JANUARY 23-30, 1916
The last week of January, 1916 found Kate Roosevelt, once again, acting more like a responsible mother, than a gad-about grandmother when she wrote in her diary, “Took Little Langdon to the dentist. Dr. Rouse showed him a cement model of what a little boy’s mouth looked like after sucking his thumb for years. Then we went to McCreery’s to get his hair cut. I had a manicure.”
McCreery’s in the Old Booth Theater, Broadway and 23rd Street
She didn’t say which location she went to. In 1916, McCreery’s, one of the country’s finest department stores, had two locations, one was on Broadway and 11th Street in its original cast iron palace that was used for a factory, offices, a café and bakery and some retail. The other on Broadway and 23rd Street, located in the old Booth Theater, sold the finest silks and furs, suited to the clientele that frequented the exclusive shopping district known as The Ladies’ Mile on Broadway from 14th to 23rd Street.
McCreery’s like many department stores of its day offered amenities to suit their upper class patrons, members of the “carriage trade.” Some even offered reading rooms, barber shops, travel agents and complete medical staffs.
McCreery’s on Broadway and 11th Street
After seeing some photos of the two McCreery sites, I was sure it was the one on Broadway and 11th Street that Kate and her grandson visited for dental care, a haircut and a manicure and maybe even a quick snack at the famous café located on its ground floor. Fleischman’s Bakery and Café was where her cousin, Theodore Roosevelt, walked from his Mulberry Street office for his daily lunch of bread and milk while he was New York City’s Commissioner of Police from 1895-1897.
Fleischman’s Bakery
Fleischman’s Viennese Bakers came to New York from Ohio after exhibiting a model bakery at the Philadelphia Exposition of 1876. They opened a replica on Broadway and 10th Street and a café around the corner on 11thStreet. The proprietor, Louis Fleischmann, was known for his charity as well as his famous Vienna Bread and began handing out free loaves of day old bread to the area’s poor and homeless who lined-up at midnight. For forty years Fleischman’s charity continued on this spot, where the first “bread line” was originated.
The original breadline, Fleischman’s Bakery
Fleischman’s is a St. Louis-based producer of yeast and other products. The McCreery’s on Broadway and 11thStreet today is known as the “cast iron building.” The McCreery’s Department Store on Broadway and 23rd Street was demolished in 1975 and a luxury apartment building, The Caroline, stands on its site.
Minnie Maddern Fiske
After dropping her grandson off with his nursery governess and baby brother, Shippen, Kate’s diary continued, “To matinee of Mrs. Fiske’s new play, Erstwhile Susan, a play of the moment, it will not live, but it is capitally acted and gives her (Mrs. Fiske) just the comedy part for which she is now best suited for.” I had always thought of Minnie Maddern Fiske as a dramatic actress, but going on Kate’s review, I found that by 1916 she was taking on lighter roles like that of Susan, the mentally unstable mail-order bride. It was staged at the Empire Theater on Broadway and 41st Street, an old stomping ground for Mrs. Fiske, as she was simply known after marrying the owner of the New York Dramatic Mirror, Harrison Grey Fiske. It was so kind of Kate Roosevelt to speak so graciously of her long-time friend who had been through some rough times. Mrs. Fiske was part of a group of actors who fought a monopoly, known as the Syndicate, who were producing only choice plays and giving roles to a select few, keeping the names of talented actress and actors off of the marquees that lined Broadway. That was professionally, but personally Minnie Maddern Fiske also fought to keep her marriage to her flagrantly-philandering husband intact and their finances afloat.
Van Cortlandt Park
Not to worry, the next day Kate Roosevelt was in good spirits in spite of worrying about the aging actress. “Delightful day, I took lovely motor drive with Florence Rhett, through Bronx and Van Cortlandt Park.” I was surprised a woman of Miss Rhett’s notoriety and busy schedule would take the time for a leisurely drive, but possibly she and Kate, lifelong friends, were discussing an upcoming meeting of the Civic Federation that the committee member, Florence Rhett, was organizing at the Colony Club.
“I lunched at Anna Davis.” Anna was Kate’s sister, Mrs. Howland Davis, who lived just around the corner on Madison Avenue. “Then onto the Ritz Carlton in the afternoon.” The luxury hotel on Madison and 46th Street was the first of the chain built in the United States and opened under the management of Albert Keller in 1911. Since Kate had already had lunch with her sister, quite possibly she stayed for tea or a cup of soup that was still in the experimental stages, to be perfected by the hotel’s French chef, Louis Diat in 1917. Called vichyssoise, it was a combination of leeks, onions, and potatoes, cooled by a dollop of heavy cream.
Ida Tarbell
The next day, Kate Roosevelt put on her civic-minded cap and went to a lecture sponsored by her friend Florence Rhett and the New York Civic Federation. It was presented by Ida Tarbell and focused on the status of women after the war. Miss Tarbell was known as a muckraking journalist and comrade of Theodore Roosevelt’s in their quest for exposing the city’s and country’s inequities. As an investigative journalist, Ida Tarbell was responsible for bringing down corrupt capitalists, most notably, John D. Rockefeller and his Standard Oil monopoly.
Doctors operating on trachoma patient at Ellis Island
That same night, Kate wrote, “Dorothy and I dined at the Wilcox’s then to a medical lecture” The Wilcoxes she was referring to lived at 159 East 70th Street. The couple consisted of Dr. Herbert and his wife, Louise Wilcox, relatives of Dorothy’s late- husband, Langdon Geer’s. Dr. Wilcox, a graduate of Yale and Columbia, was on the board of Vanderbilt Clinic and New York’s Pediatric Society. He was involved in extensive studies on immigrant children who were infected with trachoma, an eye disease that was running rampant at Ellis Island and this was quite possibly the topic of tonight’s lecture.
Leisure Class Book Cover
Like snowflakes in a snowstorm, Kate Roosevelt settled allover the city during the chilly month of January. “Discussion at the Colony Club on the importance of the leisure class. Miss Scott made an excellent address.” It was a notion popularized by the author Thorstein Veblen in 1899 as a reaction to the abundance of leisure time enjoyed by a small proportion of the world’s population. Veblen along with Columbia professor, Irwin Edman felt that leisure was once indispensable to civilization and enabled the human race to rise above barbarism, but those days were far behind what the world was experiencing 1916. Economic and social structures were merging. Lords of the manor, like the fictional one portrayed on the PBS series Downton Abbey were quickly fading far away from the Feudal System on which this stratification was based. Veblen wrote, “Useless activity contributes nothing to economy.” Citizens of the world of 1916, which Veblen referred to as “the modern era,” were faced with more important issues than deciding in which room to have their tea served or how to spend their money.
Not wishing to being saddled with membership in the sociologically inferior, Leisure Class, Kate Roosevelt strove to use her free time to expand her cultural horizons and charitable causes. She managed to balance all quite well while still having time to enjoy the finer things life had to offer, like the ballet.
Ballet Russe Stamp
“To Ballet Russes at Century Theater with Amy Baker (well known opera singer), interesting spectacle, poor dancing.” After all of this time, I knew that Kate Roosevelt was a seasoned theater critic, but had no idea she was also an expert on dancing and the performances arranged by Sergei Diaghlilev, the founder and director of the world famous Russian ballet company known as the Ballet Russes. On this night at the Century Theater on Central Park West and 62nd Street, Lydia Lopoukhova was dancing in Les Syiphedes, described in the New York Evening World as “A beautifully, white, chaste ballet.” Performed in one-act, it was quite possible that the dancers weren’t given enough stage time to impress the impossibly hard to please, Mrs. Roosevelt.
After attending this most disappointing production, I was surprised that the next night Kate was out on the town again. This time her diary reported, “Took mother to the Junior League movies at the Waldorf.” According to the New York Times the event that held an auction along with the screening of the melodrama, City of Beautiful Nonsense, raised $20,000 for charity thanks to Kate Roosevelt, Mary Harriman and fellow members of the so-called “Leisure Class.”
Mary Harriman was the oldest daughter of railroad magnate, E. H. Harriman. Her brother, Averill Harriman was governor of New York and a United States diplomat.
Mary Harriman was born in 1881, the same year that Kate Roosevelt married, President Theodore Roosevelt’s cousin, Hilborne Roosevelt, and the country was on the cusp of the “Gilded Age.” Mary came of age just as this era of opulence was at its peak, but also at a time that saw great changes coming to New York City in a wave of immigration. One of her classmates at Barnard, Nathalie Henderson said, “Mary’s ideas about bettering society began to take shape as a concrete plan while she was studying for her entrance exams. She attended a lecture given by Louise Lockwood about the growing Settlement Movement and the work of Jane Addams at Hull House in Chicago. Mary was impressed with the College Settlement in New York City, where college graduates and students lived among the immigrant population to learn about their problems and needs.” In 1901, Mary Harriman and 80 girls making their debuts that year produced an “entertainment” to raise funds to benefit the settlement house at Rivington Street on the Lower East Side and the New York City Junior League was born. In 1903, Eleanor Roosevelt, a friend of Mary Harriman’s joined the group. In 1902, Eleanor along with Kate’s daughter, Dorothy Roosevelt made their debuts, but in their youth, the two girls took different paths. Looking back on this time, in her biography, This is My Story, Eleanor wrote, “I had grown up considerably during the past year and had come to the conclusion that I would not spend another year just doing the social rounds. I began to work in the Junior League.”
Enrique Grandos
From movies presented by the Junior League to the Metropolitan Opera House to hear “The world’s premier of Spanish Opera, Goyescas. Delightful and very Spanish.” The one-act opera composed by Enrique Granados and inspired by the paintings of Francisco Goya, was the first opera to be performed in Spanish at the Met. Also on the bill was the tragic opera, Pagliacci starring Enrico Caruso. “He was not was he was,” was Kate Roosevelt’s unflattering assessment of the world-famous tenor.
The next day’s entertainment was more to the matron’s liking, “To matinee of Cinderella Man, a charming folly, a fairy tale for grown folks.” Starring Shelly Hull and Phoebe Foster, it was staged at the Belasco Theater at 111 West 44thStreet and met with great accolades, by both the press and the self-appointed theater critic, Kate Roosevelt.
The next day it was back to business, this time to a talk at the Colony Club, “Are movies a menace to the spoken word.” I couldn’t help but think that Mrs. Roosevelt’s written words could at times be a menace. Her candid comments on actors, dancers, the theater and even opera stars were cutting.
Absent once again from one of her son’s big days, Dorothy Roosevelt Geer was no where in sight when Kate wrote, “I Took Langdon to Miss Karr’s class. His first day.”
I lunched with Mrs. John Seely Ward at her home at 60 East 8oth street.” Perhaps trying very hard to maintain her ties to charity in the city, Mrs. Ward was a good link. Her husband, John Ward was on the board of the New York Dispensary and many other similar organizations, doing good deeds in the city. After lunch, the two women went to another lecture given by the Civic Federation at the Colony Club where a war correspondent spoke.
And so the month of January ended as it had begun, with talk of what was happening on the battlefields in Europe and the threat that was inching its way across the ocean that would guarantee the United States’ entrance into World War One.
But on her own home front it was apparent that Kate Roosevelt was the lone soldier fighting to make sure her grandsons were happy, healthy and safe. She ended her diary on January, 31st, 1916, “Miss Mack, the baby nurse arrived. Shippen has a bad cold.” And from what I could see, he also had a cold and seemingly uncaring, mother.
Sharon Hazard’s Dowger’s Diary appears on Thursday.
Photo One:
Mary Harriman and Eleanor Roosevelt at meeting to the Junior League
Library of Congress
Photo Two:
McCreery’s in the Old Booth Theater, Broadway and 23rd Street
New York Public Library
Photo Three:
McCreery’s on Broadway and 11th Street
New York Public Library
Photo Four:
Fleischman’s Bakery
New York Public Library
Photo Five:
The original breadline, Fleischman’s Bakery
Ephemeral New York
Photo Six:
Minnie Maddern Fiske
in Erstwhile Susan
Library of Congress
Photo Seven:
Van Cortlandt Park
wiki
Photo Eight:
Ida Tarbell
Library of Congress
Photo Nine:
Doctors operating on trachoma patient at Ellis Island
Public Broadcasting System
Photo Ten:
Leisure Class Book Cover
Public Domain
Photo Eleven:
Ballet Russe Stamp
wiki
Photo Twelve:
Enrique Grandos
Biblioteque de Nationale France
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