The New England Manufacturers' and Mechanics' Institute (established in 1879) flourished in the 1880s in Boston, Massachusetts. It existed as a rival to the long-established Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association. Individuals affiliated with the NEM and M Institute included businessman John F. Wood, [1] [2] James L. Little, John M. Little, Samuel R. Payson, William B. Merrill, and Frederick W. Griffin. [3]
According to the organization's own institutional history, before 1879, "the only industrial exhibitions at Boston were organised under the auspices of an association formed with an ulterior purpose. Nor were these held in permanent structures or with regular intervals. ... At the last exhibition held in a temporary structure -— that of 1878 [4] -— it became evident that a permanent organisation and a building were needed, as over three-fifths of those wishing to exhibit could not be accommodated because of lack of space." In response, the NEM & M Institute incorporated in 1879 "for the purpose of the general improvement of the manufacturing and mechanical interests of New England; to provide means by which worthy and adequate exhibitions of manufactures and other productions can be given, and cognate objects; to obtain and distribute information relative to export business; to create and regulate methods of industrial education; to improve the technical knowledge of the members of the society by libraries, technical lectures and discussions." [5]
The organization built a large exhibition hall in the Back Bay neighborhood (at Huntington Avenue and Rogers Avenue), very close to the MCMA's Mechanics Hall. [6] [7] The New England Fair building "covered an area of nearly five acres of land. Its available floor space for exposition purposes exceeded eight acres." [8] Its footprint measured some 213,000 square feet (19,800 m2), and the grand hall some 130,000 square feet (12,000 m2). Comparatively, the Mechanics' Hall's footprint measured only 90,000 square feet. [9]
Exhibitions were held annually. In 1881, "Governor Long [opened] the exhibition, and the Hon. George B. Loring, United States commissioner of agriculture, [delivered] an oration. The governors, the U.S. senators and representatives in congress, and the mayors of all the cities of New England" were invited. [10] [11] "During the winter seasons [the New England Fair building] was utilized as a skating rink, and pedestrian, bicycle, and other contests were held there." [12]
In 1885 the exhibition building was sold to the Metropolitan Horse Railroad, for use as "a storage and repair shop." The building burnt to the ground in June 1886, in a massive fire that killed 8 people. [13]
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Timothy Gilbert was an American piano manufacturer, abolitionist and religious organizer in Boston, Massachusetts. His brother Lemuel Gilbert was also a piano manufacturer.
Henry Van Brunt FAIA was an American architect and architectural writer.
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Mechanics Hall was a building and community institution on Huntington Avenue at West Newton Street, from 1881 to 1959. Commissioned by the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association, it was built by the noted architect William Gibbons Preston. The building was located between the Boston and Albany railroad yards and Huntington avenue. It was razed for the Prudential Center urban renewal project of the early 1960s. The site is on the north side of Huntington Avenue, and since 1941 has been served by Prudential Station of the MBTA Green Line E branch.
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The Maine Charitable Mechanic Association is a private non-profit organization located in Portland, Maine, United States. Founded in 1815, it has since 1859 been headquartered at Mechanics' Hall, 519 Congress Street, in the center of Portland. The library's hours are Tuesday through Thursday from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., Friday from 4:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m., and Saturday from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.
William Merchant Richardson French (1843–1914) was an American engineer. French first came to Chicago in 1867 to pursue a career in civil engineering and landscaping. While working in Chicago, he garnered a national reputation for his lectures and articles on art subjects. In 1878, he became Secretary of The Chicago Academy of Design, which was later reorganized as the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts (1879). The Chicago Academy of Fine Arts changed its name to The Art Institute of Chicago in 1882. French became the secretary of this new corporation and its first director in 1885, holding this position until his death in 1914.
Marion A. McBride, also spelled MacBride, was an American journalist and clubwoman. She founded several women's press associations, most notably the New England Woman's Press Association. She wrote and lectured on domestic science, and was active in charitable causes and local politics. It was largely due to McBride's activism that the state of Massachusetts began hiring matrons for city police stations and built a separate facility for female inmates in Boston.
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Gamaliel Waldo Beaman was an American landscape painter active in New England, and is best known for his views of New Hampshire's White Mountains as well as his many paintings of Connecticut Valley and of Mt. Wachusett and Mt. Monadnock in north central Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire.
Excerpt: "We are engaged in a work by which the antagonisms of race and language of the Old World will be overcome. Democracy is the solvent, and the common school is the crystallizing medium. Presently the people of this land will have ingrafted upon the narrow but versatile intellect of the Yankee, the courage and endurance of the Englishman, without his pig-headedness; the cleanliness of the Dutchman, without his stolidity; the thrift of the French peasant, without his superstition; the artistic sense of the Italian, without his treachery; the wit of the Irishman, without his incapacity to trust his neighbor; the philosophy of the German, without his scepticism; the acquisitiveness of the Jew, without his selfishness; the manual dexterity of the Chinaman, without his idolatry; and the fun and music of the Negro, without his shiftlessness."