After the American Civil War, Union officer Silas Augustine Ilsley (1840-1918) returned to New York City where he founded a Brooklyn tin factory in 1865. Over the next 25 years, he developed novel methods of applying lithographic printing to metalware—boxes, cans, shop containers—and became an important supplier of handsome packaging to many other 19th Century businesses. His five story factory measured 100' x 150' at the corner of Adams and York Streets (in what is now a modern intersection in hipster DUMBO—"Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass"). Ilsley's business boomed and he employed as many as 350 "men and girls."
On 18 March 1894, the Brooklyn factory burned and collapsed, destroying the building and $300,000 of expensive equipment ($11.5 million today). Luckily, the fire was contained, saving the nearby factories and homes (which had been evacuated). Ilsley's horses were released in-time from the attached stables. But 350 workers lost their jobs while Ilsley lost his business. After the calamity, one of his employees was quoted saying, "Mr. Ilsley is one of the good employers. He pays good wages and his employees think the world of him. This will throw 350 hands out of employment."
The steel tin, shown above, once stocked Samuel Trusdell's cream-of-tartar on a shelf in some local food shop. The can was made by S.A. Ilsley and Company, New York City. The handsome Aesthetic Movement graphics convey a slight "Orientalist" theme. Despite being nearly a century-and-a-half old, the illustrations remain nicely intact, save for occasional scratches—to be expected of a canister used daily on a busy shop counter. Click on the photo above to learn more about it.
Though our Greenwich Village store is now permanently closed, LEO Design is still alive and well! Please visit our on-line store where we continue to sell Handsome Gifts (www.LEOdesignNYC.com).
To arrange a visit our Pittsburgh showroom (by private appointment only), please call 917-446-4248.