Hamburg Sandwich (1898); Taxicab (1906?)

[Barry Popik]

HAMBURG SANDWICH
...
I've just added an 1898 "Hamburg sandwich" cite from Bismarck, North
Dakota. Both the New York Times and the Yale Daily News printed
earlier this year that the "hamburger" was invented at Louis Lunch at
New Haven, CT, in 1900. This is obviously not true, but neither
publication printed my letters to the editor to correct a simple error
of fact. Don't know why I bothered to write them.
...
The "hamburger" was clearly (as Texas legislators have proved)
invented and/or popularized by Fletcher Davis of Athens, Texas at the
1904 St. Louis World's Fair, but we now have these:
...
1883--Hamburgers (New York, NY)
1893--Hamburger steak sandwiches (Reno, NV)
1894--Hamburger steak sandwiches (Chicago, IL)
1894--Hamburger steak sandwiches (Los Angeles, CA)
1895--Sandwich...Hamburger steak (Honolulu, HI)
1898--Hamburg sandwich (Bismarck, ND)
1901--Hamburger sandwiches (Omaha, NE)
1902--Hamburger sandwich (Des Moines, IA)
1902--Hamburger sandwich (Davenport, IA)
1902--Hamburger sandwiches (Decatur, IL)
1903--Hamburger sandwich (Fort Worth, TX)
...
...
http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/hamburger/
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16 December 1898, Bismarck (ND) Daily Tribune, pg. 3:
Hamburg sandwich....15
Hamburg steak....35
Hamburg steak, with eggs....50
...
...
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TAXICAB
...
Grant Barrett has informed me that the 1899 New York Times "taxicab"
ProQuest database citation is in error, and I've removed it from my
website. I hate it when he does that and I have to revise old work.
...
I seem to have found a June 1906 NewspaperArchive "taxi cab" citation
from Hammond, Indiana (see below) that looks like a small go-cart.
Could that citation be legitimate or is that one bad as well?
...
It's clear that the word "taxicab" was in common use in London in the
spring of 1907 and was not "coined" by New Yorker Harry N. Allen in
the fall of 1907. The Wikipedia entry needs to be changed, but I'm not
allowed to cite any of my own work, so I don't feel like editing it
for free (but someone else can). The New York Times also falsely said
that Harry N. Allen coined the word "taxicab."
...
...
...
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/09/06/podcast-100-years-of-taxis/
September 7th,
2007
9:37 am
Allen may have been credited with coining the word "taxicab," but he
was probably credited inaccurately. The first appearance of the word
so far found is in a British newspaper in March of that same year in a
story about the start of taxicab service in London, according to the
Oxford English Dictionary and my own digging in newspaper archives.
The word "taxicab" quickly traveled to the US and appeared in the
Chicago Tribune as early as March 31, 1907, in a story specifically
about London taxicabs.

An anecdote told in the Tribune story about taxicabs in Paris bears
repeating. "The Parisian fiacres show a little ticket 'Libre' when
disengaged. The Parisian joker in these circumstances approached and
cried: "Cocher, êtes-vous libre?" Cocher would eagerly reply: "Oui,
monsieur!" to which the joker would respond with: "Alors, vive la
liberté!"

— Posted by Grant Barrett
...
...
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http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/taxi_the_word_taxicab_and_the_yellow_color/
...

Entry from June 11, 2005
Taxi (the word "taxicab" and the "yellow" color)
It has been said that Harry N. Allen coined the word "taxicab" in the
fall of 1907, and that he also introduced the color "yellow" to his
vehicles. I think that's wrong on both counts.

Paris and then London both had "taxicabs" before they were introduced
to New York in October 1907. The word "taxi" is short for "taximeter"
and "cab" short for "cabriolet."

Harry Allen's cabs were red. The W. C. P. Taxicab Company introduced
the yellow cab in New York in the spring of 1909.


Wikipedia: Taxicab
Taxicab, short forms taxi or cab, is a type of public transport for a
single passenger, or small group of passengers, typically for a
non-shared ride. A taxicab is a vehicle for hire which conveys
passengers between locations of their choice. (In most other modes of
public transport, the pick-up and drop-off locations are determined by
the service provider, not by the passenger.)

Although types of vehicles and methods of regulation, hiring,
dispatching, and negotiating payment differ significantly from country
to country, many common characteristics exist.
(...)
History
Horse-drawn for-hire hackney carriage services began operating in both
Paris and London in the early 17th century. Royal proclamations in
both cities regulated the number of carriages - the first example of
taxicab regulation. In the 19th century, Hansom cabs largely replaced
the older designs because of their improved speed and safety.

Although battery-powered vehicles enjoyed a brief success in
Paris,London, and New York in the 1890s, the 1891 invention by German
Wilhelm Bruhn of the taximeter (the familiar mechanical and now often
electronic device that calculates the fare in most taxicabs) ushered
in the modern taxi. The first modern meter-equipped taxicab was the
Daimler Victoria, built by Gottlieb Daimler in 1897; the first
motorized taxi company began operating in Stuttgart the same year.

Petrol powered taxicabs began operating in Paris in 1899, in London
in1903, and in New York in 1907. The New York taxicabs were imported
from France by businessperson Harry N. Allen. Allen was the first
person to paint his taxicabs yellow, after learning that yellow is the
colour most easily seen from a distance.

Wikipedia: Yellow
In some countries, taxicabs are commonly yellow. This practice
apparently began in New York City, where taxi owner Harry N. Allen
painted his taxis yellow after learning that yellow is the color most
easily seen at a distance. See List of taxi cab colours.

(Oxford English Dictionary)
taxi, n.
Colloquial abbreviation, orig. of TAXIMETER, and hence, more usu., of TAXI-CAB.

1907 Daily Chron. 26 Mar. 6/7 Every journalist..has his idea of what
the vehicle should be called. It has been described as the (1) taxi,
(2) motor-cab, (3) taxi-cab, (4) taximo,..(7) taximeter-cab.
1908 Ibid. 4 Feb. 4/7 Within the past few months the 'taxi' has been
the name given to the motor-cab.

Taxi-cab, taxicab
A cab for public hire, fitted with a taximeter; esp. an automobile or
motor-cab so furnished.

1907 Daily Chron. 28 Mar. 2/5 The 'taxicab', as the new taximeter
motor-cab is called, is fast becoming a familiar feature in the
streets of London.
1907 Ibid. 3 May 8/3 London has taken kindly to the Taxicab.
1908 Westm. Gaz. 7 May 4/2 How much the taxi-cab has done..to educate
the non-motoring public to the utility of the motor-car.

taximeter
An automatic contrivance fitted on a cab or other vehicle to indicate
to the passenger at any point the distance traversed and the fare due.
Also ellipt. for taximeter cab (rare).

The earliest forms of this indicator were simply distance-recorders,
but it was soon made to comprise an automatic fare-reckoner and index.

[1890 German Patent Spec. 56310 Taxameter-Fabrik Westendorp & Pieper
in Hamburg.]
1894 Times 2 June 19/1, I have severally interviewed the proprietors
of the 'taxameter', owners of cabs at Hamburg, and several of their
employes.
1898 Daily Chron. 21 Mar., An illustration and description of the
taxameter has been sent us.
1898 Westm. Gaz. 30 Apr. 7/3 Each vehicle will be provided with a
taxameterthe little instrument for registering distance which has
found such favour in Paris and Berlin.

27 June 1965, New York (NY) Herald Tribune, pg. 24, col. 2:
Harry Allen, the Man
Behind the Taxicab
(...)
He was the man who started the taxicab industry in New York City. He
coined the name "taxicab" and copyrighted it. He operated the first
fleet of what street-corner loafer jeeringly called "smoke-wagons" --
65 of them to start, 700 within a year.
(...)(Col. 3 -- ed.)
He put together parts of the words "motorcab" and "taximetres" from a
French company making meters for horse cabs, and came up with
"taxicab." He went to Washington to copyright it, then went back to
France and bought 65 shiny, red taxicabs, 16-horsepower, four-cylinder
Darracq cars of the landaulet type.
(...)(Col. 4 -- ed.)
On Oct. 1, 1907, what the newspapers called "the new taximeter motor
cabs" had their first public trial.

27 June 1965, New York (NY) Times, "Harry Allen Dies, Taxi Pioneer,
88, Introduced Vehicles Here in '07 -- Coined 'Taxicab,'" pg. 64:
Harry N. Allen, who coined the word "taxicab," and introduced the
first such vehicles here, died yesterday at his apartment in the Peter
Cooper Hotel, 130 East 39th Street. He was 88 years old.

The taxicab industry here began when Mr. Allen became angry one
evening early in 1907, when the driver of a horse-drawn hansom cab
charged him $5 for a trip from 44th Street to 58th Street. "I got to
brooding over this nighthawk," Mr. Allen told an interviewer in 1947.
"I made up my mind to start a service in New York and charge so much
per mile."

Mr. Allen solicited $3 million worth of underwriting for the New York
Taxicab Company, from French, ENglish and New York businessmen. On
Oct. 1, 1907, a fleet of 65 shiny red taxicabs appeared on the streets
of New York.

20 August 1905, New York (NY) Sun, "What Happens in Paris When Your
Cab Horse Runs Away," third section, pg. 8, col. 1:
"I'd been browsing around one morning and it got to be noon without my
knowing it. I'd promised my wife to be back to the hotel for lunch, so
I hailed a taximeter cab -- that's a kind of vehicle, you know, that's
self-registering. There's a minimum charge, and then you can sit and
watch your bill go up as the wheels go around."

15 April 1906, San Francisco (CA) Call, pg. 5, cols. 2-3:
Keeping Tab on the Cab. -- The taximeter cab is a great institution --
small clockwork arrangement alongside of seat, so that passenger may
sit and watch the indicator and know how his bill is running up. The
indicator is set an seventy-five centimes at the start. In other
words, you owe 15 cents before you get away. Then it clicks up 10
centimes at a time, and when you reach your destination there is no
chance for an argument regarding the total. What they need now in
Paris is a mechanism to prevent the driver from taking you by the
roundabout way.

18 June 1906, Hammond (IN) Times, pg. 16 ad:
This Nifty Taxi Cab.
One of the newest of the Go-Cart creation this season is the "Taxi
Cab." They are simply immense. Come in and let us show them to you,
the price ranges up from ... 14.75
[This looks to be a baby carriage -- ed.]

24 March 1907, Salt Lake Herald (Salt Lake City, UT), pg. 8, col. 4:
The company which has been formed to operate taximeter cabs in New
York will, as soon as possible, open stations at Philadelphia, Boston
and other principal cities.

31 March 1907, Salt Lake Herald (Salt Lake City, UT), pg. 9, col. 5:
Drivers of the taximeter cabs to be operated in New York and several
other eastern cities will be termed "motormen," not "chauffeurs," and
will be forbidden to receive tips.

31 March 1907, Chicago (IL) Daily Tribune, pg. B3:
LONDON LIKES ITS "TAXICAB";
63 KEPT BUSY ALL THE TIME.

New Sixteen Cents a Mile Motor Cars
Strike Popular Fancy in British
Metropolis, as in Paris.

LONDON, March 30. - After a week's trial the new taximeter motor cab
or "taxicab," as it already has been christened, has been pronounced
an all sides as an unqualified success, though the drivers will have
hard work living down the contempt of the London cabby, who is unable
to compete with his smartly uniformed rival and his swift car, and
vents his humor in choicest billingsgate whenever the other is in
earshot.

28 April 1907, Sunday World-Herald (Omaha, NE), pg. 11:
How picturesque the details of that day sound, as Lord Gwydyr tells
about them to us who belong to this quicker age of motor buses, taxi
cabs and telephones. He started from Gwydyr house in Whitehall, not as
he might now, by motor or taxi cab, but in a barge, if you please --
his grandfather's barge, manned by liveried boatmen, of positively
Elizabethan aspect.

19 May 1907, New York (NY) Sun, "London Nicknames," second section,
pg. 2, col. 7:
The streets of London have been dotted lately with handsome new, red
painted motor cabs, which ply for hire at the reduced rate of
eightpence a mile. They are fitted with taximeters and have promptly
been called "taxicabs."
(...)
The new motor cabs have, as aforesaid, been christened the "taxicabs,"
and the horse drivers are wild with rage at their success. They have
sounded the death knell of the old time crawlers, which, aside from
being slow and not altogether safe, have not been too cheap; though I
do not suppose Americans who use them here on their summer holidays
will agree with me on that point. The one thing that visitors from
your side delight in is to sit in a hansom cab by the hour and drive
aimlessly about, because "it is so cheap."

26 May 1907, New York (NY) Times, pg. SM6:
Is the Day of Cheap and Honest Cab Service at Hand?
(...) In London, where they have been in operation for some time, they
are now known as "taxicabs."

21 July 1907, New York (NY) Sun, second section, pg. 11, col. 2:
Henry D. Winans & May have leased the plot of nine lots on the south
side of Fifty-seventh street, 275 feet west of Eleventh avenue, for
Charles E. Appleby to the New York Taxi-Cab Company.

25 August 1907, Washington (DC) Herald, "Some Nicknames in London,"
third part, pg. 2, col. 5:
It was only a very few weeks ago that cabs fitted with taximeters in
the manner so popular in Paris were put on the London streets, says
Tit-Bits. At first everybody called them "taximeter cabs," to
distinguish them from ordinary cabs, but the name has by universal
consent been shortened to "taxicabs," in just the same was as the
omnibus -- which was introduced from Paris by a man named Shillibeer,
the first traveling from Paddington to the Bank of England in 1829 --
got changed to "bus," and "cab" took the place of cabriolet, as the
one-horse vehicles used to be called when twelve of them first piled
in London in 1823.

29 May 1909, New York (NY) Times, pg. 3:
Telephone 5400 Columbus
For a Yellow Taxicab

On June First we begin the operation of a new Taxicab service in this city.

Quality is the keynote throughout. Our taximeters are guaranteed to be accurate.

The Yellow cabs will be kept constantly in as first class condition as
any private turnout.

See our page advertisement on back of new Telephone Directory.

Our drivers are courteous, capable, and specially selected men.

W. C. P. TAXICAB CO.,
232 W. 56th Street at Broadway.

20 June 1909, New York Times, pg. S4:
President C. F. Wyckoff of the W. C. P. Taxicab Company, made a wager
a few days ago that the meters on the yellow cabs his company is
operating were perfectly accurate.

18 July 1909, New York (NY) Times, pg. 1:
The New York Taxicab Company will announce to-morrow a reduction in
the mileage rate of its red taxicabs for the first half mile to 30
cents, and 10 cents for each extra half mile - the same fee, one to
four persons, day or night, and no sending charge. This means that the
company is going below even the original rate that was charged when
the red taxicabs were first put on the streets.
(...)
At the offices of the New York Transportation Company, Forty-ninth
Street and Eighth Avenue, no news of the cut in rates contemplated by
their competitor had been received, and the same was true of the W. C.
P. Taxicab Company, at Fifty-sixth Street and Broadway, which operates
the new yellow taxicabs.

1 September 1933, New York (NY) Times, pg. 17:
C. F. WYCKOFF DIES;
WENT TO AID PEARY

Ithaca Manufacturer Was a
Member of Arctic Relief
Expedition in 1901.

A PIONEER IN TAXIS HERE

In 1894 He Joined Firm That
Operated First Fleet of Auto-
mobile Cabs in New York City.

ITHACA, N. Y., Aug. 31. - Clarence F. Wyckoff, a member of the
expedition which went to the relief of Admiral Peary in the Arctic in
1901, died of a heart attack in his home here last night at the age of
57. He was found by members of his family this morning. He was a
manufacturer of Ithaca, an insurance broker and a pioneer in the
automobile and taxi business in New York City.

Graduating from Cornall University in 1894, he went to New York, where
he joined the firm of Wyckoff, Church & Partridge in the automobile
business. The firm built one of the first showrooms for cars and
operated the first fleet of taxicabs.

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