative party, he sought election to the House of Commons for Algoma as a Liberal in 1872. Defeated by John Beverley Robinson*, he was rewarded for his efforts by friends in the provincial Liberal government of Oliver Mowat* and made Ontario’s emigration commissioner in London. His exposure there to reviving imperialist feeling reinforced his Canada First sentiments. The position was temporary, however, and he returned to Canada in early 1874, with no immediate prospects before him.

As Denison approached middle age, he was haunted by his lack of personal accomplishment. “If a man does not make his mark in the world or be in a fair way of doing it before he is forty he will never do anything afterwards,” his father had once warned him. When he learned of the substantial cash prizes offered by the Russian government for the best history of cavalry, he decided to return to his first love, the military, and resolved to make his reputation as a military historian. He threw himself into the work, rising early to read and write, acquiring a large library on military history at great expense, and travelling to London and St Petersburg to do research. Denison completed his magnum opus in December 1876 and presented the manuscript to the prize committee in person, but it refused to consider his work on the grounds that the translation, done by a Russian woman in New York, was sub-standard. Only after the book appeared in English was he awarded the 5,000-rouble first prize. Although A history of cavalry from the earliest times, with lessons for the future (London, 1877) received mixed reviews at the time, it has since been hailed as the definitive work in the field.

On his return to Canada in 1877, Denison assumed the post of police magistrate for the City of Toronto, a position he would retain until the summer of 1921. He owed the appointment to Oliver Mowat. Denison’s contemporary seat on the Board of Police Commissioners was not seen as a conflict of interest. He ran his court like a well-oiled machine. Much to the annoyance of the city officials who paid his salary, he routinely cleared his docket in a couple of hours before lunch. Usually faced with an enormous caseload, and with little interest in the causes or prevention of crime, he had no use for legal technicalities or procedural niceties. His was “a court of justice, not a court of law,” he proudly asserted. By his own admission, he relied more on intuition than on evidence. Although he liked to boast that he judged impartially, some groups fared better than others: retired soldiers and members of Toronto’s respectable classes could expect leniency but striking workers, parvenus, Irishmen, and blacks invariably received harsh treatment. Denison nonetheless took a paternal interest in the unfortunate members of the lower classes who filed through his court. He championed legal aid, chastised the legal profession for profiting from people’s misfortunes and prolonging cases, and denounced moral reform groups that tried to impose their standards upon criminal elements “who offended their tender susceptibilities.” His unorthodox methods were notorious – his court even became something of a tourist attraction. By the time of his retirement, there were calls for a full overhaul of the then outmoded Police Court, which consisted of four magistrates, including Rupert Etherege Kingsford*, women’s and children’s divisions, and seven clerks.

Denison’s swift administration of justice freed him to pursue other interests. An Anglican of evangelical inclination, he helped found and served on the first board of management of the Protestant Episcopal Divinity School [see James Paterson Sheraton*]. He became one of the principal forces behind the revival of the loyalist tradition, as an organizer of the loyalist centennial celebrations in 1884 and a founding member in 1896 of the United Empire Loyalist Association of Ontario. He broadcast the tradition long and often. In his presidential address to the Royal Society of Canada in 1904, for instance, he spoke on the loyalist influence in Canadian history. He found in the tradition not only the reflected glory of his ancestors’ accomplishments but also a usable past, which could be called upon to justify closer ties to Britain and the empire and to attack opponents who advocated greater independence or closer economic and political relations with the United States. As constructed by Denison and others, the tradition served too to defend a social order threatened by industrialization, urbanization, and immigration. Denison’s rabid anti-Americanism, in fact, owed much to his fear that the social ailments afflicting the United States would soon infect Canada.

Denison’s patriotism had been tested in the spring of 1885, when he and the Governor General’s Body Guard saw service during the North-West rebellion. Because of his lingering hostility to the federal government, he had little enthusiasm for the conflict and had initially refused to volunteer his troop. He objected, he told Charles Mair in March, to the use of the militia “to defend a Government of land sharks who have villainously wronged the poor native and the actual settler.” Moreover, he had been deeply shaken by the death of his wife on 26 February. His fighting spirit returned with the formation in May of the Canadian branch of the Imperial Federation League; he was named chair of the branch’s organizing committee, and would later be vice-president and president. Although Denison and the league succeeded in whipping up nationalistic fervour, especially after the appearance in 1887 of the movement for commercial union with the United States [see Erastus Wiman*], they failed to convince the league’s British members of the virtue of imperial trade preferences. When internal divisions caused the league to collapse, Denison played an important role in 1895 in creating a new organization, the British Empire League, and he would serve as president of its Canadian branch for many years. Although military considerations dominated Denison’s imperial outlook, he frequently used the rhetoric of religious crusade in his speeches and writings, and his evangelical Anglicanism certainly helped shape his view of events. In this religious sense, his imperialism was comparable to that of George Monro Grant* and George Robert Parkin.

Colonel Denison remained in the vanguard of the imperialist cause throughout the remainder of his life. He championed Canadian participation in the South African War and contributions to the Royal Navy, he surpassed most imperialists by campaigning in 1902 for an imperial defence fund derived from duties on foreign imports into Britain and the colonies, and he vigorously opposed the efforts of Sir Wilfrid Laurier*’s government to negotiate reciprocity with the United States in 1911. A frequent speaker and newspaper commentator, he brought to the cause an unrelenting drive and a steely resistance to criticism. Passed over several times for imperial honours, he eventually claimed he had not wanted any. “His self-laudation has long been a standing joke in Canada,” Governor General Lord Minto [Elliot*] confided to Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain in 1900. As well, some British career soldiers regarded his Body Guard as a showy, lightweight outfit, top-heavy with officers and ncos. Unswayed, he chronicled his efforts on behalf of the empire, and his arguments for federation and against free trade, in The struggle for imperial unity . . . (Toronto, 1909). With the approach of war in Europe, he found a new demon, Germany. Although his combination of anti-Americanism, imperialism, and nationalism lost much of its force in the years following World War I, Denison remained unmoved in his convictions.

Despite his celebrity, relatively little is known about his private and family life. He kept a daily diary from 1864 until his death, but rarely recorded his deepest personal thoughts. In 1863 he had married the niece of the Reverend Thomas Brock Fuller*; in 1887 he married Charles Mair’s 22-year-old niece. He appears to have been a demanding but loving father who impressed on his sons the same spirit of loyalty, duty, and family pride that had been implanted in him during his own childhood. Extremely class-conscious, he raised his daughters to assume their rightful place at the top of respectable society.

His stern and headstrong manner notwithstanding, Denison had a great sense of humour and relished the caricatures drawn of him in the press. He was almost always portrayed in military uniform striking the pose of the stereotypical British officer and gentleman. He loved to entertain and Heydon Villa, which he rebuilt in 1880, became a regular stop for notables visiting Toronto. A man of boundless energy and ambition, he kept up an exhaustive correspondence with the public men of his day. He thoroughly enjoyed the cut and thrust of vigorous debate but his absolute faith in the correctness of his beliefs cost him several friendships, including that of Goldwin Smith*, whom he almost single-handedly had ostracized from polite Toronto society. By 1922 Denison’s health was failing and he died at Heydon Villa in 1925 at the age of 85.

George Taylor Denison had been raised to be a public man. Although few could match his contribution to the discussions of the great political issues of the day, his life was full of disappointments. Unable to achieve a military career or high elected office, he settled into a series of patronage appointments and crusades. His impact on Canadian opinion lay as much in the opposition he provoked as in the causes he advocated. In many respects, his life reflects the ideas and standards, the frustrations and anxieties, of a class and a generation whose values were fading before the forces that were transforming Canada into a North American nation.