Isaac Hopper Collection

ISAAC HOPPER COLLECTION 2 3 Index: OVERVIEW ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5 ISAAC HOPPER SCRAPBOOK Biography -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6 Scope and Content ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7 Arrangement and Organization --------------------------------------------------------- 8 Provenance --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 9 Extra Articles -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- GENEALOGY Hopper’s Family Tree ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 10 History of a branch of the Hopper Family (by Walter F. Hopper Jr.) ----------- 10 PHOTOPGRAPHS SERIES ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 11 RELATED & PREPARATORY MATERIALS Related archival collections ------------------------------------------------------------- 12 List of buildings ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 13 Newspapers listing ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 17 CATALOGUE Scrapbook pages --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 21 Article clippings ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 35 4 5 Isaac Hopper Collection Ovierview Repository: Inclusive Dates: Carnegie Hall Archives – Storage Room 1891 - 1977 Creator: Extent: Isaac Abram Hopper ; Walter Francis 1 Box: 1 Scrapbook (10 X 15 X 3.5) ; Hopper Jr. ; Patricia Hopper Strasberg 2 folders ; Photographs and articles Summary / Abstract: Isaac A. Hopper was the owner of the construction company that built Carnegie Hall in 1891, but his activities extended beyond the dozens of public and private buildings all around New York’s five boroughs. He was a well-known and dynamic man of Harlem between the 18th and 19th century, involved in the social life of the city, and he was president of Tammany Hall Club in the 31st district (1899-1904). The collection includes a Scrapbook with clippings about his life and his career, some photographs of Isaac Hopper and his family, and an essay by Walter F. Hopper Jr., furnished with a genealogic tree drawn by Patricia Hopper Strasberg. Access and restriction: This collection is open to on-site access. Appointments must be made with Carnegie Hall Archives. Due to the fragile nature of the Scrapbook, consultation could be restricted. To publish images of material from this collection, permission must be obtained in writing from the Carnegie Hall Archives Collection Identifier & Preferred citation note: CHA – IH [(001-241) ; F(001-002) ; P(001-006) ; Ex(001-004)] Isaac A. Hopper Collection, Personal Collections, Carnegie Hall Archives, NY Material arranged and described by Marco Lo Cascio, 2017. 6 Isaac Hopper Scrapbook Biography of Isaac A. Hopper (1851-1912): Isaac Abram Hopper was born on May 30, 1851 in Harlem near Macomb’s Dam, in the neighborhood where he grew up and lived his entire life. His father Abraham Isaac Hopper and his grandfather Isaak Abram Hopper were both builders and he learned the trade of bricklaying and plastering by helping them with cellar walls and chimneys (the only construction Harlem required, since the neighborhood was primarily constructed out of wood). Isaac was educated in the public schools and the College of the City of New York, and when he was 15 years old, he went to New Jersey to start his own activities. He returned to New York in 1875 because the death of his father and obtained his first real contract, a little structure in the Bronx. In the hundreds of acres of Harlem, where few brick houses were still standing, Hopper found his opportunity for success and rapidly became one of the most important and known builders in New York City [for a list and a more extended description of this aspect I refer to the specific paragraph]. In 1893 he joined Tammany Hall, becoming a new member during a ceremony with other candidates on December 28. His entire social life was spent among the Democratic Clubs of Harlem (like the “Sagamore Club”, “Harlem Democratic Club”, “Occidental Club”, “Lexington Club” and “Massasoit Club”) and he used to take part in the assemblies, was a guest of meetings in the parloirs and fumoirs, participated in gala dinners and night-long parties, summer picnics in Central Park and theater shows. He was also active in builders’ arbitration and unionism and one of the front-men of the “Builders’ and Trades’ Exchange.” He was one of the most prominent men in Harlem and after several years in the municipal Board of Education (expressing democratic ideas for a Common School System Reform) he decided to run as a candidate for the Tammany Hall Primaries in the 31st district, winning a hard fight against the former judge Charles Welde. He kept the office till 1904, when he was chosen by Mayor George B. McClellan as the new Superintendent of Buildings Bureau, appointed to inspect and control the buildings in New York City. He tried to reform the office organization and the inspection’s system, he promulgated a bill about safety systems in the elevators, and he stopped building construction without structural and legal guarantees. Public opinion turned against him when he was charged with complicity and favoritism with the Pratt Company, clashed with the plumber’s union, and was blamed for the disastrous collapse of the Darlington Hotel and other buildings. After a humiliating accusation involving a young actress he quit his political career and retired in 1905. Besides the intense career of a builder, Isaac Hopper was also very active in different businesses, He was the Director of the “Twelfth Ward Saving Banks” (then “Empire City Savings Bank”); President of “Excelsior Terra Cotta Company”, the only furniture finishing company operative in New York; Vice-president of “U.S. Mortar Supply and Co.”; member of the Board of Directors of the “Ferry Lee Ferry Company” between 7 Manhattan and New Jersey, and of the newspaper “The Harlem Reporter” (that caused him a lot of impeachment problems in 1905). He worked very hard on his beloved winter residency in Orlando, Florida, “The Ripples” on Lake Sue, where he cultivated pineapples and oranges, covered with a modern system of canvasing able to keep the fruit trees warm during the cold season. His love for this place is clearly shown in the short song he wrote: "The everglades of Florida" (CHA-IH-199). About his private life we know only few and concise stories from this scrapbook and from the Hopper’s Family Tree (CHA-IH-FT). His first wife was Margaret Duncan Hopper (who died on September 21, 1910), and his second wife, with whom he married just a few months before his death, was Mary G. Ludwig Hopper. He had eight children (two daughters and six sons): Thomas T. Hopper ran the family society “Isaac Hopper & Son Inc.” when Isaac Hopper was nominated Superintendent; the daughter Margaret was dangerous ill in 1904. We know he loved horse racing and he built a race track on his Florida Estate to organize and watch races. He was an amateur of yachting and in 1904, returning from a boat trip in Long Island with other members of the Tammany Hall Club, he had a wreck and almost drowned (CHA-IH-169). In 1910 he became seriously ill with cardiac issues (New York Times, May 25th, 1910) and after the second marriage, he died on December 22nd, 1912 and was buried in the Hopper-Wing-VanClave mausoleum in St. Raymond’s Cemetery, Bronx, New York. Scope and Contents of Collection: The Isaac A. Hopper Scrapbook is an album of collected clippings of city, local and regional newspapers articles, about Isaac A. Hopper’s life, activities, construction and political career from 1893 to 1905, during the most intense working period of his life. Clippings are glued to the thin pages of the album, and with the exception of the silk flier of the show “The Fortune Teller” at the West End Theatre in 1904, are the only type of document we find inside. Most of the articles are labeled with the date and the newspaper’s name, and sometimes the name of Isaac Hopper is underlined with a blue or red pencil when it occurred in the clippings. The handwriting is always the same, and it’s probably Isaac Hopper’s hand, as a signed note reveals (CHA-IH-185). The articles give an overview on Isaac Hopper’s life and political career, but of interest are the iconographic series: newspapers photos of Isaac Hopper and other public personalities of that time, cartoons depicting the political scenario, sketches of some of his buildings. Inclusive dates are 1891-1928, but the majority of the articles are from 1894-1906, during the political adventure of Isaac Hopper, and only a few rare clippings pass the first five years of the century. The album is in chronological order, but the order is not strictly respected: some pages include articles pertaining to an argument that spans many different years; and random articles were glued where a space in the page has/had been found, with no regard to the chronological or argument order. 8 Organization and Arrangement: The clippings collection includes more than 500 articles, glued on 225 pages. This finding aid tries to provide access to all of these articles. A general topic, explaining the content of each page, has been chosen to act as a guide to the collection. Topics are identified by short and clear titles, and refer

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