Guest Post by Jerry Mikorenda
You’ve decided to write a historical novel that takes place in several cities during the 19th century. Now, you want to bring that era to life for your readers. Make them feel as if they are really there. You rummage around, look for old photos, paintings, and lithographs of city life. Continuing your research you read the old local newspapers, journals, and histories of that time. You’re doing great, getting a feel for the culture, what’s left to do but write, right?
Just don’t walk past the library map room without stopping. The what? OK, now, most of these maps are digitized so it’s a virtual room. The fact is maps are still a vital resource for those who know how to use them. I’m talking insurance maps. No eyerolls please, hear me out. These old maps hold the key to recreating neighborhoods and streets, literally brick by brick. You don’t have to invent businesses (unless you want to) that existed on, say, Chatham or Pearl Streets in Manhattan, they’re all listed on the map. Furthermore, detailed descriptions of every building are recorded as well.
I discovered this while researching my nonfiction biography America's First Freedom Rider: Elizabeth Jennings, Chester A. Arthur, and the Early Fight for Civil Rights (Rowman & Littlefield, Lyons Press, 2020). In short, the book is about Elizabeth Jennings, an African American school teacher. While attempting to go to church, Jennings was beaten up by a conductor for entering a horsecar meant only for white passengers. In an epic court battle, she desegregated New York City’s transit system 100 years before Rosa Parks. The future president and fledgling attorney, Chester Arthur won her case.
I wanted to understand who she was, what neighborhood she lived in, and where the altercation took place. The Sanborn and William Perris Fire Insurance Maps available via the NYPL laid it all out for me in exquisite detail. Rather than discuss how to read those maps here, I’ll refer you to the link about the Sanborn Collection that's available from via the Library of Congress. Suffice to say, conflagrations, were a major problem for city governments. Good records for insurance purposes were needed at a time when photography wasn’t a viable business option. Below is an excerpt from America's First Freedom Rider that puts fire map data to engaging use.
In heavy Sunday-best garb, Elizabeth and Sarah Adams began their two-mile walk from Elizabeth’s home at 167 Church Street. It was a wood-framed boardinghouse with a first-floor store and a slate roof, where she lived with her parents. Elizabeth’s father was listed as the building’s owner, where he ran his tailoring and dry-cleaning business. Also living there were two white families, those of Patrick Fitzgerald, a bricklayer, on one floor and W.S. Martin, a boatman, on another. The house had an open lot in the back used to grow vegetables, and a coal yard was located about a block away.
Across the road was the Mother African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church on the corner of Church and Franklin Streets. On the opposite corner was J.B. Purdy, a grocer in a mixed neighborhood of black and white residents. Living nearby were an upholsterer, laborer, teacher, and police captain. A block off Broadway, this was a well-to-do area with many brick-and-stone homes with large skylights. The Jennings’s home was on the edge of this well-to-do area. A section of the road before the Jennings’s home was nicknamed the “Holy Ground” because of its many high-class brothels…
Beaten and torn, Elizabeth limped down Walker Street toward home. She passed a deserted coal and lumberyard, sawmill, and empty Panorama Hall. After a short distance, she realized a man was following her...
It doesn’t take much of a leap of faith to see how a novelist could make good use of such information while also reinforcing worldbuilding. There were other maps as well. In the 1860s, the NYC Metropolitan Board of Health began to map “offensive trades” – odors originating from gas works, tanneries, slaughterhouses, and stables – because it was believed these odors caused disease. They were called “stench maps” and tracked where the malodor emanated and where it ended up, usually drifting from industrial Brooklyn to patrician noses in Manhattan. Historical imagination anchored in reality leads to more believable storytelling.
That covers the bricks and mortar side, what about the people who lived there? Well, before there were phones, most cities and towns printed reverse or city directories listing their citizens' addresses, occupations, and races. Want to write about Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr? In 1786, they lived just minutes away from each other, Burr on Little Queen [Cedar today], and Hamilton on Wall Street.
The link to the NYPL article points out these directories list churches, businesses, schools, and government offices. Also listed are tide and moon phases, members of various societies, postage rates, and routes, the Runner’s Vade Mecum [each street corner], and advertisements. Newspaper ads are equally valuable if you can serendipitously find what you’re looking for. I came across one that showed after Elizabeth Jennings' father died in 1859, she and her mother moved to 541 Broome Street and opened the Empire State Hotel and Union House for boarders. Another advertised her mother’s move to Long Branch, N.J., years later in an ad placed in the Christian Recorder as the “Widow T.L. Jennings,” she offered six rooms: “Board by the month, week or day, reasonable rates. Warm and Cold baths.” There are all kinds of interesting things in want ads that can help you better understand the era you’re writing about and add historical detail to your story.
Finally, this last bit of advice requires no research but may be the hardest to execute. Respect the historical timeline. Moving the prism of the past to try and change the present is a slippery slope at best. Be true to the age you’re writing about. It’s easy to infuse characters you admire with modern sensibilities and insights to make them more palatable to today’s readers. Likewise, no matter how far one goes back, every age written about is living on the cutting edge of technology and knowledge. Whether it was harnessing fire, inventing stone tools, the wheel, or the sail. For its time, the whaleboat was as much a technological wonder as the cellphone is today. It’s easy to look down on people who believed in bloodletting, stench maps, or tobacco smoke enemas. Someday, we’ll be in the same boat – or space pod.
Instructive Links:
Introduction to the Sanborn Map Collection
NYPL Digitizes 137 Years of NYC Directories
Novel Mapping Can Help Find Your Story
My Books:
America’s First Freedom Rider
The Whaler’s Daughter
BIO
Jerry’s work has appeared in The New York Times, The Boston Herald, The Gotham Center History Blog, and the 2010 Encyclopedia of New York City. His short stories have been issued in the San Francisco Chronicle, BULL, Cowboy Jamboree, and Gravel Magazine, as well as other journals. His biography America's First Freedom Rider: Elizabeth Jennings, Chester A. Arthur, and the Early Fight for Civil Rights was released in 2020. His historical novel, The Whaler’s Daughter was published by Regal House in 2021.
The Whaler's Daughter (Jerry Mikorenda) has been selected by the Children's Book Council for inclusion in its upcoming 2022 Kids Choice Awards in the Favorite Character Crush category for (Figgie), and for the best stellar storyteller category. Now the kids vote for the winners.
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