Detroit Publishing Company

Old Patent Office Building, Washington, DC

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The Old Patent Office Building, seen from the corner of 7th Street NW and F Street NW in Washington, DC, around 1900. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

The building in 2021:

These two photos show the Old Patent Office Building, which was constructed in stages between 1836 and 1867. The building has a roughly rectangular footprint, with a courtyard in the center, and it occupies the entire block between F Street NW, G Street NW, 7th Street NW, and 9th Street NW. It was designed by prominent architect Robert Mills, with a Greek Revival style that was popular for public buildings of this era.

The oldest part of the building is the southern wing, shown here on F Street NW on the left side of the scene. It was completed in 1853, and it can be distinguished from the rest of the structure by the darker-colored sandstone exterior, in contrast to the lighter-colored marble of the later wings on the east and west. This wing originally had a large staircase at the main entrance, as shown in the first photo, but this was removed in 1936 when the street was widened.

The primary purpose for this building was to serve as a repository for models of new inventions, which had to be submitted as part of the patent process. However, the building also served a number of other roles in its early years, including as the home of the Department of the Interior from 1852 to 1917, as a hospital and barracks in the aftermath of the Battle of Antietam in 1863, and as the site of Lincoln’s second inaugural ball in 1865.

The building suffered a major fire in 1877 that caused significant damage to the building and the loss of many patent models, but it was subsequently restored. The Patent Office remained here until 1932, and the building was subsequently occupied by the Civil Service Commission. It was threatened by demolition in the 1950s, but it was ultimately preserved and designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1965. Since 1968, it has been the home of the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the National Portrait Gallery. With the exception of the stairs on the left side, the exterior has remained well-preserved throughout this time, and it stands as perhaps the finest example of Greek Revival architecture in Washington.

Soldiers and Sailors Monument, Boston

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The Soldiers and Sailors Monument on Boston Common, around 1890-1901. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

The monument in 2021:

This monument stands on Boston Common, and it was dedicated in 1877 in honor of the soldiers and sailors from Boston who fought for the Union during the Civil War. Nearly every town or city in New England has some kind of Civil War monument for its residents, but this one in Boston is particularly grand. It rises 126 feet in height, and it features five bronze statues, four bronze bas relief plaques, and a variety of other carvings and sculptures. It was the work of prominent Boston sculptor Martin Milmore, whose other noteworthy Civil War monuments include the Sphinx in Mount Auburn Cemetery.

The design of the monument was based on ancient Roman victory columns. On the lower part of the column are carvings of four allegorical figures, representing north, south, east, and west, and symbolizing the reunification of the country. On the top of the column is a larger-than-life bronze statue representing America, with the flag in her left hand and a sheathed sword and laurel wreath on her right hand, symbolizing peace and victory.

Near the base of the monument are four bronze statues, each nine feet in height. Two are male figures and two are female, and they represent the Army, the Navy, Peace, and History. From the angle of these two photos, the two statues in the foreground are Peace on the left and Navy on the right. The statue of a soldier, representing Army, is barely visible on the left side, and the History statue is hidden from view in this scene. In between the statues are four bronze bas reliefs, each depicting a scene related to the war. One shows soldiers departing for the war, another shows them returning, and the other two commemorate the Navy and the Sanitary Commission.

The statue was dedicated on September 17, 1877, on the fifteenth anniversary of the Battle of Antietam. It was a major event, drawing Civil War veterans from across the state, along with many prominent dignitaries, including Generals George B. McClellan and Joseph Hooker. The day’s festivities began with a long procession to the Common, where the Colt’s Armory Band opened the ceremony with a hymn. The sculptor, Martin Milmore, then delivered brief remarks and presented the monument to the city. He was followed by Alderman Francis Thompson and Mayor Frederick Prince, who each gave an address. Next was the keynote speech, delivered by General Charles Devens, a Massachusetts native and Civil War general who was, by this point, serving in the Cabinet as the US Attorney General.

The first photo was taken several decades after the monument was installed here, at a time when many of the city’s Civil War veterans were still alive. Today, more than a century later, the city has undergone significant transformations, but this scene has remained essentially unchanged. The monument looks as good now as it did in the first photo, largely because of a major restoration that was completed in 2014. This project included cleaning and repointing the granite, along with removing, cleaning, repairing, and reinstalling the four pedestal statues.

Mount Auburn Sphinx, Watertown, Mass

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The Sphinx at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Watertown, around 1900-1906. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

The scene in 2021:

Civil War monuments are a ubiquitous feature in towns throughout New England. Most of these were dedicated in the late 19th century, and their designs typically consist of a soldier in uniform, standing atop a pedestal that is inscribed with names of battles, patriotic sentiments, or similar statements. However, perhaps the most unusual Civil War monument in the region is the Sphinx, located here in Mount Auburn Cemetery. It was commissioned by Dr. Jacob Bigelow and designed by prominent sculptor Martin Milmore, and it was installed in 1872, on a site directly across from the cemetery chapel.

Jacob Bigelow was a prominent Boston physician who, in the early 19th century, proposed the idea of a rural, park-like cemetery on the outskirts of Boston. The result was Mount Auburn Cemetery in Watertown and Cambridge, which opened in 1831. This carefully-landscaped cemetery was a sharp contrast to the grim, overcrowded colonial-era graveyards in downtown Boston, and it served as a model for many similar cemeteries that would subsequently be opened across the region during the mid-19th century.

In the aftermath of the Civil War, Bigelow wanted to create a monument in the cemetery that would celebrate the two main accomplishments of the war: the preservation of the union, and the end of slavery. However, rather than a standard soldier-with-gun-atop-pedestal design, Bigelow envisioned a sphinx, which represented the combination of intellect and strength. He also saw this ancient symbol as being a representation of the nation’s future potential, as he explained in his remarks to the cemetery’s trustees in 1871:

It essays to express the present attitude and character of a nation perhaps as far remote in time from the building of the pyramids as was that event from the earliest constructions attempted by man. The same ideal from which, as it were, on the dividing ridge of time, has looked backward on unmeasured antiquity, now looks forward to illimitable progress. It stands as a landmark of a state of things which the world has not before seen—a great, warlike and successful nation, in the plentitude and full consciousness of its power, suddenly reversing its energies, and calling back its military veterans from bloodshed and victory to resume the still familiar acts of peace and good will to man. What symbol can better express the attributes of a just, calm and dignified self-reliance than one which combines power with attractiveness, the strength of a lion with the beauty and benignity of woman?

The resulting statue was carved of Hallowell granite, and it sits atop a base with an American water lily on the front, and an Egyptian lotus on the back. On either side is an inscription, which is written in Latin on the left side and in English on the right side. The English translation reads:

American Union preserved
African slavery destroyed
By the uprising of a great people
By the blood of fallen heroes

Despite—or perhaps because of—its unconventional design, the Sphinx appears to have been well-received by contemporary observers. Writing shortly after it was installed here, the Boston Daily Evening Transcript remarked:

The Mount Auburn Sphinx has solved her own riddle, and stands upon her everlasting base at last. She is intended to commemorate the war and the heroes it cost us, and if the peril of art in such commemoration has been the falling into a monotonous sameness and peopling New England with statues of the “private soldier at rest,” that peril has in this case been notably avoided. It is certainly unique, and certainly not grotesque. Egyptian art has long been laid under contribution for expressions of reverence for the memory of the dead.

The first photo was taken about 40 years later, showing the Sphinx at the turn of the 20th century. Since then, very little has changed here aside from the landscaping around the base of the pedestal. Mount Auburn Cemetery still has the same park-like appearance that Bigelow had worked to create, and his Sphinx remains one of its most distinctive features, along with being a remarkably innovative way of memorializing the Union soldiers of the Civil War.

Eastern View From Catskill Mountain House, Catskill, New York

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The view looking east from the Catskill Mountain House, around 1902. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

The scene in 2021:

These photos were taken from the same spot as the ones in the previous post, but these are facing more to the east, directly across the Hudson River Valley. When the first photo was taken, this was the site of the Catskill Mountain House, a hotel that had been constructed here in 1824. Because of its dramatic views and easy accessibility from New York and other large cities, the hotel soon became one of the country’s most popular resort destinations. These views also helped to inspire a number of prominent artists, including Thomas Cole, the founder of the art movement that would come to be known as the Hudson River School.

Originally, most guests would have reached the Mountain House by taking a Hudson River steamboat to the village of Catskill, which is located in the distance on the far left side of these photos. From there, it was a 12-mile stagecoach ride to the Mountain House, which took about three or four hours. However, by the time the first photo was taken at the turn of the 20th century, railroads had shortened this travel time to just 40 to 50 minutes. The narrow gauge Catskill Mountain Railroad took guests to the base of the escarpment, and then the remaining portion of the journey was by way of the Otis Elevating Railway, a 1.3-mile-long funicular railroad that rose more than 1,600 feet in elevation from the valley to the Mountain House. A portion of this railroad, including the large trestle near the base of the incline, is visible in the lower center of the first photo.

For guests at the Mountain House, one of the highlights of their stay was to watch the sunrise from this vantage point. Early in the summer season, the sun rises on the extreme left side of these two photos, but as the summer progresses the sunrise location migrates steadily to the west. By mid-October the sun rises directly above Mount Everett in the center of this scene, and by the winter solstice the sunrise is on the far right side, although few 19th century visitors would have seen it, since the hotel was only open during the warmer months.

Among those inspired by the sunrise here was artist Frederic Edwin Church, a student of Thomas Cole. One of his earliest paintings, Morning, Looking East over the Hudson Valley from Catskill Mountains (1848), shows the sunrise here, with an emphasis on sunlight and clouds that would become a major characteristic of his later works. Church would subsequently travel the world for subject matter for his landscape paintings, but in the early 1870s he returned to the Catskills and built his one, Olana, on the east side of the Hudson River, opposite the village of Catskill. This house still stands as a museum, and it is barely visible in the distance of the second photo.

Today, some 120 years after the first photo was taken, the Catskill Mountain House is long gone, having been deliberately burned in 1963 after sitting vacant for more than 20 years. However, the view from here is as impressive as ever, and from this distance there are not too many major changes to the landscape. Perhaps the most significant difference is the number of trees in this scene. When the first photo was taken, there were many open fields here in the valley. However, with the decreased importance of agriculture in this region, many of these fields have now been reclaimed by trees, resulting in a landscape that is far more forested than what the 19th century guests of the Mountain House would have seen.

Northeastern View From Catskill Mountain House, Catskill, New York

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The view looking northeast across the Hudson River Valley from the Catskill Mountain House, around 1900-1910. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

The view in 2021:

As explained in an earlier post, the Catskill Mountain House was built in 1824 on a ledge along the Catskill Escarpment. This site is located on the far eastern edge of the Catskill Mountains, about 2,200 feet above sea level. From here, the landscape drops abruptly to the east, with the Hudson River just eight miles away. As a result, this site offers dramatic views of the river valley, which is visible for many miles in either direction. Further in the distance, on the eastern edge of valley, are the Taconic Mountains, which run along the New York-Massachusetts border. Among the peaks visible in this scene is Mount Greylock, the highest point in Massachusetts, located 54 miles to the northeast of here.

This view drew visitors to the Mountain House for well over a century, and it was often declared, rather hyperbolically, to be one of the greatest views in the country. While unquestionably an impressive view, it pales in comparison to those from some of the higher peaks in the northeast, let alone the many grand views in the mountain ranges of the west. However, this site was probably the finest view that was readily accessible to the masses during the 19th century, as it was within easy reach of New York City and other large population centers.

The Catskills began to wane in popularity shortly after the turn of the 20th century, not long after the first photo was taken. In part, this was because of expanded transportation options; rather than depending on steamboats or railroads to taken them up the Hudson River to the Catskills, Americans now had the luxury of transcontinental trains, along with private automobiles that could take them to previously unreachable vacation spots. The Mountain House ultimately closed after the 1942 season, and the building steadily deteriorated for the next two decades before being deliberately burned in 1963.

Today, the site of the Mountain House looks very different, with an empty field marking the spot of what had once been the country’s finest resort hotel. However, as shown in these two photos here, the view that enticed so many visitors throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries is still largely unchanged. The Hudson River Valley is certainly much more developed than it was more than a century ago, but it is hard to tell from this view more than 1,600 feet above the valley. From this distance, modern developments like highways and suburban sprawl tend to blend in with the rest of the landscape. It is also interesting to note that there actually appears to be more forested now than in the early 1900s, reflecting changing land use patterns and a decline of large-scale agriculture here in the river valley.

Catskill Mountain House, Catskill, New York (2)

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The Catskill Mountain House, around the 1860s. Image courtesy of the New York Public Library.

The hotel around 1902. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

The scene in 2021:

As explained in more detail in the previous post, the Catskill Mountain House was the first major mountaintop hotel in the United States, along with being arguably the country’s first summer resort hotel. It was perched atop a scenic overlook along the Catskill Escarpment, where visitors could enjoy expansive views of the Hudson River Valley and the surrounding landscape. The hotel benefited from its proximity to New York City and other cities in the northeast, and throughout the 19th century it was a popular destination for the upper classes in American society.

The original section of the building, located behind the columns on the left side of the piazza, opened in 1824. However, the hotel was steadily expanded over the years until, by the 1860s, it had several large wings on the north side and a smaller wing on the south side. The first photo was taken sometime around the 1860s, showing this southern wing in the foreground. By the 1870s, though, this wing was significantly expanded to the rear of the building, as shown in the 1902 photo.

The Mountain House was still prosperous when this second photo was taken, but this would soon begin to change. In part, this was because of changing ways in which Americans traveled. The Catskills had benefitted from being located adjacent to a major transportation corridor, but the introduction of the automobile greatly expanded the places that Americans could visit on vacation. Aging hotels like the Mountain House had difficulty competing in this new environment, and the 1920s and 1930s were a period of steady decline. It eventually closed its doors for the last time after the 1942 season, and it stood here vacant and deteriorating for the next two decades.

The iconic piazza here on the east side of the hotel was badly damaged by a hurricane in 1950, and several years later most of the wings were dismantled for architectural salvage, in the hopes of using that income to restore the original portion of the building. However, these rehabilitation plans never materialized, and the property was eventually acquired by the state in 1962. With no interest in restoring the building, and recognizing the danger that the ruins posed to trespassers, the state deliberately burned it on January 25, 1963. Today, the site of the hotel is an open field, but visitors here can still enjoy the same expansive views that drew thousands of visitors up here to the Mountain House throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries.