Rare Book Monthly
Articles - November - 2008 Issue
Wiki Bibliographies: The Way to the Future
Kingston dominated Ulster County printing
"Rondout, upon the Hudson, at the mouth of Rondout Creek, was incorp[orated] April 4, 1849. It is the center of an extensive trade upon the river and [Delaware & Hudson] canal. The principal trade is that of stone, obtained from the neighboring quarries. It contains 8 churches, a bank and a newspaper office. The people are principally engaged in the coal trade; and a large number of steamers, barges, and sailing vessels are constantly engaged in freighting coal, stone, and cement from this place. About 20 steamers are engaged in the freighting business of this place. Lines of steamers also run regularly to Albany, New York, and intermediate places. A steam ferry connects the place with Rhinebeck, on the e[ast] bank of the Hudson. The Newark Lime and Cement Manufacturing Co. manufacture a larger amount of waterlime and cement annually than is produced at any similar establishment in the country. Pop[ulation] 5,978."
Kingston, at the same time, has a population of 3,971.
In 1872, with railroads increasing and canal traffic declining, Rondout and Kingston merged. Rondout had the larger population, Kingston the more established name. They agreed upon Kingston as the unifying name and Rondout's descent into oblivion began. One hundred and thirty-six years later Rondout is the firefly that for a moment shined bright but with the passage of time has ever grown more distant and remote.
What's in the Rondout-Wiki Bibliography on day one?
In its first iteration it emerges that Rondout-Kingston was home to almost 30 versions of weekly and daily newspapers between 1820 and 1920. There were so many efforts, many lasting years, even decades, that the potential for newspapers to emerge as bound volumes and single copies amounts to certainty. Maps are also very important. A succession of sheet and pocket maps is accessible online and originals show up periodically on every selling venue. Their increasing detail, the canals, railroads and place names, and even their relative type size tell a story. Very few books were published there but one, Bevier's the Indians, is a remarkable rarity. Most of the accessible detail that emerges is found in the pamphlets, broadsides and ephemera that randomly appear mostly on eBay, occasionally on listing sites, once and again at book fairs and in booksellers' catalogues. Most of what has come out is simply random – various data points that in themselves say little but which together turn single notes into a tune and perhaps in time a concerto. There are of course also postcards. In this first iteration I haven't included them but they too elaborate the Rondout-Kingston story.
In a great sense Rondout-Kingston was simply a microcosm of the 19th century American experience. It was the collision of opportunity and hard work advancing on the wings of rising population, lengthening life expectancy and transforming technology. In that very moment when the world was transforming day by day it had its golden moment and achieved an unusual if fleeting success.
Today it is seems entirely fitting that Rondout, once an exuberant place, that was both the determined and lucky opportunist might again, if only briefly, occupy a center stage. For just as Rondout conquered opportunities and was itself conquered by them, so too the book, manuscript, maps and ephemera fields are adrift in galloping change that threatens to remake the entire landscape for museums and historical societies, collectors, historians and dealers who live and die with such material. What better
