The Base Ball Player's Book of Reference, by Henry Chadwick, 1867 / THF214794

Almost 40 years before Major League Baseball's first World Series, the city of Detroit hosted the "World's Tournament of Base Ball."

On July 14, 1867, the Detroit Free Press carried an announcement of the tournament, which was held at the grounds of the Detroit Base Ball Club from August 14 to August 21. The international tournament attracted teams from Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Ontario. When Detroit hosted the World’s Tournament in 1867, it announced it would abide by the rules as published in Henry Chadwick’s book, Haney’s Base Ball Player's Book of Reference. Chadwick and Albert G. Spalding were the two individuals who helped baseball achieve national prominence.


Trade Catalog, “Black Band” Spalding Bat / THF624007

Chadwick, a New York sportswriter, immigrated to the United States from England as a boy. He reported on baseball games and created a system for scoring games that continues to appear in sports pages today as the box score. Chadwick also authored a number of instructional books on how to play the “national game.” Books such as Chadwick’s helped create a uniform game, and promote baseball as acceptable recreation for men, and appropriate for men, women, and children to watch. Chadwick also authored the annual publication Spalding’s Official Base Ball Guide until his death in 1908.


Player with Spalding Bat / THF94414

Albert G. Spalding started his baseball career as a player, and later became a manager and president of the Chicago White Sox, which at the time was part of the National League. Spalding also created a popular sporting goods company, specializing in baseball equipment. The popularity of Spalding equipment is represented in photographic images from the late 1800s. The individual player shown above has a Spalding bat, and Spalding bats may be seen in the team photograph below of the Round Oak Club of Dowagiac, Michigan.


Round Oak Club, Dowagiac, Michigan / THF94416

In the early 20th century, Spalding and Chadwick put forth different versions of the origins of the game of baseball. Chadwick had long asserted that baseball developed based on British bat and ball games, such as “rounder." In an era of American nationalism, Albert Spalding hoped to find an American source for the game. He cajoled professional baseball to appoint a commission in 1905 to investigate the origins of the game. Chaired by A.G. Mills, the commission received a letter from a Denver, Colorado, engineer by the name of Abner Graves, asserting that Graves was present when Abner Doubleday developed the game in Cooperstown, New York, in 1839. Chadwick responded with evidence detailing the history of English bat and ball games without avail. Spalding’s zeal to establish baseball as a purely American game, and his connections within the commission, compelled the group to recognize the circumstantial evidence and acknowledge Doubleday as baseball’s founder.

If only someone had bothered to research Doubleday’s life, it would have revealed that he was at West Point in 1839, and could not have devised baseball in Cooperstown, as many now believe. In actuality, games of baseball (or “base ball,” as it was spelled into the early 20^th century) were reported in newspapers in the 1820s. The Knickerbocker Club of New York is credited with formulating the nine-player team format that eventually led to the formation of the National Association of Base Ball Players in 1858. Pitching was done underhanded and balls caught on the fly or the first bound were outs. The rules continued to evolve into the game that is now America’s pastime.

You can watch Historic Base Ball in Greenfield Village weekends this summer, or attend the World Tournament of Historic Base Ball on August 14–15 in Greenfield Village. The Greenfield Village Lah-De-Dahs and their opponents abide by the rules in our copy of the rare Haney’s Base Ball Player’s Book of Reference, just as the players in the 1867 tournament did. Visit the artifact’s page in our Digital Collections to read the whole book.


Leo Landis is former Curator at The Henry Ford. This article was adapted from the April 2003 entry in our previous “Pic of the Month” online series.

20th century, 19th century, sports, Michigan, Historic Base Ball, Greenfield Village, events, Detroit, by Leo Landis, books, baseball

Eagle Tavern at Its Original Site, Clinton, Michigan, circa 1890 / THF110473

“I am sure the Americans can fix nothing without a drink…. To use their expression, the way they drink, is ‘quite a caution.’”  –Frederick Marryat, A Diary in America (1839)

What Was a 19^th-Century Tavern Like?

Today the term tavern, as well as the now largely British term public house, are understood to be synonymous with the American term bar—places licensed to sell alcoholic beverages. In the mid-19th century, the two former terms denoted places identical to inns or hotels, which provided lodging and food as well as drinks. Regardless of what the establishment was called, its center was surely its barroom—and thus, perhaps, the modern equivalence of the terms tavern, public house, and bar.

Even in a large rural inn such as Eagle Tavern, which had a public sitting or reading room, a formal or ladies' parlor, and a dining room, it was in the barroom where guests registered and paid bills, arranged to board a horse, or booked passage on a public coach. But even more than that, the barroom was a sort of men's community center primarily patronized by local "regulars" to talk about crops and weather, argue about politics, smoke or chew tobacco, play cards, quarrel, and learn about distant goings-on from out-of-town visitors and the newspapers they left behind. Public celebrations such as elections, Independence Day, and other holidays; court sessions; and militia musters turned the barroom into the focus of a town-wide communal binge.


The barroom at Eagle Tavern. Photograph by Michelle Andonian. / THF54347

Drinking in 19^th-Century America

Drinking, of course, was what bound the barroom's clientele together. Alcohol consumption during the early 19th century reached a per capita peak which has never since been duplicated. In 1838, James Logan, a Scottish visitor to Detroit who echoed most other foreign travelers' accounts of the period, wrote:

“Indeed, drinking is carried to a great height both in Canada and in the State of Michigan. No sooner are they out of bed than they call for their bitters, and all day long they drink at brandy, gin, or whiskey, taking, however, only a wine-glass at a time, which they mix in a tumbler with a little sugar and water. Just enough is taken at once to raise the spirits, and when the excitement subsides, the dose is repeated, so that in this way inebriation is avoided, although a great quantity is taken in the course of the day.”


Bond for Tavern Licence in Red Hook, New York, May 3, 1830 / THF148000

A single modern statistical comparison should serve to underscore Logan’s impressions. It has been estimated that in 1830 the average American male above the age of 15 consumed more than 7½ gallons of distilled spirits per year, while today Americans drink about 2½ gallons of liquor per capita per annum. It is perhaps not surprising that the American temperance movement came into being at this time of unparalleled alcohol consumption. As Capt. Frederick Marryat, the English writer, recorded in A Diary in America, published in 1839:

“They say that the English cannot settle anything properly without dinner. I am sure the Americans can fix nothing without a drink. If you meet, you drink; if you close a bargain, you drink; they quarrel in their drink, and they make it up with a drink. They drink because it is hot; they drink because it is cold. If successful in elections, they drink and rejoice; if not, they drink and swear; they begin to drink early in the morning, they leave off late at night; they commence it early in life, and they continue it, until they soon drop into the grave. To use their expression, the way they drink, is ‘quite a caution.' As for water, what the man said, when asked to belong to the Temperance Society, appears to be the general opinion: ‘It's very good for navigation.’”

Beverage Options in Eagle Tavern

What then do we know of what was served in Eagle Tavern's barroom? Whiskey was the beverage of the period. Throughout the upland South and Midwest, whiskey was distilled from a mash composed of a majority of corn and a smaller percentage of other grains. In Pennsylvania and the mid-Atlantic region, rye was the primary grain. Both were straight, unblended spirits. Modern bourbon whiskey and American or Canadian blended whiskey ("rye") are derived from these two beverages. Locally made whiskey was extremely cheap, about $.20 a gallon or $.06 cents a quart.

Rum, the favorite distilled beverage of the 18th century, had declined in popularity (outside of New England) because tariffs on imported spirits, or on the imported molasses necessary to make domestic rum, priced the drink much higher than whiskey. Imported rum from Jamaica and the Virgin Islands (St. Croix) and domestic rum made in Massachusetts were commonly available. Domestic gin, brandy, and fruit brandies were popular. Notable among these was applejack, an apple brandy frequently made in New Jersey. Sweet brandies and cordials were ladies' drinks. Imported Holland gin (often called Geneva), Cognac, Scotch, and Irish whiskey were available but expensive.


The Print "Dance in a Country Tavern" in The Old Print Shop "Portfolio" Catalog, December 1948 / THF148039

In apple-producing regions, hard cider (simply called "cider") was the most popular fermented beverage. Cider was overwhelmingly popular in late 18th- and early 19th-century New England, and its popularity was carried westward into New York and Michigan by migrating Yankees. Cider was cheap to produce but costly to ship, so a 31-gallon barrel ranged in price from $.50 at a country cider mill to $3.00-$4.00 in an Eastern city.

Beer, which would replace cider in popularity after 1850, was more expensive than cider or whiskey. The ale and beer made at the time were top-fermented products similar to the "bitter" served in English public houses today. Modern American beer is a lager beer (fermented at the bottom of a vat and aged in cold storehouses) introduced by German brewers during the 1840s. Popular during the 1850s in cities such as Milwaukee and Cincinnati with large German populations, lager beer became an American national beverage only after the Civil War. The temperance movement, high wartime taxes on whiskey, and the Union Army's practice of serving lager beer rations all contributed to the elevation of its popularity.


When a stagecoach stopped to change horses, the ladies might well choose a temperance beverage while the men ordered more bracing refreshment. / THF120729

Wine drinking was even less widespread than beer drinking. The only domestic wines available in Michigan were made at wineries near Cincinnati, Ohio, from the Catawba grape native to Eastern North America. The sparkling wines made of this grape were praised by European travelers who compared them to fine French champagne. At comparatively high prices, French red Bordeaux (claret), sauternes and champagne, German Rhine wine (hock), and Spanish and Portuguese fortified wines (sherry, Madeira, and port) were available. Tastes in wines overwhelmingly favored sweet rather than dry types.

Tavern Habits

Tavern drinking usually entailed "treating." That meant that each man in turn bought a half-pint of whiskey that was passed around the room. Whiskey was normally consumed in a tumbler with or without ice or water and frequently flavored with one of several kinds of bitters. Generally, sweet, mixed drinks known by names such as cock-tails, juleps, smashes, slings, cobblers, sangarees, punches, stone walls, stone fences, etc., were popular in city hotel barrooms and were thought to be more "refined" and thus more suitable for gentlemen (and ladies) than straight whiskey.


The original 1982 version of a re-created drink list at Eagle Tavern, based on 1850s-era menus. / THF123847

The variety of mixed drinks in 1850 was far more limited than those ingeniously compounded by 20th-century bartenders. But a modern visitor to Eagle Tavern could not be expected to acquire an instant taste for straight corn whiskey. So, in designing our menu, we sought to find 19th-century mixed drinks that were similar in taste to modern drinks. In so doing, we found that the original "cock-tail,” a classic American drink first created in the late 18th century (and supposedly named for the custom of serving it in a glass decorated with rooster feathers), tasted very much like our present-day "Old Fashioned." Similarly, modern visitors to Eagle Tavern find that our "Planter's Punch,” a drink made with rum and citrus juices and first concocted during the 18th century in the British West Indies, is quite comparable in taste to a modern "sour."

Of course, there are also some elements in Eagle Tavern barroom that visitors find amusingly unfamiliar. Most notable among these is the presence of a piece of macaroni in place of a straw or a stirrer in their drink. The reason for this is quite simple. In documenting drinks of the mid-19th century, we found that several, including cobblers and juleps, were invariably served with a straw or "sucker,” as it was often called. Paper straws were not known in 1850, and we were at a loss to understand how we could properly serve such drinks in a 19th-century manner. As fortune had it, the following entry was noticed in an 1848 American dictionary: “Sucker, a tube used for sucking sherry-cobblers. They are made of silver, glass, straw, or sticks of macaroni.” It is little discoveries like this that transform our sometimes dry-as-dust research into an intriguing experience for patrons of Eagle Tavern in Greenfield Village.


Peter H. Cousins is former Curator of Agriculture at The Henry Ford, and led the research into the drinking habits of mid-19th-century Americans for the Eagle Tavern restoration project. This post was adapted from an article in Volume 12, Number 1 of the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village Herald (1983).

Additional Readings:

• Eagle Tavern Inspiration to Enjoy at Home
  
• Creating the Eagle Tavern Dining Experience
  
• Root Vegetables, Then and Now
  
• Menu from Clinton Inn (now Eagle Tavern), Greenfield Village, 1952

19th century, Michigan, Greenfield Village buildings, Greenfield Village, food, Eagle Tavern, by Peter H. Cousins, beverages

Server shows off an array of pastries at Eagle Tavern, 2007. Photograph by Michelle Andonian. / THF54295

April 1, 1982, was a momentous day in Greenfield Village! That was the day that Eagle Tavern opened to the public. It was our first historic dining experience—the result of months of research, recipe selection and testing, and interpretive planning. How did all this come about?


Historical presenters and food service staff pose in front of Eagle Tavern to celebrate the new dining experience, 1982. / THF237355

The Food Committee

It started when we took a chance on a young museum leader named Harold Skramstad, who became our president in 1981. Faced with a severe financial crisis at the time, Skramstad built a case around our “world-class” status and “unique historical resources.” This led to the creation of our first mission statement, which focused upon the process of change in America from a rural agricultural society to an urban industrial nation. Following that, Skramstad created several task forces and committees, each charged with developing plans to carry out our mission through a variety of public programs. This included the mysteriously named Food Committee. It turned out that this committee—comprised of curators, food service staff, and interpretation specialists—was charged with exploring ways to bring our food offerings in line with our overall interpretive framework.


Food vendor in Greenfield Village. / THF133689

Soon, new food experiences began to appear. Through the Food Committee’s collaborative efforts, vendors hawked fruit and penny candy from rolling carts like those that had been seen on urban street corners a century ago. At the Covered Bridge Lunch Stand (now Mrs. Fisher’s), visitors could partake of turn-of-the-century picnic lunches. With the help of diner expert Richard Gutman—who informed us that we possessed the last remaining lunch wagon in existence—the Owl Night Lunch Wagon was overhauled to look more like a late-19^th-century lunch wagon, featuring a more historic menu. But Eagle Tavern became our “crown jewel,” as we proposed turning this historic inn into a sit-down full-service restaurant with period food and drink.

What had the building been like before this?

Clinton Inn

Ella Smith, the final owner, in front of the inn on its original site in Clinton, Michigan, circa 1905. / THF110475

In 1927—searching for a stagecoach tavern for his Village Green—Henry Ford found and purchased this imposing 1830s-era inn. From Clinton, Michigan, it was situated along what once had been the main stagecoach road between Detroit and Chicago. Over the years, the inn had gone through several proprietors and name changes, from Parks Tavern to Eagle Tavern to the Union Hotel to Smith’s Hotel. When Henry Ford had the building reconstructed in Greenfield Village, he gave it the generic name Clinton Inn.


Carriages waiting for passengers at Clinton Inn. / THF120768

From 1929 into the 1950s, the building served as a cafeteria for students attending the Edison Institute schools. Ford enlarged the back of the structure for that purpose. When Greenfield Village officially opened to the public in 1933, Clinton Inn became the starting point for public carriage tours.


1950 calendar for Greenfield Village, featuring Clinton Inn. / THF8882

In the 1950s, the building transitioned from a student lunchroom to a public cafeteria. That was still its use when I first started working at The Henry Ford (then called Henry Ford Museum & Greenfield Village) in 1977. Also when I started, Clinton Inn’s so-called “colonial kitchen” was used for fireplace cooking classes as part of the institution’s Adult Education Program.

Why Eagle Tavern?

Why did we choose the Eagle Tavern era to interpret? To establish a date for the historic dining experience, we looked to primary sources, as we do when we research all of our historic structures. These sources, which help us uncover the esoteric details of the past, included probate records, property deeds, tax and census records, and local newspapers. Through this research, we found that a farmer named Calvin Wood ran this tavern from 1849 to 1854, with his wife Harriet, Harriet’s daughter Irene, and additional hired help from town or the neighboring countryside. In keeping with the patriotic spirit of the time, Wood named the place Eagle Tavern.

We decided that we liked this early 1850s date. Not only did we have decent documentation on Calvin Wood, but it was also an interesting era for changes in cooking ingredients and cookbooks (both more available than before) as well as public dining practices and customs (toward more choices for individual diners, better table etiquette, more formalized meals and menus, and more specialized table settings).

The 1850s date also dovetailed with our new mission statement—about change over time—in larger ways that were transforming the entire nation at the time. These included social movements like temperance, abolition, and women’s rights; advancements in transportation, from horse-drawn vehicles to speedy railroads; and improved communication networks, as the telegraph swiftly brought the latest news to the public. Significant national events like the California Gold Rush and the Mexican War were also impacting many people’s lives.


A variety of horse-drawn vehicles passing in front of a Middletown, Connecticut, tavern, 1842–47. / THF204148


Michigan Central Railroad car, 1848. / THF147798

Researching the Food

My primary task in creating the Eagle Tavern dining experience was to find out what and how people ate during this era. I delved deeply into period sources looking for clues to these questions, including travelers’ accounts, etiquette books, merchants’ account books, newspaper ads, and historical reminiscences.

Within these sources, I found several quite eye-opening entries, like that of Isabella Bird, a British traveler who described this meal placed in front of her at a Chicago hotel in 1856: “…eight boiled legs of mutton, nearly raw; six antiquated fowls, whose legs were of the consistency of guitar-strings; baked pork with “onion fixings,” the meat swimming in grease; and for vegetables, yams, corn-cobs, and squash. A cup of stewed tea, sweetened by molasses, was at each plate…The second course consisted exclusively of pumpkin-pies.”

It’s probably good that we didn’t take these accounts completely literally when we developed the Eagle Tavern dining experience!

From these research sources, I learned that tavern fare would have come from a combination of local farms (especially, in this case, Calvin Wood’s own farm), from the fields and woods of the surrounding area, and using ingredients that would have been purchased from local merchants.


A cold plate featuring chicken salad, pictured in the 1988 Eagle Tavern Cookbook. / THF121002

The primary components of a tavern meal would have consisted of meat, vegetables and fruits (in various forms), and breadstuffs. Meat was the predominant component of the tavern meal, served in much greater quantity than today. Often, two or more meats were served at one meal. Pork, the staple food of many midwestern settlers, was the most popular meat, served in a variety of forms—including roasted, salted, baked, and as bacon, smoked ham, sausage, or spareribs. Chickens, easy to raise on farms, lent themselves to many dishes. They also could supply eggs. In fact, Lansing Swan, traveling through Sturgis, Michigan, in 1841, wrote: “We had an excellent dinner, warm cakes, tea, etc. bacon and eggs. I have eaten them until I am ashamed to see a hen and can hardly look a respectable porker in the face.”

Beef contributed to a portion of the tavern meals, as did wild game and fish from local lakes and rivers. Oysters were also popular at the time, packed on ice and transported in barrels from the East coast.


An array of vegetables for Eagle Tavern dishes, pictured in the 1988 Eagle Tavern Cookbook. / THF121001

As for vegetables, root crops lasted throughout the year and they stored easily. Potatoes were especially popular, as described in this southern Michigan meal by Charles Hoffman in 1833: “…hot rolls, tea, large pieces of pork swimming in its gravy, and a plate of potatoes that pulverized when you touched them.” Cabbage, onions, turnips, and carrots were other root crops frequently found in the research. Less hardy vegetables, like tomatoes and cucumbers, were served in season or preserved as catsups, sauces, or pickles. Pumpkins, squash, and corn were usually served in season or preserved for later use.

Fruits were served fresh in season, dried, or made into preserves, sauces, or pickles. Of these, apples were most frequently used as they were incredibly versatile—preserved, cooked, or baked into numerous dishes. Peaches, pears, apricots, grapes, and berries of all sorts were also found in the accounts. Wild strawberries were specifically called out several times by traveler Lansing Swan, in 1841. In Ypsilanti, Swan “got an excellent supper for 25 cents and many large delicious strawberries with rich cream.” Farther west, in Jackson, he happily remarked that he was, “Just in time for tea with strawberries and cream.” In Niles, he and his companion “came in time for another strawberry repast and a rich one it was. We had a new dish, ‘Strawberry Short Cake,’ very fine indeed.” And before leaving Niles the next morning, he partook of one last “strawberry breakfast.” Raisins, dried figs, prunes, currants, and citron were listed in grocery store ads and could be purchased.


A variety of muffins and rolls served at Eagle Tavern, 2007. Photograph by Michelle Andonian. / THF54331

Breadstuffs contributed substantially to tavern meals, mentioned often in travel accounts as a meal accompaniment—but not always with approval! For example, Cyrus Bradley, dining in a tavern between Detroit and Pontiac in 1835, remarked: “The milk was sweet, but the bread was dry and stale and as it began to saturate, the little red bugs rose, kicking most lustily, to the surface, where they were immediately skimmed off and most barbarously committed to the flames.”

Wheat flour and cornmeal were processed at local mills and could be used for baking breads, rolls, biscuits. Charles Hoffman, in 1833, remarked that Michigan had the “best wheat bread in the world.”

Creating the Menus

From all of these accounts, I created a master list of dishes and ingredients. Then I perused every historic cookbook I could find. Fortunately, the number of printed cookbooks was on the rise by the mid-19^th century, although measurements, cooking times, and temperatures were not precise—which is why so much recipe testing had to be done. Within the pages of these cookbooks, I searched for recipes that were specifically referenced in historic accounts, those that seemed regional, and those that included ingredients on my researched ingredients list.


The Good Housekeeper, from 1841, was one of several cookbooks perused for possible recipes. / THF120853

I organized my collected recipes by type—for instance, entrees, pastries, soups, vegetables—and then spent innumerable hours with the food service managers at Eagle Tavern debating and selecting the final recipes. The managers brought up constraints that I would never have considered as a curator—including modern cost and availability of ingredients as well as the durability of certain dishes on the steam table that was still being used from the old cafeteria setup. Probably our most animated conversations related to how adventurous we thought modern visitors would be in trying things that were different and unusual—like mock turtle soup and beef tongue! Once determined, the agreed-upon recipes were tested by food service cooks (this predated having chefs on staff) who, after weeks of testing, invited us to a grand two-day food tasting.


Elaborate Bill of Fare for Thanksgiving Day, 1847, at the Adams House in Boston, Massachusetts. / THF147797

At the same time, I searched for examples of historic menus from the era to see what constituted a tavern meal. As it turned out, most tavern meals started with soup and ended with a dessert course of dried fruit and nuts. (The phrase “from soup to nuts” must have originated at this time!) The Eagle Tavern menu, or “Bill of Fare,” was laid out much like the historic menus of the time but included a simpler selection of dishes that were regionally and seasonally appropriate. Today, the Eagle Tavern Bills of Fare still follow these guidelines.


Eagle Tavern’s first Bill of Fare, Spring 1982. / THF123845

The Dining Experience

According to travel narratives of the era, tavern dining was fast and furious. For example, one traveler in Chicago in 1836 wrote: “…every man for himself, and none for his neighbor; hurrying, snatching, gulping, like famished wildcats; victuals disappearing as if by magic.” Partly, this was because there were often more patrons than space at the one “common table” in an inn. To resolve this, diners often took turns eating, as James Logan described in a hotel in Detroit in 1838: “Very little conversation took place, each individual seemed to hurry on as fast as possible, and the moment one finished he rose and went away. There was not change of plates, knives, or forks, every thing being eaten off the same plate, excepting pudding, which was taken in saucers.”

For the Eagle Tavern dining experience, we knew we were not about to recreate James Logan’s experience! But how, we wondered, could we simulate the concept of the “common table” for modern visitors? Fortunately, because of the spacious cafeteria area that Henry Ford had added to the building back in the 1920s, we found that we could furnish the space with not one but several tables that simulated communal dining. It also gave us the option of seating people at separate tables if additional privacy were desired.


The Eagle Tavern table setting was also the result of historical research, found in Catherine Beecher’s 1850 Domestic Receipt Book. / THF147807

Today’s dining experience at Eagle Tavern is much like it was back when we first created this experience almost 40 years ago. To me, Eagle Tavern was—and still is—one of the best historic dining experiences around!


Donna R. Braden is Senior Curator and Curator of Public Life at The Henry Ford.

Additional Readings:

• Eagle Tavern at its Original Site, Clinton, Michigan, February 2, 1925
  
• Behind the Bar at Eagle Tavern
  
• Eagle Tavern Inspiration to Enjoy at Home
  
• Menu from Clinton Inn (now Eagle Tavern), Greenfield Village, 1952

19th century, 1850s, Dearborn, 20th century, 1980s, restaurants, research, Michigan, Greenfield Village history, Greenfield Village buildings, Greenfield Village, food, Eagle Tavern, by Donna R. Braden, #Behind The Scenes @ The Henry Ford

Grimm Jewelry Store on its original site on Michigan Avenue in Detroit, Michigan, 1926, before being moved to Greenfield Village. / THF254049

In the 1880s, an entrepreneur named Engelbert Grimm sold modestly priced clocks, watches, and jewelry out of this store when it was located in Detroit, Michigan. One of Grimm’s customers was, in fact, Henry Ford, who often stopped by the store to purchase watch parts and chat with him.


Grimm Jewelry Store in Greenfield Village. / THF1947

The Grimm Jewelry Store, now located in Greenfield Village, also provides a way for us to look at larger changes in Americans’ lives at the time, especially for people living in cities.


Shops selling clocks and watches became increasingly common, as seen in this photograph of a clerk posing in such a shop from Urbana, Ohio, taken some time between 1907 and 1915. / THF250161

In an increasingly urban and industrial nation, people were expected to know the time and be on time, all the time. Notice that, if you look hard enough, you can see that each of these photographs from our Detroit Publishing Company collection has a public clock in it. 


Looking down West 23^rd Street, New York City, about 1908. Clock-finding clue: Look down the street, above the horse-drawn carriage, and you’ll see a large street clock on a stand. / THF204886


Tremont Street Mall and Boston Common, Boston, Massachusetts, about 1905. Clock-finding clue: Look at the bottom of the church steeple in the center of the photograph. / THF203418


Elevated railway at Cooper Union and 4^th Avenue, New York City, about 1900. Clock-finding clue: Look at the top of the building to the left of the railroad tracks. / THF203350

Synchronizing one’s watch with public clocks became part of meeting one’s social responsibility. The clock and the watch came to be seen as models for disciplined, regulated personal behavior. One advertisement for pocket watches in the 1880s claimed, “The man is nothing but a botch, who tries to live without a watch.”


Man’s pocket watch from 1878. / THF152471

The downside to this, of course, was a greater level of anxiety—living with what was called “clock time,” an artificial construct very different from following the natural rhythms of the sun, the moon, and the seasons, as farmers had done for centuries. 


Photograph of farmers haying, Northfield, Massachusetts, about 1900. / THF141862

Today, we seem to be controlled by clock alarms and alerts, schedules, calendars, and the pressure to be punctual.  “Clock time” has become an expected part of our lives.


Donna R. Braden is Senior Curator and Curator of Public Life at The Henry Ford.

20th century, 19th century, Greenfield Village buildings, Greenfield Village, clocks, by Donna R. Braden

"American Sports, Base Ball, Striker & Catcher" Plate, circa 1850 / THF135816

"On Saturday afternoon, Sept. 10, at the farm of Louis Bradley, might have been seen a small gathering of people. They came to see the final game between the Lah-da-dahs, of Waterford, and the White Lakes of Webster neighborhood."  –Pontiac Bill Poster, September 14, 1887

In the 1880s, many Michigan towns supported baseball teams, including Waterford, in Oakland County, but the game's history goes back further. The game of base ball (as it was often spelled into the 1890s) had its origins in a number of children's games, but especially a British game called "Rounders." Rounders rules called for the game to be played on a diamond, with a striker (batter) who faced a feeder (pitcher).

The American game of base ball gained in popularity in the mid-1800s, so much so that English ceramic makers produced dishes such as the "Base Ball" plate above, depicting a "Striker & Catcher," to appeal to American consumers. American interest in base ball in the late 1800s is evident in the production and marketing of such a plate.

Americans purchased these English-made ceramics to celebrate their national game, but base ball did not have all the regulations we know in modern baseball today. Until the 1880s, rules stated that the pitcher had to deliver the ball underhanded with a straight arm. The batter could call for a high or low pitch. A high pitch was considered one between the belt and shoulders, and a low pitch was to be delivered between the belt and knees, a range close to the modern strike zone. Balls and strikes were usually not called until the 1870s.

Some rules called for home plate to be made of marble or stone, but there was no batter's box, only a line that bisected the plate. Consequently, today's historic base ball umpires will frequently signal the start of a game by calling, "Striker to the line!" Early rules discouraged, and often forbade, players being paid.

You can browse artifacts related to both the early and more modern forms of baseball in our Digital Collections. Or, if you want to see vintage base ball firsthand, check out the schedule for the Greenfield Village Lah-De-Dahs, who borrowed the name of the old Waterford team. The Village nine suit up to play teams from Ohio and Michigan throughout the summer as a part of Historic Base Ball in Greenfield Village. Though the song "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" was not written until 1908, you might hear the band play it. If you wish, you can sing along and cheer on the base ball strikers for the Lah-De-Dahs.


This post was adapted from the July 2000 entry in our former Pic of the Month series.

Additional Readings:

• The Webster Dining Room Reimagined: An Informal Family Dinner
  
• Sidney Houghton: The Fair Lane Estate
  
• Portable Writing Desk, Owned by Edgar Allan Poe, 1830-1849
  
• Designs for Aging: New Takes on Old Forms

Europe, Michigan, 19th century, 1880s, 1850s, sports, home life, Historic Base Ball, Greenfield Village, furnishings, events, decorative arts, baseball

For those who brought home our stoneware bread cloche (a versatile baking piece created by our artisans in Greenfield Village, which allows you to mix your dough, proof it, then bake it, all in one dish) during the holiday season last year, you know that the resulting bread is light and airy with a golden crust.

If you’re wondering what our go-to recipe is for this 1800s-inspired baking piece, it’s Sallie Lunn Bread. Made regularly inside the kitchen at Firestone Farmhouse and acting as the inspiration for recipes inside A Taste of History, this recipe is credited to Farmer’s and Housekeeper’s Cyclopaedia, Stephen Lewandowski, Ed., 1888, p. 326.

Sallie Lunn Bread

• 1quart (4 cups) of flour
• 4 eggs
• 1 pint (2 cups) of milk
• 1 tablespoonful of lard
• 1 tablespoonful of butter
• 2 spoonsful of sugar
• 1 gill of yeast

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees. When baking inside of our stoneware bread cloche, bake for 40 to 45 minutes, until the top is golden-brown and the loaf has a hollow sound when tapped.


Lish Dorset is Marketing Manager, Non-Admission Products, at The Henry Ford.

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A Taste of History in Greenfield Village offers our visitors seasonal, locally sourced and historically minded recipes. Over the past year, our chefs have been developing some new recipes, directly drawn from the recipes of George Washington Carver and the ingredients that he used. You can learn more about the inspiration behind the new options both in A Taste of History and in Plum Market Kitchen in Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation in our blog post here, or try out some of the recipes for yourself—like this Peanut Roll Cake with Jelly.

Chef’s Notes

When we were reading through hundreds of George Washington’s Carver’s recipes, this one stood out. It’s a wow—a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for dessert! Chef Kasem Faraj, our resident Greenfield Village chef, spent hours making this one just perfect. We’ve had many variations of the PB&J in our lifetime, and this one takes the cake—just have fun and roll with it.


Recipe: Peanut Roll Cake with Jelly

Makes 1 Cake; Serves 8

Cake ingredients

4 each             Eggs

7 oz                  Granulated Sugar

¾ tsp                Baking Powder

½ tsp                Salt

¼ tsp                Baking Soda

4 ½ oz              All Purpose Flour, Sifted

3 oz                  Butter, Melted

1 oz                  Vanilla Extract

Filling ingredients

1 ½ oz              Granulated Peanuts

2 oz                  Smooth Peanut Butter

4 oz                  Raspberry Currant Jam/Jelly

Procedure

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. Combine eggs, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in the bowl of an electric mixture (or use a hand mixer and bowl).
3. Mix on medium-low speed until the sugar has dissolved and the mixture is smooth and runny, about 3 minutes.
4. Increase the speed to medium and whip until the mixture is a play yellow and thick enough to fall from the whisk in ribbons.
5. Increase the speed again to high and continue whipping until the mixture has roughly doubled in volume and is thick.
6. Reduce speed to medium-low and add vanilla and melted butter in a steady stream.
7. Add sifted flour all at once and mix just enough to incorporate the flour.
8. Pour batter into a half sheet tray or 13” x 9” baking dish that has been lined with parchment paper and nonstick spray.
9. Bake for 8-10 minutes. Cake is done when the cake is puffed, lightly brown from edge to edge, and slightly firm.
10. While cake is still warm, place on a linen towel and roll tightly. Allow cake to cool while rolled to shape and keep from cracking when filled and rolled.
11. Once cake has cooled, unroll cake, and cover the inside of the roll with peanut butter, jelly, and granulated peanuts.
12. Re-roll the cake and allow to sit with the seam on the bottom.
13. Glaze cake with a simple icing and top with additional granulated peanuts if desired.

Eric Schilbe is Executive Sous Chef at The Henry Ford.

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Puddings of the 18^th century came in a variety of flavors, both savory and sweet, with many containing vegetables, and were more like the texture and consistency of a modern-day bread pudding. The shape of these puddings varied as well, since some were baked while others were boiled. In order to bake a pudding, a baking dish was needed, most often a simple round redware dish with high sides. The recipe would be prepared in the redware dish and then baked inside of a cast iron bake kettle, with hot coals underneath and on top. Puddings were eaten as part of the midday dinner meal.

From The First American Cookbook by Amelia Simmons in 1796, this recipe for carrot pudding pairs perfectly with our redware baking dish created in Greenfield Village.

Carrot Pudding Recipe
“Baked in a deep dish without paste [pie crust]”

Ingredients

• A coffee cup (¾ cup) full of boiled carrots, processed until smooth
• 5 eggs
• 4 tablespoons sugar
• 2 tablespoons butter
• Cinnamon and rose water to taste

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine ingredients together, adding the eggs one at a time. Pour prepared mixture into a buttered baking dish and bake until a toothpick inserted comes out clean, about 45 minutes.

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Alice McAlexander & Warren Flood, plus Malcolm. Photo courtesy Warren Flood.

One-year members Alice McAlexander, Warren Flood, and their son find wonder in a bus, a collection of trains, and a carousel.

A perennial first stop at The Henry Ford for Alice McAlexander, Warren Flood, and their son, Malcolm, is the Rosa Parks Bus in the museum’s With Liberty and Justice for All exhibition, where powerful storytelling offers an affecting, unforgettable journey from then to now without fail. After moving to Michigan during the frigid winter, this trio found The Henry Ford a twice-weekly indoor wonderland, smoothing their transition from sunny Los Angeles. Euphoria for Malcolm is when he is perched on the museum’s New Holland combine or the village’s Herschell-Spillman Carousel. For the couple, The Henry Ford delivers hope and optimism for their son and all the next generations, linking historical creativity and invention with future innovation.

Their must-dos:

Seeing the different trains, carriages, and Model T’s throughout the museum and then watching them spring to life in a whole new way in Greenfield Village. Letting their son feed his obsession for the Mold-A-Ramas in the museum. He has collected nearly every mold.

Their favorite member perk: 

“Our two-year-old wakes up and asks to go to the museum or Greenfield Village all the time, and every trip is a guaranteed great adventure full of new sights and experiences.”


What’s your spark? Let us know what inspires you on your next visit and what takes you forward from your membership. Email us at membership@thehenryford.org. Take it forward as a member—enjoy benefits like free parking, discounts on events and tours, exclusive member previews, and more.

This post was adapted from an article in the June-December 2020 issue of The Henry Ford Magazine.

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A Taste of History in Greenfield Village offers our visitors seasonal, locally sourced and historically minded recipes. Over the past year, our chefs have been developing some new recipes, directly drawn from the recipes of George Washington Carver and the ingredients that he used. You can learn more about the inspiration behind the new options both in A Taste of History and in Plum Market Kitchen in Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation in our blog post here, or try out some of the recipes for yourself—like these Collard Greens with Smoked Turkey.

Chef’s Notes

What is Southern cooking without greens? There are lots of different ways to go, and almost no way to go wrong. Just be sure to cook the greens long enough, and don’t add any extra salt until done.

We chose to add smoked turkey to this dish to build truly rich flavors into something very simple. If you don’t have a smoker, smoked turkey wings or legs are readily available, fresh or frozen, at most local grocers. Or you can make this dish vegan by omitting the turkey and smoking the onions before adding—or simply cook it over a campfire to achieve a rich, smoky flavor.  

Recipe: Collard Greens with Smoked Turkey

Makes 8 Portions


Ingredients

2 lb                  Fresh Collard Greens

8 oz                  White Onion

8 cloves           Fresh Garlic

8 oz                  Smoked Turkey Wing Meat

1 oz                  Cider Vinegar

4 C                   Vegetable Stock/Broth

To taste           Salt and Pepper

Procedure

 

1. Dice onions and sauté in a pot until translucent.
2. Mince garlic and add to pot along with turkey wings.
3. Deglaze pan with cider vinegar, then add in chopped collard greens and vegetable stock.
4. Simmer on low until greens are tender and all liquid has been absorbed, approximately 1 ½ hours.
5. Season with salt and pepper as needed.

Eric Schilbe is Executive Sous Chef at The Henry Ford.

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