Entrepreneurs Escape Their Generation (and an occasional French brig-o’-war)

Nathaniel Silsbee

In William Strauss and Neil Howe’s entertaining book, Generations, the authors characterize Americans born around the time of the Revolution as the “Compromise Generation."

“The lived an awkward lifecyle,” the authors wrote.  “Compromisers were coddled in childhood, suffered little in war, came of age with quiet obedience, enjoyed a lifetime of rising prosperity, and managed to defer national crisis until most of them had died.”  I chuckled when I read this summary; imagine, a lifetime of peace and prosperity, sandwiched between the Revolution and Civil War.  Such awkwardness for this coddled cohort!

In 1792, the trading ship Benjamin departed Salem, Massachusetts, loaded with hops, saddlery, window glass, mahogany boards, tobacco and Madeira wine.  The ship and crew would be gone for 19 months, traveling to the Cape of Good Hope and Il de France.   All the while they bargained hard from port to port, flipping their freight several times “amid embargoes and revolutions,” naval historian Samuel Eliot Morison wrote, “slipping their cables at Capetown after dark in a gale of wind to escape a British frigate; drifting out of Bourbon with ebb tide to elude a French brig-o’-war.”  In 1794, the Benjamin returned to Salem with a cargo that brought 500% profit to its owners. 

The ship just happened to be captained by Nathaniel Silsbee, 19 years old when he took command.  His first mate was 20 and his clerk 18. 

Of course, these three daring (and soon-to-be wealthy) entrepreneurs were members of that awkward and coddled “Compromise Generation.”

Just in case you are wondering how to feel

Does it feel sometimes that we place too much emphasis on a generational view of Americans?  We seem extraordinarily concerned, for example, that we now have four generations coming together in the workplace—Boomers, Gen X, Gen Y and Millennials.  There is a huge amount of ink and pixels expended on defining the expectations of each cohort, and recommendations for how we can all live together.  (See here, here, and here for typical examples.  A Millennial reflects here.  A group of Gen Ys reflect here.  Gen X traits defined here. Etc. Etc. Etc.)

Four Young Women: Wondering How Much We've Changed in a Century

The Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House, with young ladies Europe and
America flanking the entrance.

In 1907 the "World's Greatest Custom House" opened on Bowling Green at the former site of Fort Amsterdam, the center of Dutch Manhattan.  As the New York Times reported, it was the place "where all the world comes to be taxed"--perhaps not happily, but at least now splendidly.  Indeed, in a land before Federal income tax, the collection of tariffs was the single greatest revenue generator in America.  Now the country had the best of all worlds, an architectural wonder that also churned out nearly $200 million annually.

Today, the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House hosts the National Museum of the American Indian (very cool and worth visiting), the Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York (not cool, don't go there), and the National Archives in New York City.  But when I visited over the holidays, I was particularly interested in the four Daniel Chester French statues that look uptown from the front of the Custom House, my interest piqued after watching David Hartman and Barry Lewis take a fantastic "Walk up Broadway"--see here.)

French, born in New Hampshire and European-trained, is perhaps best known for his statue of Abraham Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, but for New Englanders he's also famous for the Minute Man at Concord and The John Harvard Monument at Harvard Yard.  (His works are spread around America, however, including the Marshall Field Memorial in Chicago, Alma Mater at Columbia University, James Oglethorpe in Savanah, and Thomas Starr King in San Francisco--see here for more.)

In 1902 French won the competition to design four prominent statues intended to be allegorical representations of the four trading continents, Asia, Europe, America, and Africa.  The young ladies that the sculptor envisioned, each to be carved of Tennessee marble, would serve as greeters to the many nations entering the building.  The ideas and forms would be his, but approved by the Federal government.

I think it's fair to say that no sane sculptor would take on such a task today.  How could it possibly turn out well?  What allegorical tale could an artist tell about an entire continent that wouldn't get dragged across the comments section of the online Post, crucified by Rush Limbaugh or pilloried in The Economist?  (See my post on memorials, donuts and statues here.)  Yet, 1902 was a different place in America, and Daniel Chester French was happy to characterize the continents in a way (one presumes) that reflected the general sentiments of upscale, commercial America and its government.

Recapping 2013, Resolving 2014

2013 was my sixth year of blogging, and it's still nigh impossible for me to predict which of my posts will do well and which will land with a thud.  Even writing about X-rated topics, which I tried back in 2008 (with Camouflage Marketing), didn't seem to have the je ne sais quoi to go viral.  Meanwhile, other posts, some of which were written just because the blog was looking lonely--a particularly poor reason for writing--took off.

The three best-read new posts in 2013 were The Cult of the Entrepreneur,  The Founding Fathers as Innovators and Surviving Little Entrepreneurism.  All three made me feel like a curmudgeon when I wrote them, but apparently there's room for a little ballast in the top-heavy hysteria of American entrepreneurism.

In the next tier down, Purchasing Worker Loyalty was very popular, and that was also one of my favorite posts to write because it dovetailed nicely with the book I'm researching.  It also got me back to my old hometown of North Dighton.  Likewise, Want Innovation?: Think Shovels!, about the Ames shovel collection at Stonehill College, was fun to research, and in a roundabout way (thanks to Greg Galer) got me to the Yankee Steam-Up, where I got to see my first Corliss steam engine.  Very cool.

A Few Pictures from the 150th Dedication of the Gettysburg Address

The dedication ceremony this week honoring the 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address featured keynote speeches from Pulitzer Prize-winning historian James McPherson and Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell, and a Naturalization Ceremony conducted for 16 new citizens by Associate Justice Antonin Scalia.  Lauren Pyfer, a junior from Upper Dublin High School near Philadelphia and winner of the "In Lincoln's Footsteps" essay contest, delivered her modern interpretation of the Gettysburg Address to appreciative applause.

Of course, President Lincoln delivered 270 words, give or take.  Edward Everett was nowhere to be found--not a bad thing given the cold morning breezes.

Kudos to the National Park Service, the Gettysburg Foundation,  the Lincoln Fellowship of Pennsylvania, and Gettysburg College for supporting such a moving event.

We walked in the footsteps of Lincoln the day before the dedication ceremony, from the Lincoln Train Depot to the Wills House to the Gettysburg National Cemetery.  This is the Soldiers National Memorial, not far from where Lincoln spoke, framed against a perfect fall sky.

Another Look at the Industrial Revolution: Visiting Lowell

A thread spool sculpture marks the entrance to the Boott Cotton
Mills Museum in Lowell.

One of the great things about researching the Industrial Revolution from a home in the Boston area is that it's hard not to simply drive smack into the Revolution on a regular basis.  My posts to this blog have included local sites like the Ames Shovel collection at Stonehill College in Easton, the Yankee Steam-Up in East Greenwich, Rhode Island (at the New England Wireless and Steam Museum, located not far from historic Slater Mill), the steampunk exhibit at the old Waltham Watch Company (now the Charles River Museum of Industry and Innovation), the Mount Hope Company in North Dighton, and Haverhill's very cool mural and painted boot markers.  The other day, too, I finally drove all 22 miles to the City of Lowell, in some ways the most important site of all.