Tag: History Blogs

Psychology in the Dark Ages – Part One

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View Part One and Part Two of the Psychology in the Dark Ages series.

With Caleb Carr’s latest novel, The Legend of Broken, released in paperback last month, I thought it might be interesting to take some time away from the Alienist books for the next two blog posts to discuss what was known about psychology during the period in which Broken was set. Coming from a background in psychology, I can attest that almost every history of psychology textbook either ignores or skims over the thousand year period from Rome to the Renaissance with the general argument being that medieval thinking, centered largely in theology, had put an end to scientific enquiry of all kinds, fostered little-to-no interest in matters of philosophy beyond questions directly related to spirituality, and regarded the mentally ill as being possessed by the devil or witchcraft. Although there are certainly elements of truth in these generalisations, to generalise the entire thinking of a people spanning a thousand year time period with such a limited scope does no credit to the scholars who did live during that period. After all, how can medieval theologians such as Saint Barnard and Saint Peter Damien be considered “antiphilosophers” if there were no philosophers during the time period to target?

So, let us take a journey back in time to the year 750 A.D. In doing so, we step into the heart of a period of political and cultural turmoil that would come to be known to history as the Dark Ages, a period generally thought to span the fourth or fifth century A.D. to the eleventh century A.D. On our particular journey, we arrive outside a cave hidden deep in the heart of a forest located at the base of the highest peak of the Harz mountain range in Germany. The sun has not yet risen, the air is still, and inside the cave an old man lies sleeping while his companion, sensing an intruder in their midst, has moved to maintain a silent vigil at the door of their simple dwelling. Looking into the cave past the companion, the glowing embers of a smoldering fire allow us to discern the indistinct shapes of the old man’s most beloved treasures, the items we have come to the cave to find: the collected works of the great minds of antiquity. The large quantity of parchment–some works rolled onto scrolls while others are bound in a rudimentary fashion–rests on a ledge that the old man painstakingly chiseled into one of the cave walls during the years immediately following his exile from the nearby mountaintop kingdom that he once called home; a city known as Broken.

The old man is a scientist, a physician, and above all, a philosopher. He is a rarity in these times, but not altogether unheard of. The old man’s interests span widely, ranging from metallurgy to anatomy to military strategy, but on our journey we are most interested in his knowledge of the mind. Learned though the old man is, the study of the mind as we know it today is foreign to him–indeed, even the term psychology would mean nothing to him, with its predecessor psychologia first coined in 1520–but a fascination with “what animates the bodies and minds of the men and creatures who inhabit [the] world” is certainly not foreign to him. Indeed, looking back at the ledge we see that his collection of works includes volumes by Plato, Plotinus, Aristotle, and Dioscorides, along with Hippocrates, Galen, Praxagoras, Herophilus, and Erasistratus. What did these works by the legendary philosophers and physicians from times gone past allow scholars like the old man to induce about the mind and brain during these ‘Dark Ages’? | Continue reading →

Did Dr. Kreizler really live at 283 East 17th Street? Part Four

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View Part One, Part Two, Part Three, and Part Four of the Did Dr. Kreizler really live at 283 East 17th Street? series.

Welcome to the fourth and final part of the “Did Dr. Kreizler really live at 283 East 17th Street?” series. Over the course of this series, we’ve overviewed the origins of Stuyvesant Square from its earliest days through to the 1840s (Part One), read about the district’s most active period of development in the 1850s through to the early 1880s (Part Two), and learnt more about the enormous influence one reforming rector at St. George’s Church had on the district in the late 1880s and 1890s (Part Three). In this final blog of the series, we will be discussing why Caleb Carr might have selected the location as the home for his protagonist before briefly touching on how the district continued to develop in the early 20th century.

Why might Caleb Carr have chosen 283 East 17th Street as Dr. Kreizler’s residence?

1891-west

I feel it’s important to start this blog by stating the obvious: as I am not the author, I can only hypothesize as to why he may have chosen the fictional address of 283 East 17th Street as the home for his protagonist–and, yes, it is a fictional address. As can be seen in the 1891 maps of the district to the right and below, the section of 17th Street overlooking the park that was described as the location for Doctor’s home is bisected by Second Avenue. On the western side of Second Avenue, lot numbers ended at No. 251 (originally the Hamilton Fish mansion, later turned New York Lying-In Hospital; see below), while on the eastern side of Second Avenue, lot numbers started again at No. 301. Nevertheless, by examining the district’s composition in the 1890s, as well as overviewing the proximity of the neighborhood to other locations of importance in the Alienist books, we can start to theorize about why Caleb Carr might have selected the location. In addition, as Mr. Carr had his own connections to the district in his youth, it seems likely that this may have also played a role in his choice of Stuyvesant Square as the Doctor’s home.

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Did Dr. Kreizler really live at 283 East 17th Street? Part Three

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View Part One, Part Two, Part Three, and Part Four of the Did Dr. Kreizler really live at 283 East 17th Street? series.

Welcome to Part Three of the “Did Dr. Kreizler really live at 283 East 17th Street?” series. In Part One, we overviewed the early development of Stuyvesant Square from its rural origins to the start of construction in the district in the 1840s. In Part Two, we overviewed the greatest periods of growth in the district, the 1850s to early 1880s, and learnt about the first owner-occupants of the houses in the neighborhood, many of whom were successful merchants, along with the tenants of the district’s first apartment houses who were predominantly writers and theater people. In Part Three, we will learn more about Stuyvesant Square as it was during the critical periods for Alienist books, the 1880s and 1890s, and will focus our attention on some of the most prominent characters that contributed to the shaping of the district’s character during this period.

Stuyvesant Square’s fall from grace in the early 1880s

Even though the architectural charm of Stuyvesant Square had been established thirty years earlier with the building of handsome residential and religious buildings around the district’s attractively landscaped public park, by the early 1880s the district was becoming a shadow of its former self. Tenement populations were now encroaching on the neighborhood, and the district’s wealthier residents had begun to move further uptown in response. Although the park itself was still frequented by neighborhood children, the neglected park’s grass was no longer receiving any maintenance, its flowers had all but disappeared, and its two large fountains were filled with rubbish from the streets rather than water. One contemporary even recalled seeing “dead cats and empty tomato cans” piled in the fountain basins.

At the same time, the district’s iconic St. George’s Episcopal Church that had once drawn some of the largest congregation numbers of any religious institution in New York was also in the process of an equally sharp decline. Congregation numbers had started to fall while under the pastorship of the aging Rev. Dr. Tying in the early 1870s, and numbers had dropped still further following his death. During this period, St. George’s was funded by pew holders, of which there were few remaining due to the wealthy parishioners migrating uptown, and had accumulated $35,000 in floating debt. The financial situation had reached such a precarious point by the late 1870s that there were even reports that the Roman Catholic Church had been approached by members of the vestry to take the church over as a mission. Although members of St. George’s had tried on several occasions to build their numbers up through outreach to the poor, all attempts had been unsuccessful and were eventually abandoned.

When St. George’s attendance numbers reached their bleakest point in the early 1880s, the extremely conservative wardens and vestrymen of the church made a radical decision to approach the passionate reformer, the Rev. Dr. William S. Rainsford, to take over pastorship of the church. Although a surprising choice for an old-fashioned church, this decision would prove to not only turn around the fortune of the failing church but would help to shape the character of the district as a whole in the years to come.

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Did Dr. Kreizler really live at 283 East 17th Street? Part Two

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View Part One, Part Two, Part Three, and Part Four of the Did Dr. Kreizler really live at 283 East 17th Street? series.

Welcome to the second post in the “Did Dr. Kreizler really live at 283 East 17th Street?” series. In Part One, we started to outline the historical context of the square, starting with the park as a gift from the Stuyvesant family before moving onto the development of the district in the 1840s with the arrival of the neighborhood’s first residents and religious institutions. In Part Two, we continue to track the development of the district from the 1850s through to the 1880s, before we reach the critical period for the books, the 1890s.

A district under construction in the 1850s and ‘60s

Although building in the district had begun in the 1840s with a number of unpretentious Greek Revival style residences, store-residences, and churches constructed around Peter Gerard Stuyvesant’s generously donated tract of parkland, the steady migration northward of New York’s middle and upper classes during the mid-19th century meant that the 1850s and ‘60s represented the greatest period of growth for the district. While the wealthiest members of the upper classes were building newly fashionable Italianate brownstone mansions and French chateaux in Fifth Avenue, districts such as Stuyvesant Square were attracting a burgeoning successful merchant class who also wanted to make their mark on the city with still fashionable but less extravagant late Greek Revival, Italianate, Anglo-Italianate, and transitional style row houses.

Unlike the previous decade in which most of the properties built in the Stuyvesant Square district were modest three-story brick dwellings, the 1850s and ‘60s saw the construction of predominantly four-story brick and brownstone homes. Most lots were purchased or leased during this period by a small number of builders on the condition that a suitable residential property would be erected on the land before being sold on to their first owner-occupants. As an example, Robert Voorhies, a prominent builder in the district, purchased eight lots on East 16th Street for $16,800 in January of 1852, developed all eight lots by November of the same year, and sold the completed homes for $11,000 each by the end of the year, providing him with a healthy profit and the district with eight new residents.

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