Why Was Henry Bergh the Man Who Was too Kind?

 

                              Fashionable and foppish young Henry Bergh returning from Europe.

Henry Bergh was a softy.  A sentimental fool who could not abide to witness the sufferings of animals and small, helpless creatures.  And that made him a damned annoyance, and worse, a meddlesome nuisance to honest men who were simply trying to get the most out of livestock that God had clearly given them dominion over.  It said so right in the Bible, didn’t it?  To make matters worse he was richer than Croesus and had money to burn and spread around courts and newspapers to persecute men for doing as they saw fit with their own damned property!  And he was slavishly followed by legions of swooning ladies and lily-livered do-gooders abetting his outrages.

Or so a good slice of public opinion would have it.  Just who was the fancy gentleman in a fashionable high hat, and elegant clothes running about the streets wresting whips from the hands of masters?

A contemporary cartoon mocking Bergh for his bleeding heart.

Henry Bergh was born in New York City on August 29, 1813 with a literal silver spoon in his mouth.  His father, Christian Bergh was a ship builder who laid the keels of several ships for the U.S. Navy as well as many a merchant vessel.  Like many sons of self-made men, he seemed a bit spoiled and unmotivated to seek a career.   He was enrolled at Columbia but was an indifferent student and failed to graduate.

Instead of taking a degree the young man left for the Grand Tour of Europe in 1831. He liked what he saw there and lingered.  Bergh tried his hand as a man of letters and penned unproduced plays, sentimental melodramas with pointed moral lessons.

In 1836 his father announced his intention to retire and wrote his wayward son that it was time to stop playing and come home to manage the family firm with his older brother Christian, Jr.  However reluctantly—probably facing the cutoff of support if he did not comply—Bergh came home.

Back in New York the same year he wooed and wed a lovely society belle with her own fortune, Catherine Matilda Taylor.

However a reluctant tycoon, Bergh proved to be a capable administrator.  The firm thrived and expanded especially as he helped transition to the age of steam power.  His active career in business was not a long one.  His father died in 1843 and he felt under no more obligation to continue his business.  He sold out his portion of the firm which brought him a large sum of cash.  He invested wisely for the long term rather than play dangerous games on the market and was able to retire to a comfortable life of leisure on a dependable income at the age of only 32.

He and Catherine returned to Europe where they traveled and took up residence.  He resumed his aborted career as a playwright.

Bergh’s story might have ended there with him idling away his years as a comfortable expatriate had fate not intervened.  The Confederacy was stepping up diplomatic activity in Europe.  One of their primary targets was Imperial Russia, a society whose dependence on virtually enslaved serfs drew the same moral condemnation in the West as Southern Black chattel slavery.  It was also an emerging power with ambition to challenge Britain’s supremacy in international trade, including cotton.  Confederate agents had high hopes of gaining Russian recognition of their independence and even possible intervention in the war.

Secretary of State William Seward, a pre-war political powerhouse in New York State was familiar with the Bergh family, who were loyal Republicans and Unionists.  Bergh was already in Europe and would not be delayed in a mission to St. Petersburg by an ocean voyage.  President Abraham Lincoln appointed him as Secretary to the American Legation to the Court of Tsar Alexander II and Acting Vice Consul in 1863.

In less than two years of service as a diplomat, Bergh learned two things—that he hated the miserable cold of a Russian winter, and that the Russians treated their animals with abominable cruelty.  On the streets of St. Petersburg he could observe almost every day animals being savagely beaten, starving horses worked until they dropped dead in their traces, and worse. 

After resigning in post in 1865, Bergh stopped in London on the way home to America to consult with the Earl of Harrowby, President of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals which had become famous for its defense of draft and coach horses in London.

New York Unitarian minister Rev. Henry Whitney Bellows lent Bergh his considerable organizational skills to create the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA).

Bergh, with the support of his wife, determined to do something similar at home.  In late 1866 he began lecturing widely and circulating tracts against animal cruelty.  Then he found an important ally, his minister the Rev.  Henry Whitney Bellows of the First Congregational Church of New York City, the city’s leading Unitarian clergyman and one of the most influential Protestant ministers and reformers in the city.  Bellows was also something of an organizational genius.  During the war he founded and organized the United States Sanitary Commission, America’s first great nationwide charity which raised money and collected medical supplies for the Army, organized distribution, established hospitals, and trained and supervised most of the nurses on the Union side.  It was a massive job that required the creation and coordination of local units in towns and cities across the Union as well as close logistical cooperation with the huge armies in the field.  After the war Bellows re-invigorated Unitarianism with the formation of the National Conference of Unitarian Churches.

Bellows help introduce Bergh to a network of influential reformers and help him develop a strategy of getting an animal protection law passed in New York State that could be a model of the nation.  A little later, at Catherine Bergh’s suggestion, Bellows helped recruit women reformers, many of the veterans of the abolitionist movement, the Sanitary Commission, temperance and other reform movements.  Energetic women were soon the shock troops of a growing movement.

A public lecture at New York’s Clinton Hall in early 1866 was the beginning of a push for legislation in the state.  He was victorious in an astonishingly short period of time—probably faster than any reform movement ever attained its first legislative goals.  In early April the state legislature passed bills drafted by Bergh that prohibited cruelty to animals and granted a charter to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA).  Four days later on April 11, 1866 the Society was formally organized in New York City with Bergh as its President—a job he would keep the rest of his life.

Bergh with his ASPC badge.  Deputized to enforce new New York State anti-cruelty laws he often personally intervened in abuse cases and made arrests.

Bergh was more than just an administrator and advocate.  Under the terms of the state law, he and other ASPCA officers were deputized to enforce the anti-cruelty laws on the street.  Among his first targets were the widespread abuse of horses and draft animals; dangerous but popular public entertainments like bull and bear baiting and dog and cock fighting; and the starvation of many domestic animals.  Bergh would personally arrest offenders on the street and haul them before police magistrates.  The press ate up these colorful confrontations and Bergh popularity grew in some quarters as did attacks on him from outraged masters and animal owners who dubbed him the Great Meddler.

The ASPCA was at first funded out of the personal purse of the Berghs.  But it soon attracted additional support including a huge $150,000 bequest from Frenchman Louis Bonard in 1871 which enabled the organization to move into more spacious quarters at the corner of 4th Avenue and 22nd Street.  In the city the ASPCA was able to fund heavy duty animal ambulances and even a crane to rescue horses who fell into open excavations with surprising regularity.

The original ASPCA seal.

When Bergh turned his attention to the treatment of animals in circuses and menageries he clashed with P.T. Barnum, but Barnum, a noted humanitarian and Universalist lay leader was won over to the cause.  He conformed treatment of animals in his circuses and other holdings to the standards of the ASPCA and campaigned with Bergh to get other exhibitors to follow suit.

Bergh was appalled to learn that tens of thousands of pigeons were slaughtered each year in sport shooting competitions.  Bergh personally invented one of the first devices to launch faux pigeons as substitute targets, eventually leading the modern sports of trap and skeet shooting and the abandonment of live targets.

He continued to travel and speak widely, the influence of his ideas and organization growing steadily.  One important 1873 speech was given to the Evangelical Alliance and Episcopal Convention which led directly to a new Episcopal cannon requiring the church’s priests to preach annually on animal cruelty.

New societies spread across the country, many of the spearheaded by the women reformers Bergh had gone out of his way to cultivate. One by one other state adopted laws modeled on those Bergh wrote for New York.  By 1886 36 states had adopted anti-cruelty laws.  With the help of ASPCA legal counsel Elbridge Gerry, Bergh got the Federal Government to ban cruelty to animals used for interstate transportation.

Little Mary Ellen Wilson showing wounds from being whipped by her foster mother was rescued by Bergh.  No laws prohibited physically discipling children in any way so the ASPCA argued in court that since humans are animals she was entitled to protection of anti-cruelty laws.

But Bergh’s work was not confined to animals.  In 1874 Methodist mission worker, Etta Angell Wheeler brought the sad case of Mary Ellen Wilson an 11 year old girl abused by her foster mother, Mary McCormack who daily whipped her with rawhide, used her as a domestic slave, starved her, and kept her locked in a closet.  Together Wilson and Burgh rescued the child and the ASPCA brought charges against Mary McCormack.  At the time children were considered the chattel of their parents or guardians with no rights of their own and no protections from assault or abuse.  Elbridge Gerry cleverly argued that at very least the child was an animal an entitled to protection under those anti-cruelty laws.  Mrs. McCormack was convicted and sentenced to a year in jail.  Etta eventually became a ward of Mary Wilson and lived happily and safely.

The incident spurred a new round of New York legislation and the charter of a new organization, New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children also headed by Burgh.  Similar societies spread to other states starting with Massachusetts.

Bergh continued meddling until he died on March 12, 1888 and was buried in Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn.

 

 

Old Building Gets New Life as the First Madison Square Garden

Phineas T. Barnum's Roman Hippodrome.  Note tent covering the open roof.

When William Kissam Vanderbilt finally got control of a chunk of grandpa Cornelius Vanderbilt’s estate in 1879, he knew just what he wanted to do with one of the assets.  The old Commodore owned the property where a half-derelict hulk of a building sat on prime Manhattan real estate. 

The large structure had originally been the New York & Harlem Railroad depot, which the Commodore bought and incorporated into what became the New York Central.  In 1871 station operations moved to the shiny new Grand Central Depot.  Phineas T. Barnum then stepped in and leased the building.  He took the roof off, gutted it, and converted it into an oval arena 270 feet long, with tiers of seats and benches.  It was rechristened first  as the Great Roman Hippodrome then even more grandly  Barnum’s Monster Classical and Geological Hippodrome.  The bombastic showman experienced great success staging his famous circus and other spectacular exhibitions including chariot racing there.

In 1876 Barnum gave up his lease to concentrate on his increasingly lucrative touring circus.  Irish-born band leader Patrick Gilmore, composer of When Johnny Comes Marching Home and other famous marches, then took over the building re-dubbing it Gilmore’s Garden.  When he was not presenting his own concerts there, Gilmore rented the space to promoters of  flower shows, beauty contests, temperance and revival meetings, walking marathons. and in 1877 the first Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show then called the New York Bench Show.  He also presented boxing matches at a time when prize fights were illegal in the Empire State by passing them off as exhibitions and even as demonstrations accompanying lectures on the manly arts of self-defense.

The promoter of the Dog Show briefly took over the building but kept Gilmore's name on it.  He added genteel tennis matches and installed an ice skating rink for use during the frigid winter months. 

Vanderbilt's renovated and renamed Madison Square Garden.

It was undoubtedly the boxing which attracted the younger Vanderbilt.  He considered himself something of a sporting man and owned a very successful horse racing stable in France.  Later he was a co-owner of the yacht Defender, which won the 1895 America’s Cup.   He took over the building and with a minor facelift re-opened it on May 31, 1879 as  Madison Square Garden. 

Vanderbilt booked boxing exhibitions featuring Police Gazette heroes like Heavyweight Champion John L. Sullivan.  Other sports attractions presented to crowds of up to 10,000 patrons included track and field meets and bicycle racing—maybe the most popular spectator sport in the country—on his specially built banked velodrome track.  The National Horse Show joined the dog show as an annual attraction and Barnum came back to exhibit his prize elephant Jumbo.  Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show became a national sensation there during a long run in 1886.  The place also hosted national conventions of the Elks and other organizations. 

The old building established itself as the Big Apple’s prime multi-purpose venue for big events.  But it was in deteriorating condition and uncomfortable or unusable much of the year—stiffing hot in the summer and freezing cold and dark during the long winter months.  Harper’s Weekly described it as a “patched-up grumy, drafty combustible, old shell.”

After 11 years Vanderbilt grew tired of his toy while civic leaders clamored for its replacement, an expensive project he had no interest in underwriting.  Enter a consortium the richest men in the city and country—J.P. Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, William Waldorf Astor, and others plus showman Barnum—who bought the building and land, tore it down, and erected an impressive replacement also called Madison Square Garden.

Vanderbilt's renovated and renamed Madison Square Garden.

The second Garden was designed by famed architect Stanford White and opened in 1890 at the staggering cost of $3 million.  The grand new edifice did have a roof making it the largest indoor arena/exhibition space in the country.  In fact, the famed Roof Garden Restaurant became a place to be seen for the city elite and a venue for late night entertainment after the Broadway shows were done for the evening.  White was famously shot and killed by the husband of his lover, Gibson Girl model and actress Evelyn Nesbit there in 1906.

The second Garden became the annual home for the touring Barnum and Ringling Brothers circuses and eventually their combined show.  It continued to be the venue of choice for top prize fights and in 1902 and ‘03 the indoor games of the professional World Series of Football.  It also hosted important national events like the 1924 Democratic National Convention which nominated John W. Davis after 103 ballots.

Despite the cultural importance of the building, it was not a financial success and in 1925 the mortgage holder, New York Life Insurance,  foreclosed, tore it down. then erected their skyscraper headquarters on the site.

A third Madison Square Garden was built away from Madison Square on Eighth Avenue between 49th and 50th Streets where trolley barns once stood.  The new structure was owned by Tex Rickard whose New York Rangers of the National Hockey League (NHL) made it home from 1926.

The third Garden shown on a 1941 picture postcard.

Basketball was represented in a series of collegiate double headers every week featuring top local and national teams as well as the National Invitation Tournament (NIT) beginning in 1938 and hosted seven NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship finals between 1943 and 1950.  The New York Nicks of the National Basketball Association (NBA) began their residency in 1949.

Although this incarnation did not host any national political conventions, Franklin Roosevelt used it to stir up support for his first Presidential campaign with a mammoth rally in 1932.  Thirty years later the Garden was packed for a birthday celebration for John F. Kennedy at which Marylin Monroe famously crooned him “Happy Birthday, Mr. President” in a slinky silver sequined gown that she had to be sewn into. 

A large portrait of George Washington loomed over a huge German American Bund pro-Nazi rally at the Garden in 1939.

Garden III was available to anyone with pockets deep enough to pay the rent so was often the site of events for diametrically opposed groups.  The American Jewish Congress and the Jewish Labor Committee held a Boycott Nazi Germany rally there in 1937 but in 1939 the German American Bund staged an even larger event in support of isolationists trying to keep the U.S. from entering World War II on the side of the British and French.

Billy Graham conducted a 16 week revival Crusade there in 1957.

In the 1960s ownership and management was taken over by the new Madison Square Garden Company under the leadership of impresario Irving Feld of Ringling Bros.  The company laid plans for yet another incarnation, this time built over Pennsylvania Station between Seventh and Eighth Avenues from 31st to 33rd Streets.  After the new building was opened in 1968, the old Garden III was torn down.  The original plan was to erect a new world’s tallest building at the old site but that was squelched by massive neighborhood opposition resulting in strict height limits for new construction in the area.  It remained underused as a parking lot until 1989 when the Worldwide Plaza opened on the site.

Today's Madison Square Garden IV is round.

The newest Garden increasingly became a venue for big pop concert events in addition to its traditional diet of sports.  These famously included a 1971 rock-and-roll revival concert immortalized by Ricky Nelson’s song Garden Party, Elvis Presley, George Harrison’s Concert for Bangladesh, and the Concert for New York City following the September 11 attacks.  Artists like Elton John, Billy Joel, Parliament-Funkadelic,  and U2 have all played there many times with Joel having the record of more than 60 appearances.

The Garden was also the launching pad for the re-introduction of professional wrestling into mainstream pop culture as the venue for the inaugural WrestleMania presented by the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) in 1985 and many subsequent marquee events.

The Democrats held their convention at the Garden in 1976, 1980, and 1992.

Madison Square Garden's $1 billion second renovation took place mainly over three off-seasons. It was set to begin after the 2009–10 hockey/basketball seasons but was delayed until after the 2010–11 seasons. Renovation was done in phases with the majority of the work done in the summer months to minimize disruptions to the NHL and NBA seasons.

Despite a billion dollar renovation in 2011-‘13, the Garden lost long time tenants the Ringling Bros. Circus and Disney on Ice  to the new Barclays Center in Brooklyn.

The City of New York wants to expand Penn Station underneath the Garden which would require that it be torn down and relocated.  This has been a major issue in the city for years with the MSG company resisting the move.  In 2013 they were granted a ten year extension of their air rights permit after which time they will either have to move or begin a new, and risky, application for another extension.  Then, in January 2016, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced a redevelopment plan for Penn Station that would involve the removal of The Theater at Madison Square Garden but would otherwise leave the arena intact.