Who Tells Your Story? Alexander Hamilton’s 230-year-old Federalist Papers: A Story for Our Time



The Federalist: A Collection of Essays, written in Favour of the New Constitution

Courtesy baumanrarebooks.com

“Who Tells Your Story?” is a central theme in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Broadway blockbuster Hamilton: An American Musical, currently touring in California. It also thematically links CHS’s current exhibitions Alexander Hamilton: Treasures from the New-York Historical Society and Meanwhile Out West: Colonizing California, 1769–1821—two colonial stories, eastern and western, that provide perspectives beyond unbiased and objective historical records.

Two hundred thirty years ago today, on October 27, 1787, a story with considerable impact on our new nation began, not in the halls of entertainment but in the theatre of political writing and discourse. It was a passionate story of support for the newly conceived United States Constitution—a document proposing a unique though unexpected way to govern our newborn union.

The story opens with the publication of the first of eighty-five articles in The Federalist (later The Federalist Papers), which promoted the ratification of the Constitution. Authored by Founding Fathers Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison under the pseudonym Publius (Latin for “public”), The Federalist was written over ten months, between October 1787 and May 1788, to influence the ratification debate primarily in New York.



Title page, Publius, The Federalist, vol. 1, 1788

Rare Books and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress

Alexander Hamilton (c. 1755–1804) wrote a majority of the articles, including the General Introduction, in which he urged his fellow New Yorkers and countrymen to adopt the Constitution: “I am convinced that this is the safest course for your liberty, your dignity, and your happiness.” Ratification, he wrote, “speaks its own importance; comprehending in its consequences nothing less than the existence of the UNION, the safety and welfare of the parts of which it is composed, the fate of an empire in many respects the most interesting in the world.” He further explained: “For nothing can be more evident, to those who are able to take an enlarged view of the subject than the alternative of an adoption of the new Constitution or a dismemberment of the Union.”

John Trumbull (American artist), Alexander Hamilton, after 1804

New-York Historical Society, Gift of Thomas Jefferson Bryan, 1867.305

The Constitution's sole signatory from New York, Hamilton had returned to the state from the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia facing strong opposition from Governor George Clinton, his widespread anti-Constitution followers, and his threatening political machine. Undeterred, Hamilton engaged Madison and Jay in the herculean effort ahead of him.

 

Signatures of the United States Constitution, detail of page 4

Courtesy National Archives and Records Administration

Despite The Federalist’s high-brow approach, Hamilton, Madison, and Jay achieved their goal three weeks after their last paper was published, when on July 26, 1788, in the Poughkeepsie Court House, the State of New York ratified the Constitution and became the eleventh state of the Union.

Even before New York’s ratification, Hamilton was honored during the city’s July 23, 1788, Federal Procession, a celebration following the Constitution’s ratification by New Hampshire. His image, as reported in a history of the city, “was carried aloft on banners in every part of the procession, the Constitution in his right hand and the Confederation in his left. He had to all appearances turned the scale for the Union, and fame was indeed crowning him with well-earned and enduring laurels.” The procession’s centerpiece, the Federal ship Hamilton, fired 13-gun salutes, one for each state, from its position on a platform drawn by ten horses. The ship anchored at the Bowling Green, “amidst the acclamations of thousands,” remaining on view until June 30, 1789.



Unknown artist, The Federal Ship Hamilton, c. 1877

Courtesy https://www.nyhistory.org

As biographer Ron Chernow has written, “Americans often wonder how this moment could have spawned such extraordinary men as Hamilton and Madison. Part of the answer is that the Revolution produced an insatiable need for thinkers who could generate ideas and wordsmiths who could lucidly expound them.” Indeed, Hamilton served as General George Washington’s aide during the Revolutionary War, the nation’s first Secretary of the Treasury under President Washington, and New York State assemblyman; he was founder of the Bank of New York, a designer of the two-party system, and a proponent of ending the legality of the international slave trade.

The impact of The Federalist was immediate. Not only did it influence ratification, the publication’s title became the name of the pro-Constitution movement and, later, Hamilton’s political party (1789–1824). To this day, The Federalist Papers is considered a masterpiece of political thought, renowned, Chernow points out, “as the foremost exposition of the Constitution.”

Two Bay Area students look at the Federalist papers in the current California Historical Society exhibition,  Alexander Hamilton: Treasures from the New-York Historical Society 

In today’s volatile political climate, when we weigh what seems like multiple interpretations of our nation’s rules of law, we might think of the story of The Federalist as one of indefatigable patriotism. But politics aside, we are, Chernow reminds us, “indisputably the heirs to Hamilton’s America, and to repudiate his legacy is, in many ways, to repudiate the modern world.”

 

Shelly Kale

Publications and Strategic Projects Manager

skale@calhist.org

Sources

Ron Chernow, Alexander Hamilton (New York: Penguin Books, 2004)

Martha J. Lamb, History of the City of New York: Its Origin, Rise and Progress, vol. II (New York: A.S. Barnes & Co., 1877; reprint 1921 by Valentine’s Manual, Inc.); books.google.com

Nation at the Crossroads: The Great New York Debate over the Constitution, 1787–88; https://www.nyhistory.org/web/crossroads/gallery/celebrations/federal_ship_hamilton.html

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Federalist Papers, by Alexander Hamilton and John Jay and James Madison; http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/18/pg18-images.html

HAMILTON: A Life in Documents: http://libex.nyhistory.org/hamilton-a-life-in-documents/

California Food Market Revival: Los Angeles’s Grand Central Market Turns 100

Opening Day at the Grand Central Public Market, October 27, 1917
Courtesy of Grand Central Market Collection via https://www.kcet.org/

“Years ago the only reason people went to downtown Los Angeles was to dump a body.
But that’s all changed. This is LA’s Brooklyn now. The place is bustling with new reasons to go there. One of those reasons is about a hundred years old.” —Phil Rosenthal
The Grand Central Market Cookbook: Cuisine and Culture from Downtown Los Angeles (2017)

In Los Angeles, the simplest pleasures—a sunset, a symphony, food and drink—are destinations. And this week, one destination stand outs, as it has been for the last 100 years. Downtown Los Angeles’s Grand Central Market, the city’s largest and oldest public market, celebrates its centennial. Once a convenient market for the residents of upscale Bunker Hill, today the Grand Central Market is, in food critic Jonathan Gold’s estimation, “an essential food center.”

Like San Francisco’s Ferry Building, the market’s transformation is part of a culinary trend sweeping the nation. Today’s food halls feature a variety of vendors whose products—local, exotic, and artisanal—cater to the hunger for variety that diverse populations have come to know and appreciate.

We celebrate Grand Central Market’s 100th anniversary this Friday, October 27, with a photo essay of the marketplace and its neighborhood over the years.





Homer Laughlin Building, c. early 1900s
Courtesy eileenlanza.com

The Grand Central Public Market opened in the Homer Laughlin Building, designed by architect John Parkinson and built in 1897 by potter and businessman Homer Laughlin. Its ground floor location was also home to a dry goods company owned by merchant and clergyman B. F. Coulter and to the San Francisco-based Ville de Paris dry goods company. In 1905, an adjoining building was constructed that extended the original building to Hill Street. One of downtown’s oldest commercial structures in continuous use and the city’s first fireproofed and steel-reinforced structure first steel-reinforced and fireproofed concrete sculpture, the Beaux Arts-style building also leased office space to famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright, who constructed a number of concrete residences in the Los Angeles area.

 

 

Broadway North from 4th Street, Los Angeles, Cal., c. 1900s

The Haskell Post Card Emporium 

By the time the Grand Central Public Market opened, Broadway was downtown Los Angeles’s main commercial and entertainment district. Above Broadway, on Bunker Hill, lived some of the city’s most prosperous residents, who descended the Angel’s Flight railway to shop at the market, only a few steps away. The residents of the segregated Bunker Hill and the market’s all-white vendors bear little resemblance to vendors and their patronage today.

  

   

Grand Opening of Angel's Flight, December 31, 1901
Courtesy Water and Power Associates

 Angel’s Flight (called Los Angeles Incline Railway when built) began at the west corner of Hill and Third Streets and ascended two blocks to Olive Street on Bunker Hill. One of its highly touted features was the observation tower, whose view was described in a brochure by J. W. Eddy, the railway’s financier, as “grand beyond compare, overlooking city, sea and mountains.” The railway was relocated half a block south in 1996. Following numerous closures, Angel’s Flight was restored and another grand opening was held on August 31, 2017—exactly 116 years after its 1901 opening.

  

 Grand Central Market, c. 1924–25
Courtesy The Bancroft Library

 
By 1920, Los Angeles had surpassed San Francisco in population (both over the half-million mark). Two years later, a promotional brochure bragged that Grand Central Market was “Feeding a Million People.” The market featured over 90 stalls, with vendors selling fruit, baked goods, meats, and other products. Prepared foods and restaurants also were available. Perhaps an unknown piece of its history is a visit by the State Department of Public Health during an outbreak of bubonic plague in 1924–1925. It is not clear whether any diseased rats were discovered from the writing accompanying the photograph above (housed at The Bancroft Library), which most likely was taken by the health inspectors.

  

 

Interior of Grand Central Market, c. 1930s

Courtesy Grand Central Market Collection

 

Melton’s Fine Meats at Grand Central Market, c. 1940

Courtesy Grand Central Market Collection via www.eater.com 

Shoppers found their way by bright neon signs displaying wares and stall numbers, c. 1950s

Courtesy CitySleuth

 As described in The Grand Central Market Cookbook: “Grand Central Public Market was true to its name—grand. It covered some 80,000 sq. ft., with 2 levels of retail space and a subterranean network of hallways lined with storage rooms, walk-in freezers, and refrigerators large enough to park a Model A Ford. Dumbwaiters from the basement to the street-level sales floor allowed vendors to stock their stalls without ever having to venture into the crowded aisles. It was a modern marvel.” Despite its grandeur, the post-World War II years and beyond were not kind to the areas surrounding the market, including Bunker Hill, where slum apartments arose as early as 1948.

  

 

Grand Central Market Shoppers, 1966

Los Angeles Public Library

As to the rest of the nation, the 1960s brought change to Los Angeles. The Watts Riots and a new immigration law brought “white flight” and a wave of new immigrants from Asia and Latin America, who introduced foods and specialty ingredients and lower prices to the market. A year before the decade began, the city adopted the Bunker Hill Urban Renewal Project. The project brought an end to the Bunker Hill neighborhood as Victorian homes and hotels were demolished to make way for skyscrapers. Within a decade of the project’s adoption, the hilltop community was gone.

 

 

Grand Central Market 75th Anniversary, December 5, 1987

Los Angeles Public Library; photo: Mike Sergieff

 

In the 1980s, real estate developer and lawyer Ira Yellin called Broadway a “bustling Hispanic secret.” With a new vision for the market—connecting Broadway, a major Latino shopping venue, and the upscale Bunker Hill district—he upgraded the space and began the market’s renovation, the Grand Central Square Project, which was completed in 1995. During the 2008 financial crisis, the market’s fate reflected the economic downturn in many parts of the city. By 2012, however, a resurgence of downtown residential and commercial activity revitalized the market, which only two years later was included in Bon Appetite magazine’s “Hot 10” list of eateries nationwide. Today, as Curbed Los Angeles observes, Grand Central Market “is a vibrant and thriving community of multicultural stands and food stops. . . . Flashy new food halls are marching into Los Angeles, but none can compete with the enduring Grand Central Market.”

 

Happy 100th Birthday, Grand Central Market!

 

 

Shelly Kale

Publications and Strategic Projects Manager

skale@calhist.org

 

Sources

Rusty Beaman, “What’s Hiding in the Basement of This Historic Building Downtown?”; https://eileenlanza.com/2016/09/13/whats-hiding-in-the-basement-of-this-historic-building-downtown/

Jenna Chandler and Farley Elliott, “LA’s Grand Central Market: A complete guide,” Curbed Los Angeles; https://la.curbed.com/2017/6/16/14659098/grand-central-market-hours-restaurants-eggslut

Farley Elliott, "The History and Politics of Street Food in Los Angeles; https://www.eater.com/2015/7/22/9014483/history-and-politics-of-street-food-los-angeles

Emanuella Grinberg, “Step into the new era of food halls,” CNN; http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/15/living/new-food-halls-eatocracy/index.html

Danny Jensen, “Grand Central Market: A Look Back at 100 Years,” KCET/The Migrant Kitchen, October 23, 2017; https://www.kcet.org/shows/the-migrant-kitchen/grand-central-market-a-look-back-at-100-years

Nathan Masters, “Rediscovering Downtown L.A.’s Lost Neighborhood of Bunker Hill,” KCET/Lost LA, July 11, 2012; https://www.kcet.org/shows/lost-la/rediscovering-downtown-las-lost-neighborhood-of-bunker-hill

Adele Yellin and Kevin West, The Grand Central Market Cookbook: Cuisine and Culture from Downtown Los Angeles (New York: Clarkson Potter, 2017)

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Celebrate! http://www.grandcentralmarket.com/events/1053/grand-central-market-turns-100

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

The 12th Annual Los Angeles Archives Bazaar

Los Angeles Archives Bazaar, 2015

Courtesy LA as Subject; photo: Rich Schmitt

History comes alive once again on Saturday, October 21, 2017, as dozens of Southern California’s rare and archival materials come together at the 12th annual daylong Los Angeles Archives Bazaar. Each year, serious researchers, history buffs, and Californiana enthusiasts come to experience a number of Southern California exhibits, documentary film screenings, educational sessions, and other public programming. A distinguishing feature of the bazaar is that unique, private collections and less-visible archives are represented alongside materials from large institutions, helping to tell a more complete story of Los Angeles history.

Look for the California Historical Society booth at this year’s bazaar. Learn about our Los Angeles–area collections housed at the Autry Museum and USC; ongoing projects and collections in both San Francisco and Los Angeles; and statewide opportunities, including our annual California Historical Society Book Award and traveling exhibitions. 

Every year, CHS archivists and staff are on hand at our booth, answering questions, sharing information, and selling books. This year, we offer our newest co-publications: The City of Vines: A History of Wine in Los Angeles (CHS/Heyday), winner of the 2016 California Historical Society Book Award, and ¡Murales Rebeldes! L.A. Chicana/Chicano Murals under Siege (CHS/LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes in association with Angel City Press), the companion publication of our current exhibition now on view at LA Plaza. 

Thomas Pinney, The City of Vines: A History of Wine in Los Angeles (CHS and Heyday, 2017)

Erin M. Curtis, Jessica Hough, and Guisela Latorre, ¡Murales Rebeldes! L.A. Chicana/Chicano Murals under Siege (CHS and LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes in association with Angel City Press, 2017)

At 11:00 a.m., join CHS’s Director of Exhibitions Jessica Hough, who will speak about CHS's ¡Murales Rebeldes! project, part of the Getty’s region-wide initiative, Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA. She will join other panelists at LA/LA LAAS Lightning Round, which highlights the archives from LA as Subject member collections that are included in PST: LA/LA exhibitions and programs, including the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Center for the Study of Political Graphics, ONE Archives at the USC Libraries, and UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center.

Saturday, October 21, 2017, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

Doheny Memorial Library, USC University Park Campus

3550 Trousdale Pkwy, Los Angeles, CA 90089

Admission is free and open to the public

Learn more at https://laassubject.org/archives-bazaar