{"product_id":"canal-street-from-the-clay-monument-new-orleans","title":"Canal Street from the Clay Monument, New Orleans, c. 1890","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis view can no longer be made. The camera stands at the base of the Henry Clay monument, raised in the middle of Canal Street in 1860 and taken down in 1901; the statue stands today in Lafayette Square, and the vantage point went with it. The view looks away from the Mississippi River, up the broadest and busiest commercial avenue in the city. Canal Street was laid out along the line of a canal that was never dug, and its width is the space that was reserved for it.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe photograph dates itself, and the evidence is standing on the track. Three single-truck streetcars wait on the neutral ground, one behind the other. None of them carries a trolley pole, and no contact wire runs above the rails; the many wires overhead run pole to pole on crossarms, in the manner of telegraph and telephone lines. The cars themselves are best identified as bobtail mule cars of the type the John Stephenson Company of New York built for the city's street railways, compact one-man cars with a fare box in place of a conductor.\u003csup class=\"pic-ref\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"#src-6\"\u003e6\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/sup\u003e Electric operation began in New Orleans on February 1, 1893, on the Carrollton and St. Charles line, and the conversions ran on through the decade.\u003csup class=\"pic-ref\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"#src-7\"\u003e7\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/sup\u003e Unelectrified Canal Street track therefore places this plate in the last years of animal power, about 1890 to 1894.\u003csup class=\"pic-ref\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"#src-2\"\u003e2\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/sup\u003e The Library of Congress catalogs the item more loosely, as taken between 1880 and 1897, and the narrower range here rests on what the frame itself shows.\u003csup class=\"pic-ref\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"#src-1\"\u003e1\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/sup\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cfigure class=\"pic-print__detail\"\u003e\u003cimg src=\"https:\/\/res.cloudinary.com\/dz7q7hk2q\/image\/upload\/f_auto,q_auto,c_limit,w_1060\/pastincolor\/details\/clay-streetcars.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/res.cloudinary.com\/dz7q7hk2q\/image\/upload\/f_auto,q_auto,c_limit,w_420\/pastincolor\/details\/clay-streetcars.jpg 420w, https:\/\/res.cloudinary.com\/dz7q7hk2q\/image\/upload\/f_auto,q_auto,c_limit,w_640\/pastincolor\/details\/clay-streetcars.jpg 640w, https:\/\/res.cloudinary.com\/dz7q7hk2q\/image\/upload\/f_auto,q_auto,c_limit,w_840\/pastincolor\/details\/clay-streetcars.jpg 840w, https:\/\/res.cloudinary.com\/dz7q7hk2q\/image\/upload\/f_auto,q_auto,c_limit,w_1060\/pastincolor\/details\/clay-streetcars.jpg 1060w, https:\/\/res.cloudinary.com\/dz7q7hk2q\/image\/upload\/f_auto,q_auto,c_limit,w_1217\/pastincolor\/details\/clay-streetcars.jpg 1217w\" sizes=\"(min-width: 1100px) 1060px, (min-width: 750px) calc(100vw - 40px), calc(100vw - 56px)\" width=\"1060\" height=\"485\" alt=\"Detail from the plate: three streetcars without trolley poles beside a pole stencilled POST NO BILLS\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\"\u003e\u003cfigcaption\u003eNone of the three cars carries a trolley pole, and no wire runs above the rails. The missing wire is what dates the plate.\u003c\/figcaption\u003e\u003c\/figure\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhat reads at first as a boulevard is really a machine for moving people. By this period the neutral ground had become a street railway corridor carrying several parallel tracks, five or six of them along some stretches, while ordinary wheeled traffic used the two flanking roadways.\u003csup class=\"pic-ref\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"#src-3\"\u003e3\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/sup\u003e Those roadways were paved with imported ballast blocks.\u003csup class=\"pic-ref\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"#src-3\"\u003e3\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/sup\u003e Around the Clay monument the lines of several competing companies terminated, looped, or passed through, which called for turntables and starter's houses in the middle of the street.\u003csup class=\"pic-ref\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"#src-3\"\u003e3\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/sup\u003e Sand or paving spoil is heaped along the right-hand gutter in this frame, which suggests work on that surface was under way when the shutter opened.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe block front on the right is a wall of signs, and much of the city's retail trade is somewhere in it. Canal Street was the principal shopping district, and its dry goods merchants were then expanding into department store retail; D. H. Holmes had held a large establishment on the street since 1849, and Godchaux's put up a new five-story store at Canal and Chartres in 1892.\u003csup class=\"pic-ref\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"#src-4\"\u003e4\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/sup\u003e Music retail was unusually prominent here. Philip Werlein's house advertises twice within a single block front, once on a projecting fascia sign and once on a painted wall sign above it, and B. Fellman offers pianos and organs a few doors along. Werlein's and Grunewald's were among the city's major music stores and sheet music publishers of the period.\u003csup class=\"pic-ref\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"#src-5\"\u003e5\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/sup\u003e Steinway lettering runs above the gallery, and a cloth banner hung inside it reads CHEAP DRY GOODS PALACE. A manufacturer of ladies' underwear, an importer, and a dry goods house at 127 and 129 share the same iron galleries.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cblockquote class=\"pic-print__pull\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe streetcar men had just won the shortest working day of their lives.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/blockquote\u003e\u003cfigure class=\"pic-print__detail pic-print__detail--right\"\u003e\u003cimg src=\"https:\/\/res.cloudinary.com\/dz7q7hk2q\/image\/upload\/f_auto,q_auto,c_limit,w_600\/pastincolor\/details\/clay-cabdriver.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/res.cloudinary.com\/dz7q7hk2q\/image\/upload\/f_auto,q_auto,c_limit,w_300\/pastincolor\/details\/clay-cabdriver.jpg 300w, https:\/\/res.cloudinary.com\/dz7q7hk2q\/image\/upload\/f_auto,q_auto,c_limit,w_420\/pastincolor\/details\/clay-cabdriver.jpg 420w, https:\/\/res.cloudinary.com\/dz7q7hk2q\/image\/upload\/f_auto,q_auto,c_limit,w_600\/pastincolor\/details\/clay-cabdriver.jpg 600w, https:\/\/res.cloudinary.com\/dz7q7hk2q\/image\/upload\/f_auto,q_auto,c_limit,w_840\/pastincolor\/details\/clay-cabdriver.jpg 840w, https:\/\/res.cloudinary.com\/dz7q7hk2q\/image\/upload\/f_auto,q_auto,c_limit,w_869\/pastincolor\/details\/clay-cabdriver.jpg 869w\" sizes=\"(min-width: 990px) 300px, (min-width: 750px) calc(100vw - 40px), calc(100vw - 56px)\" width=\"600\" height=\"577\" alt=\"Detail from the plate: the cab driver seated on the box of his two-horse cab\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\"\u003e\u003cfigcaption\u003eThe cab driver at the head of the carriage rank, one hand on the canopy frame.\u003c\/figcaption\u003e\u003c\/figure\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe people are ordinary and specific. Two women in full-length dark dresses with bustled skirts and elaborate hats cross the foreground. A bearded cab driver in a bowler sits on the box of a two-horse cab at the head of the carriage rank. A boy leans over the upper gallery rail above the Fellman sign. A delivery wagon at the right edge is lettered for a Canal Street ice cream and confectionery house. A utility pole at center carries a stencilled number and the words POST NO BILLS, and a poster board strapped to the lamp post on the neutral ground urges passers-by to go to Werlein's for the greatest bargains in pianos and organs. Advertising was already competing for every flat surface on the street.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cfigure class=\"pic-print__detail pic-print__detail--narrow\"\u003e\u003cimg src=\"https:\/\/res.cloudinary.com\/dz7q7hk2q\/image\/upload\/f_auto,q_auto,c_limit,w_420\/pastincolor\/details\/clay-women.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/res.cloudinary.com\/dz7q7hk2q\/image\/upload\/f_auto,q_auto,c_limit,w_280\/pastincolor\/details\/clay-women.jpg 280w, https:\/\/res.cloudinary.com\/dz7q7hk2q\/image\/upload\/f_auto,q_auto,c_limit,w_420\/pastincolor\/details\/clay-women.jpg 420w, https:\/\/res.cloudinary.com\/dz7q7hk2q\/image\/upload\/f_auto,q_auto,c_limit,w_560\/pastincolor\/details\/clay-women.jpg 560w, https:\/\/res.cloudinary.com\/dz7q7hk2q\/image\/upload\/f_auto,q_auto,c_limit,w_840\/pastincolor\/details\/clay-women.jpg 840w\" sizes=\"(min-width: 476px) 420px, calc(100vw - 56px)\" width=\"420\" height=\"420\" alt=\"Detail from the plate: two women in bustled skirts crossing toward the cab rank\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\"\u003e\u003cfigcaption\u003eTwo women cross toward the cab rank. At the left edge stands the poster board sending passers-by to Werlein's.\u003c\/figcaption\u003e\u003c\/figure\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe street had been unsettled for years before this exposure, and it was rebuilt soon after. In 1891 the Liberty Place Monument went up at the river end of Canal Street.\u003csup class=\"pic-ref\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"#src-3\"\u003e3\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/sup\u003e On February 16, 1892, a fire crossed Bourbon Street and damaged or destroyed much of Touro Row, one of the street's important commercial blocks.\u003csup class=\"pic-ref\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"#src-9\"\u003e9\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/sup\u003e In May 1892 the streetcar operators struck and won union recognition, a closed shop, and a working day cut from sixteen hours to twelve.\u003csup class=\"pic-ref\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"#src-8\"\u003e8\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/sup\u003e That same year the New Orleans Traction Company took over the lines of the former New Orleans City and Crescent City railroads.\u003csup class=\"pic-ref\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"#src-3\"\u003e3\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/sup\u003e Then the wires went up. The first electric cars ran in February 1893, the Prytania line was converted on September 15, 1894, the North Claiborne and Tulane lines followed in 1896, and the West End line took electric power in 1898.\u003csup class=\"pic-ref\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"#src-7\"\u003e7\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/sup\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNobody in the frame could see how quickly their own arrangements would come undone. The streetcar men had just won the shortest working day of their lives; by the end of 1892 the general strike that followed, involving somewhere between twenty and twenty-five thousand workers, ended in a settlement that dissolved their union's recognition.\u003csup class=\"pic-ref\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"#src-8\"\u003e8\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/sup\u003e The cars they tended would be off the rails within a few years, animal power with them. The monument the photographer stood beneath was removed in 1901, and the exact view in this print became impossible to make again.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe print is made from the full-resolution scan of the original negative held by the Library of Congress, carefully restored in full color using modern professional digital techniques. Every detail is the original photograph. Only the color is new; nothing is redrawn, sharpened, or invented.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePrints are available as premium luster posters, on canvas, and framed. Each one is made to order, produced close to where it ships, and sent with tracking. Shipping is free in the United States and the European Union. The edition is small, the size is stated on this page, and it will not be reprinted. Questions are welcome at support@pastincolor.com.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eSources\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003col class=\"pic-sources\"\u003e\n\u003cli id=\"src-1\"\u003eLibrary of Congress, Prints and Photographs Online Catalog, \"Canal St. [Street] from the Clay Monument,\" \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/www.loc.gov\/pictures\/item\/2016817549\/\"\u003ehttps:\/\/www.loc.gov\/pictures\/item\/2016817549\/\u003c\/a\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli id=\"src-2\"\u003eWikimedia Commons, \"File:Canal Street From Clay Monument WM Jackson uncropped.jpg,\" \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Canal_Street_From_Clay_Monument_WM_Jackson_uncropped.jpg\"\u003ehttps:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Canal_Street_From_Clay_Monument_WM_Jackson_uncropped.jpg\u003c\/a\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli id=\"src-3\"\u003eH. George Friedman Jr., \"Canal Street: A Street Railway Spectacular,\" University of Illinois, \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/friedman.cs.illinois.edu\/canal\/canal.htm\"\u003ehttps:\/\/friedman.cs.illinois.edu\/canal\/canal.htm\u003c\/a\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli id=\"src-4\"\u003eThe Historic New Orleans Collection, \"Department Stores,\" \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/hnoc.org\/virtual-exhibitions\/goods-every-description\/department-stores\"\u003ehttps:\/\/hnoc.org\/virtual-exhibitions\/goods-every-description\/department-stores\u003c\/a\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli id=\"src-5\"\u003eThe Historic New Orleans Collection, \"Temple of Music,\" \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/hnoc.org\/virtual-exhibitions\/goods-every-description\/temple-music\"\u003ehttps:\/\/hnoc.org\/virtual-exhibitions\/goods-every-description\/temple-music\u003c\/a\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli id=\"src-6\"\u003eMidcontinent Railway Museum, \"John Stephenson Car Co.\", \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/www.midcontinent.org\/rollingstock\/builders\/stephenson2.htm\"\u003ehttps:\/\/www.midcontinent.org\/rollingstock\/builders\/stephenson2.htm\u003c\/a\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli id=\"src-7\"\u003eNew Orleans Historical, \"Prytania Streetcar Line,\" \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/neworleanshistorical.org\/items\/show\/540\"\u003ehttps:\/\/neworleanshistorical.org\/items\/show\/540\u003c\/a\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli id=\"src-8\"\u003eNew Orleans Historical, \"1892 General Strike,\" \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/neworleanshistorical.org\/items\/show\/489\"\u003ehttps:\/\/neworleanshistorical.org\/items\/show\/489\u003c\/a\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli id=\"src-9\"\u003ePreservation Resource Center of New Orleans, \"Touro Row, the Canal Street catalyst of the 1850s,\" \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/prcno.org\/touro-row-canal-street-catalyst-1850s\/\"\u003ehttps:\/\/prcno.org\/touro-row-canal-street-catalyst-1850s\/\u003c\/a\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ol\u003e","brand":"Past in Color","offers":[{"title":"Luster poster \/ 12 x 18 in","offer_id":58385426678143,"sku":null,"price":115.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":false},{"title":"Luster poster \/ 18 x 24 in","offer_id":58385426710911,"sku":null,"price":130.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":false},{"title":"Luster poster \/ 24 x 36 in","offer_id":58385426743679,"sku":null,"price":185.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":false},{"title":"Canvas \/ 24 x 36 in","offer_id":58385426776447,"sku":null,"price":375.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1029\/2802\/3935\/files\/canal-street-clay-monument.jpg?v=1788844138","url":"https:\/\/pastincolor.com\/products\/canal-street-from-the-clay-monument-new-orleans","provider":"Past in Color","version":"1.0","type":"link"}