The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867: A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and PoliticsVarious
General
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867: A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics
Various
American periodicals
Cincinnati, then, affords very slight and inferior facilities for
holiday-keeping. We chanced to be in the city on the last Thanksgiving
day, and were surprised to see seven tenths of all the stores open as
usual. In the German quarter there were no signs whatever of a public
holiday: every place of business was open, and no parties of pleasure
were going out. The wholesale stores and most of the American part of
the city exhibited the Sunday appearance which an Eastern city presents
on this day; but even there the cessation of industry was not universal.
And, after all, how should it be otherwise? Where were the people to go?
What could they do? There is no Park. There are no suburbs accessible
without a severe struggle with the attraction of gravitation. There are
no theatres fit to attend. There is no "Museum," no menagerie, no
gallery of art, no public gardens, no Fifth Avenue to stroll in, no
steamboat excursion, no Hoboken. There ought to be in Cincinnati a most
exceptionally good and high social life to atone for this singular
absence of the usual means of public enjoyment; but of that a stranger
can have little knowledge.
When we turn to survey the industry of Cincinnati, we find a much more
advanced and promising state of things. Almost everything is made in
Cincinnati that is made by man. There are prodigious manufactories of
furniture, machinery, clothing, iron ware, and whatever else is
required by the six or eight millions of people who live within easy
reach of the city. The book-trade--especially the manufacturing of
school-books and other books of utility--has attained remarkable
development. Sargent, Wilson, and Hinkle employ about two hundred men,
chiefly in the making of school-books; of one series of "Readers," they
produce a million dollars' worth per annum,--the most profitable
literary property, perhaps, in the world. The house of Moore, Wilstach,
and Baldwin employ all their great resources in the manufacture of their
own publications, many of which are works of high character and great
cost. Recently they have invested one hundred thousand dollars in the
production of one work,--the history of Ohio's part in the late war.
Robert Clarke & Co. publish law books on a scale only equalled by two or
three of the largest law publishers of the Eastern cities. Cincinnati
ranks third among the manufacturing cities of the Union, and fourth in
the manufacture of books. Here, as everywhere in the United States, the
daily press supplies the people with the greater part of their daily
mental food, and nowhere else, except in New York, are the newspapers
conducted with so much expense. The "Cincinnati Commercial" telegraphed
from Washington fourteen columns of General Grant's Report, at an
expense of eleven hundred dollars, and thus gave it to its readers one
day before the New York papers had a word of it. A number of this paper
now before us contains original letters from Washington, New York,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account