Long Island Viewbook

This blog post is the fourth in a series that is part of a project funded by The Robert David Lion Gardiner foundation to assess and improve access to archival collections in our holdings that relate to Long Island. It was written by Cecilia Wright, an assessment archivist working on the project. 

It makes sense that the Long Island Railroad released a series of what they called Unique Long Island viewbooks in the 1890’s. This period coincided both with the Long Island Railroad’s monopolization of train travel in New York state and the subsequent economic recession of 1893-1897, causing its ridership to plummet. In order to encourage this dwindling ridership, then, the Long Island Railroad had to create destinations for these New Yorkers to desire to go to — enough to justify what might have felt like an extravagance. This is what these viewbooks sought to achieve. To construct a visual identity for not only Long Island, but its many townships and hamlets, that were both distinct and distinctly appealing. The viewbooks were free, save for the cost of postage, allowing anyone who replied to the newspaper advertisements to dream of their own trip to Long Island.

The project of these viewbooks is perhaps best stated by the introduction which accompanies all four volumes of Unique Long Island. Stating that “’sun pictures’ will better describe better than words Long Island,” the typescript promises, nevertheless, that Long Island offers “natural beauties and perfect conditions,” alongside its ample opportunities for “rest and recreation, sport and pleasure, agricultural and industrial pursuits, and, chief of all, healthy homes” can be reached by fast “express trains” “within easy reach of Greater New York.” The pages following this introduction in the first volume are filled with artfully arranged produce, bicyclists, swimmers, and the topography of verdant Long Island hamlets. A promise of the trip so easily, and comfortably, reached by a trip on train with “new couches, new parlor cars” and a “dustless roadbed.”

However, the pages immediately following this introduction in the third volume of the book are somewhat mystifying. Here, preceding the “bits of beauty and characteristic sketches on the island” promised by the volume’s title page, are ones of the “two great Spanish-American War Camps: Black (preparation) & Wyckoff (recuperation).”

Camp Black was formed in the Hempstead Plains, a large expanse of grasslands in central Long Island, in March of 1898 and would officially close in September of 1898. The photographs in the viewbook allow one to follow the arc of the use of the camp. There are snapshots of the first tents being pitched, as well as company H of the 71st Regiment completing drills as a small dog watches on. Company H of the 71st Regiment, the first of 12 New York State infantry regiments federalized for service in the Spanish-American War, would spend their days completing various drills and work details, before being sent to Santiago, Cuba via Florida. 

Camp Wikoff, spelled Wyckoff in the viewbook, saw the return of tens of thousands U.S. veterans from Santiago, Cuba. While abroad, U.S. soldiers in Cuba and Puerto Rico faced communicable diseases they had little immune resistance to, leading to deadly outbreaks of yellow fever and malaria. Fearing the further spread of these diseases, upon the veterans’ return to the United States, quarantine camps, including Camp Wikoff, were built.

While Camp Wikoff, located on Montauk Point, may have been perfect for its remote location and proximity to sea transport, its remoteness also led to complications when it came to sourcing supplies and taking those suffering the most serious cases of illness to local hospitals. Beyond the problems associated with the location of the camp were those connected to the small amount of time and planning which went into the camp’s creation. Reportedly, troops arrived at the camp before a single tent had been pitched. There were other reported issues around the camp as well, including poor access to clean water, insufficient shelter during the cold, and unequal treatment, with certain parties recuperating, such as Theodore Roosevelt and the Rough Riders, finding more favorable conditions than the rest, especially the ill.

What remains ultimately incredibly strange, though, is that these photographs, snapshots allowing further insight into the Spanish-American War, exist at the beginning of a viewbook meant to entice tourism in Long Island via the Long Island Railroad.  

This mystery can be partly explained by the fact that the two camps featured were situated on land rented to the U.S. Government by the Long Island Railroad, which allowed the government full use of its rail lines on the property and, in exchange, the U.S. Government would install additional rail sidings and terminals at its own expense. The Long Island Railroad would capitalize on its involvement in Camp Black, with an article printed in the August 12, 1898 edition of the Patchogue Advance announcing that the Long Island Railroad would launch “special excursion trains next Sunday at greatly reduced prices to Camp Black. That everyone may have an opportunity of seeing the Cavalry and Infantry of the Army and see 'Our Boys' in Camp.’” Given the function of Camp Wikoff, there were no such “special train excursions” to the quarantine camp. 

It is possible that the Long Island Railroad wanted to associate itself the victory of the Spanish-American War, or show that they had done their patriotic duty, by publishing photographs of the two camps. Regardless of the many possible intentions behind publishing a viewbook of Long Island to “be sent on receipt of five cents in stamps to cover postage, by applying to H.B. Fullerton, Long Island City," it remains an idiosyncratic relic of the past — both genuinely intriguing in the way it begins with documentation of the relationship between the Spanish-American War and the landscape of Long Island and careens into the 1898 duck feeding record on a farm in Eastport, located on Long Island’s South Shore.

This blog post and research was made possible thanks to the generosity of The Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation.