Commercial Businesses
During the late 19th Century, State Street’s easternmost addresses housed a variety of businesses from commercial merchants and shipping companies, to clerks, wholesale grocers, and even a coffin making business. The nearby location of several transportation routes via the wharf, railroad, and later subway, created a thriving mercantile district with easy access for shipping and receiving goods. Further, the architectural designs of the State Street buildings accommodated their commercial and shipping functions through the inclusion of hoists, scuttles, and sail lofts.
View from State Street onto Long Wharf
Transporting Goods & people
Proximity to transportation facilitated State Street’s commercial development. Located adjacent to Long Wharf, the Union Freight Railroad, the elevated Atlantic Railroad, and the East Boston subway line, State Street provided its tenants with easy access to multiple means of transporting their wares. The street’s location within this transportation mecca provided an ideal environment for commercial merchants, wholesale grocers and manufacturers to import supplies and export finished goods, cementing State Street as one of Boston’s commercial and shipping hubs.
Griffin, Arthur. "State Street (including Long Wharf & Atlantic Ave.)." Photograph. 1935. Digital Commonwealth, https://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/k930f972v (accessed May 05, 2021).
1.) Boston (Mass.), 238-280 State Street, September 26,1912, Photograph, Public Works Department photograph collection (5000.009), May 5, 2021.https://cityofboston.access.preservica.com/uncategorized/IO_c7b54f65-5bed-4b00-b198-69a48f02d932/.
2. Griffin, Arthur. "State Street (including Long Wharf & Atlantic Ave.)." Photograph. 1935. Digital Commonwealth, https://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/k930f976z (accessed May 05, 2021).
3. Boston Elevated Railway Company, State Street Station, August 8, 1901, Photograph,Boston Elevated Railway photographs (9800.018), May 5, 2021 https://cityofboston.access.preservica.com/uncategorized/IO_b35e3f9e-21c1-49ac-99ab-cded378a6c8d/.
4.) Boston (Mass.). "State Street Station looking south." Photograph. September 14, 1939. Digital Commonwealth, https://www.digitalcommonwealth.org/search/commonwealth-oai:h415s458s (accessed May 05, 2021).
ARCHITECTURAL ACCOMODATIONS
State Street’s architectural designs also promoted commercial development along the corridor. The majority of the buildings on State Street’s eastern-most strip were 4-6 story brick buildings, that held multiple businesses within a single structure. Annotations on the1882 Sanborn map, reveal specific design features in each of the State Street buildings that aid their commercial function. For example, each of the State Street properties came equipped with hoisting scuttles, typically inserted into hoist walls. These devices helped to raise and lower loads via a drum. In addition, the 296 & 298 properties were also equipped with sail lofts, special areas where ship sails could be cut out and stitched. The 1882 Sanborn map marks the sail loft parcels and address 232 in green, with a pink border. This indicates that these buildings held special manufacturing hazards due to the use of oil, ovens, etc. in the building (see Sanborn Map Key for details). These design accommodations helped to store and move goods for the commercial businesses and storage spaces housed within.
Left: Boston (Mass.),227-215 State Street and 217-219 State Street, September 26,1912, Photograph, Public Works Department photograph collection (5000.009), May 5, 2021.https://cityofboston.access.preservica.com/uncategorized/IO_bc259ba5-79dc-491c-b604-cd86897662a7/
Right: Boston (Mass.). "182-184 State Street, Fifty Associates." Photograph. October 7, 1912. Digital Commonwealth, https://www.digitalcommonwealth.org/search/commonwealth-oai:h415rw542 (accessed May 05, 2021).
Detail of 1882 Sanborn showing Hoist & Sail Loft Accommodations
Detail of Sanborn Map Key
Easterly End of Custom House Block, Long Wharf
Sail Loft in Boston Naval Ship Yard
Left: https://www.loc.gov/rr/geogmap/sanborn/images/sankey22c.jpg
Upper Right: Boston Transit Commission, Easterly end of Custom House Block, Long Wharf, Photograph, Boston Transit Archive, 1895-1960s, May 5, 2021 https://www.historicnewengland.org/explore/collections-access/gusn/217098/.
Lower Right: Cutler, Wolcott. "Sail loft in the Boston Naval Shipyard." Photograph. 1850. Digital Commonwealth, https://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/8k71p1637 (accessed May 06, 2021).
TYPES OF BUSNIESSES & SHIFT TOWARDS FINANCIAL SERVICEs
Boston City Directories from 1874, 1887, and 1925 evidence the diverse industries housed in the 214-298 State Street addresses and reveal the growing presence of financial services in the area in the 1920-30s.
DIRECTORIES
Sampson & Murdock Co. Boston Streets: Mapping Directory Data: City Directories, July 1, 1925. http://dca.lib.tufts.edu/features/bostonstreets/people/directories.html.
Sampson & Murdock Company. Catalog Record: The Boston directory. HathiTrust Digital Library, 1874. https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000499337.
Sampson, Murdock & Company. “The Boston Directory.” Google Books. Google, July 1, 1887. https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Boston_Directory/pf0DJRSpGh8C?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover.
IMAGE
Early directories show a wide variety of businesses along the State Street corridor. Wholesale grocers, flour and grain companies, and soap manufacturers shared spaces with clerks, cobblers and even coffin producers (see Selected Inventory Above detailed address information).
Billhead for Bronson & Williams, flour & grain, 221 State Street, Boston, Mass., 1870s
Billhead for Brown, Chickering & Co., Dr., wholesale dealers in dry & pickled fish, 224 State and 30 Commerce Streets, Boston, Mass., dated May 7, 1872
Left: "Billhead for Bronson & Williams, flour & grain, 221 State Street, Boston, Mass., 1870s." Ephemera. 1870. Digital Commonwealth, https://www.digitalcommonwealth.org/search/commonwealth-oai:k643bg195 (accessed May 05, 2021).
Right:"Billhead for Brown, Chickering & Co., Dr., wholesale dealers in dry & pickled fish, 224 State and 30 Commerce Streets, Boston, Mass., dated May 7, 1872." Ephemera. 1872. Digital Commonwealth, https://www.digitalcommonwealth.org/search/commonwealth-oai:k643bb53n (accessed May 05, 2021).
By the 1880s, a heavier concentration of flour and grain companies appeared on the street, giving State Street a reputation for its wholesale grain businesses (see flour ads above). However, shifting market practices soon drove out the majority of the wholesale flour and produce grocers. A Boston Globe Article from March 1886 quotes a former State Street flour broker lamenting the new practice of mills directly selling to customers, “business isn't what it was years ago...in those days all a merchant had to do was sit in his store and wait for customers.”
The shift away from wholesale foods and manufacturing is cemented with the dramatic increase in clerk tenants seen in the 1925 directory. Over 25 of the directory entries for State Street addresses indicate that the tenant is either a salesman, clerk, bookkeeper, department manager or secretary, thus revealing the increasing presence of financial, sales, and accounting services in the area during the early 20th century.
Bibliography
"Currents of Commerce: A Marjed Change in Flour Trade Methods." Boston Daily Globe (1872-1922), Mar 25, 1886.
Sampson & Murdock Co. Boston Streets: Mapping Directory Data: City Directories, July 1, 1925. http://dca.lib.tufts.edu/features/bostonstreets/people/directories.html.
Sampson & Murdock Company. Catalog Record: The Boston directory. HathiTrust Digital Library, 1874. https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000499337.
Sampson, Murdock & Company. “The Boston Directory.” Google Books. Google, July 1, 1887. https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Boston_Directory/pf0DJRSpGh8C?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover.
The transition from commercial shipping, manufacturing, and wholesale food services towards financial and accounting services seen in the commercial occupants of State Street is also seen in changing trends in building ownership, to find out more see Absentee Landlords.
Detail from the 1938 Bromley Map Showing Increasing Property Ownership by Financial Service Institutions
Bromley, George Washington and Walter S. Bromley. Atlas of the City of Boston. Philadelphia: G.W. Bromley & Co., 1938. Boston Public Library, via Atlascope.