Li Emerges

Transportation

* Steamboats

o Brooklyn Heights (1819), first American suburb to steamboat ferry

o Robert Fulton, perfected the steamboat, 1815, Clairmont

o Cornelius Vanderbilt, steamboat, and railroad baron

* LIRR

* Agriculture for market

o Grain

o 80% of the population

* Whaling

* Fishing/ Shellfishing

Population

* 1790: 32,454 (3224 in brookhaven)

* NYC 1790: 33,111

* Kings: 4,495

* 1860: 100,666 (9,923 in Brookhaven)

* NYC: 813,669

* Kings: 279,122

* Irish, Scottish/English (pre-ellis island), Germans (1848), 2nd wave of Dutch 1950s

* Brooklyn, c.1819- Steady growth but non-waterfront areas maintain rural identity (especially Flatbush, Bedford)

* New York/Brooklyn, 1851: the city connections with LI grow as the city grows

Industries

* Horse Dung

o In the 1850's, 100,000 to 200,000 horses lived in the city. A typical horse produced from 22 of manure and about a quart of urine a day

o Problem Solved: Manure was scooped up and given to LI farmers for fertilizer

* Oysters

o NY's most popular 19th century snack

o Great South Bay (especially around Blue Point) became the center of oyster industry, 1850s

* Cordwood

o Enormous numbers of hickory and oak trees in Suffolk County supply NYC for fuel- by 1815, 200,000 cords of wood (a cord of wood is 4' x 4' x 8' long)

o Decimates the Pine Barrens

* WHALING: key part of the 19th Century economy

o Muti-ethnic crews

o Made enormous $$$$ for Cold Spring Harbor and Sag Harbor, and, to lesser degrees, Greenport and Southampton...

o Starts on shore...but gradually, boats go out deeper and deeper (eventually, half a world away)

o Oil

o Fashion

o Household Objects

o Hard Job/hard labor

* Gross- aweful smells, bloody

* LIRR:

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