Comments on: Wilbour in Egypt: The Maiden Voyage of The Seven Hathors /2010/04/14/wilbour-in-egypt-the-maiden-voyage-of-the-seven-hathors/ Technology blog of the Brooklyn Museum Fri, 04 Apr 2014 18:20:00 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.5.3 By: John Adams /2010/04/14/wilbour-in-egypt-the-maiden-voyage-of-the-seven-hathors/comment-page-1/#comment-1360 Fri, 16 Apr 2010 17:58:51 +0000 /bloggers/2010/04/14/wilbour-in-egypt-the-maiden-voyage-of-the-seven-hathors/#comment-1360 The primary source is an indictment/forensic accounting document put together by Samuel Tilden, which put Tweed away; it was published in the New York Times on October 26, 1871, the same day Tweed was arrested. Also, see articles in the Times on October 23, 1871 for the Printing Company and December 8, 1873, for the Transcript. Best single book on the subject (which mentions Wilbour) is Kenneth Ackerman’s “Boss Tweed” (Carroll & Graf, 2005).

]]> By: Tom Hardwick /2010/04/14/wilbour-in-egypt-the-maiden-voyage-of-the-seven-hathors/comment-page-1/#comment-982 Fri, 16 Apr 2010 12:57:36 +0000 /bloggers/2010/04/14/wilbour-in-egypt-the-maiden-voyage-of-the-seven-hathors/#comment-982 Thank you for the extra information, John – for me it’s an interesting Egyptological coincidence that Theodore Davis turns up as well.

Do you have a reference handy for the sums you mention? We’d like to be able to add it to our files on Wilbour.

]]> By: Linda Paleias /2010/04/14/wilbour-in-egypt-the-maiden-voyage-of-the-seven-hathors/comment-page-1/#comment-1085 Thu, 15 Apr 2010 23:38:21 +0000 /bloggers/2010/04/14/wilbour-in-egypt-the-maiden-voyage-of-the-seven-hathors/#comment-1085 oooh! that was so fascinating… I felt like I was there on the barge while Wilbour was jotting down notes in his journal. And to think his wife is wearing a “tall hat” on the barge down the Nile! Fashion demands us to look spritely where ever we find ourselves! Thank you, Tom, the diary snippets you choose help me to see Wilbour’s personality.
Linda

]]> By: John Adams /2010/04/14/wilbour-in-egypt-the-maiden-voyage-of-the-seven-hathors/comment-page-1/#comment-1166 Thu, 15 Apr 2010 20:07:27 +0000 /bloggers/2010/04/14/wilbour-in-egypt-the-maiden-voyage-of-the-seven-hathors/#comment-1166 Actually, Wilbour was in fairly deep with the Tweed Ring. The New York Printing Company was a scheme set up by Wilbour, Tweed and two other cronies, and it instantly was awarded (by Tweed) all the printing business for the City and County of New York. They charged what might be thought of as exhorbitant rates; after an initial investment of $10,000 each, the Company returned each investor around $75,000 the first year. Even sweeter was Wilbour’s editorship of the New York Transcript, a newspaper Tweed owned which printed all official city notices. With a circulation of less than 100 copies per issue, in 1869 the City paid $534,000 for advertising in it. When the Ring went down, the Printing Company was foreclosed by the Receiver for the Ocean National Bank (another Tweed operation); the Receiver was a New York lawyer named Theodore Davis, whose Egyptological collection went to the Metropolitan when he died.

]]> By: Krys /2010/04/14/wilbour-in-egypt-the-maiden-voyage-of-the-seven-hathors/comment-page-1/#comment-1172 Thu, 15 Apr 2010 14:23:27 +0000 /bloggers/2010/04/14/wilbour-in-egypt-the-maiden-voyage-of-the-seven-hathors/#comment-1172 Amazing and fascinating entry. The list of provisions appears to include gin and fois gras! Good for them!

]]> By: Tom Hardwick /2010/04/14/wilbour-in-egypt-the-maiden-voyage-of-the-seven-hathors/comment-page-1/#comment-1323 Wed, 14 Apr 2010 17:25:00 +0000 /bloggers/2010/04/14/wilbour-in-egypt-the-maiden-voyage-of-the-seven-hathors/#comment-1323 Hi Clem,

From a wealthy New England family, Wilbour was certainly a man of considerable means, and his family had a strong philanthropic streak – as well as Brooklyn, Wilbour endowments have benefited the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and Brown University.

Wilbour seems to have made his money in the 1860s in journalism, as manager of the New York Tribune, president of the New York Printing Company, and stenographer and examiner of accounts in the New York Superior Court stenographer. These posts were controlled by the Tweed Ring. Wilbour was not an inner member of the Ring, but clearly felt that he should keep a low profile after the worst of its corruption was exposed: he left New York for Paris in the early 1870s, and didn’t return to the US until 1881. He never again spent more than a few months over here.

For more information on Wilbour, and the history of Egyptology in the US, John Wilson’s Signs and Wonders Upon Pharaoh (Chicago, 1964) is a readable account widely available from online booksellers, and can also be downloaded free online from the Oriental Institute of Chicago here:
http://oi.uchicago.edu/research/pubs/catalog/misc/signs.html

a shorter account of Wilbour’s career and the founding of the Wilbour Library is here:

http://www.archaeology.org/online/reviews/wilbour/

]]> By: Clem Labine /2010/04/14/wilbour-in-egypt-the-maiden-voyage-of-the-seven-hathors/comment-page-1/#comment-1320 Wed, 14 Apr 2010 15:18:57 +0000 /bloggers/2010/04/14/wilbour-in-egypt-the-maiden-voyage-of-the-seven-hathors/#comment-1320 Thank you for this fascinating post. Wilbour’s houseboat excursion sounds like an idyllic existence. What could be better than to while away the days cruising on the Nile examining ancient monuments with family and friends? Alas, one would have to be a Hedge Fund Manager these days to afford such a lifestyle. Do the records indicate how Mr. Wilbour came to be able to afford such a life of leisure and scholarly activity? Thanks.

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