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RYAN: Every hometown has its famous residents. Recall Mendham’s claim to Abner Doubleday, the father of modern baseball, from Season 1. And of course we can’t forget Whitney Houston and the legacy she left on Mendham’s Black Horse Tavern.
RYAN: Famous residents aren’t just a fun addition to a town’s wikipedia page. In many cases local celebrities can have a big impact on a town. And that was especially true in Clinton, N.J. For example, as you now know Clinton got its start as a milling town. By the 1880s, industry was at the core of Clinton’s identity.
RYAN: But by the 1980s that identity had changed. A 1987 feature article on Clinton in the Daily Record gave the town the nickname “the cultural heart of Hunterdon.” So what happened? As Clinton’s financial wealth grew throughout the 19th century it created the opportunity for culture to thrive there. The more money people made, the more they were looking to spend it on opportunities for luxury and entertainment.
RYAN: And just as this was happening, a few early Clinton residents became well-known for their artistic and scientific efforts. They became famous - in some cases internationally so - and as their stars rose, so did the cultural reputation of Clinton.
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RYAN: Welcome to Hometown History, a series about the iconic places and events that make a town someplace people call home - stories that people can tell to their friends old and new about the place they live, did live, or will live. And today we have three stories about three early residents who shaped the culture of the town of Clinton. They are the singer, the painter and the scientist.
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RYAN: On May 4, 1909, Giulio Gatti-Casazza and Andreas Dippel, co-managers of the New York Metropolitan Opera, sailed for Europe on their annual talent search. Before they left, the pair announced the singers they had already signed for the upcoming Metropolitan season, including its first singer who had never trained in Europe. Her name was Anna Case, a twenty-one-year-old soprano born in Clinton, NJ.
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RYAN: Anna Case was born on October 29, 1887. The decade of the 1880s was a cultural heyday for Clinton.
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RYAN: A new branch of the Lehigh Valley Railroad was bringing an unprecedented number of visitors to the small New Jersey town. Clinton’s brand new Music Hall was booking acts from big cities to entertain the populace.
RYAN: Now to be fair, Anna didn’t grow up in Clinton. Her family actually moved to the little New Jersey village of South Branch, in Hillsborough Township, when Anna was just three years old. So, while her biography will always state her birthplace as Clinton, to those who knew her she was always “Anna from Hillsborough.”
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RYAN: Does that mean that we don’t get to talk about her legacy? Of course not!
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RYAN: So, back to 21 year old Anna Case, born in Clinton, raised in South Branch. On the eve of her debut with the Metropolitan Opera.
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RYAN: Anna’s New Jersey upbringing made her a sensation even before she took the famous New York stage. Not only had she never trained in Europe, she came from humble New Jersey beginnings. Shortly after Anna joined the Metropolitan, stories about her childhood began to appear in newspapers across the country.
ANNA CASE VOICE ACTOR: “Yes, I sang in the choir of the Dutch Reformed church when I was 9 years old…If I couldn’t sing a solo every Sunday even at the age of nine, I cried myself to sleep at night, and I had plenty to do aside from singing and crying.
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RYAN: Anna scrubbed floors and worked in the kitchens of her neighbors. She sold soap door-to-door and drove a handsome cab for fares to and from the local train stations. She even gave piano lessons for children in the evenings, with a revolver tucked into her belt for protection on the New Jersey country roads. A lot was made of the fact that her father was the village blacksmith and that Anna helped him in his shop, even shoeing horses on occasion.
ANNA CASE VOICE ACTOR: “We were poor; we didn’t have anything. I had my voice, but of course I wanted clothes too; what girl doesn’t? I didn't have much time to figure out how I was going to set about to amount to something…”
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ANNA CASE VOICE ACTOR: “One day after I had sung ‘Holy City’ at a church sociable, a woman friend of mine, she was a friend of our family, suggested that I take vocal lessons - said she and her husband would provide the money. They told me of Miss Katherine Updike, a teacher in Somerville and I wrote to her for prices. She answered she would give me two lessons a week at 75 cents a lesson, and so twice a week I went to her, going to the grocery store where my friend’s husband worked and getting the 75 cents each time.”
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RYAN: Those voice lessons must have paid off. Anna was recommended to a more experienced vocal instructor in New York, and soon she was performing at local venues in New Jersey and Philadelphia.
ANNA CASE VOICE ACTOR: “One day some friends asked me to go with them to Sea Girt, N.J. It was the close of Governor Stokes’ term, and we went to a reception for entertainment, where I was invited to sing. Governor Stokes told me he had a cousin who had charge of the music at the Bellvue-Stratford hotel in Philadelphia and he asked me if I could go down and sing for him. The Bellevue-Stratford gave a program every afternoon from 4 until 6 o’clock. I didn’t have a decent thing to wear, but I borrowed a dress from a friend and a hat from another and I went to Philadelphia. I sang every afternoon for a week.”
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RYAN: In November of 1909 Anna Case made her debut as a coloratura soprano at the Metropolitan Opera. She was dubbed “The miracle girl of the Metropolitan".
ARCHIVE AUDIO - ANNA CASE SINGING LA SONNAMBULA
RYAN: By 1915 Anna Case had linked up with yet another famous New Jerseyan - none other than Thomas Alva Edison. Edison tapped Anna to be the voice behind the tone tests of his latest invention - the Edison Phonograph. In auditorium demonstrations across the county, Anna would sing alongside a recording of herself, then pause to let the audience appreciate how close Edison’s phonographic recreation compared to her real voice.
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MALE VOICE 1: VERDICT UNANIMOUS! On Anna Case Tone Test by St. Louis Press, from The Saint Louis Times.
“The night was given over primarily to Anna Case of the Metropolitan Opera Company of New York, who sang into, in company with and following an Edison Disc…In the mechanical product of her voice the audience found nothing lost in the way of mellifluous tones, sensitiveness and vocal technique. Miss Case heard herself sing and probably realized with the audience that Miss Case in the disc was veritably Miss Case herself.”
RYAN: For the next several years Anna continued to lend her vocal talent to the New Jersey inventor’s re-creations, earning herself the nickname “Edison’s favorite soprano.”
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RYAN: Anna Case made her last appearance on the Metropolitan Opera stage at a Sunday concert in the 1919-1920 season. But it was far from the end of her career as a famous singer.
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RYAN: Throughout the 1920s and 30s Anna still enjoyed celebrity status. She continued giving up to 60 concerts a year, throughout the United States and overseas. But while Anna grew to be an international star, her upbringing and connections with New Jersey remained an ever present part of her legacy. In the 1920s she purchased her childhood home in Hillsborough and gave it to her mother. She gave an annual recital in Flemington, New Jersey, the county seat of Hunterdon, and even performed twice for the residents of her birthplace at Clinton’s famous Music Hall. After her mother died in 1949, she kept her childhood home and used it as a country retreat, dividing her time between her New York apartment and Hillsborough.
RYAN: Perhaps local Hillsborough historian Greg Gillett summed it up best: “Unlike other New Jersey celebrities, past and present, whose connection to our state became more tenuous the more famous they became, Anna Case belongs to that group which includes Frankie Valli and Bruce Springsteen. Singers for whom the New Jersey of their youth became an essential element of their larger-than-life stories.”
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RYAN: Even though we have no proof, it would be reasonable to assume that Anna Case, while becoming famous in New York, could have rubbed shoulders with another up and coming artist from Clinton, NJ. This time, a painter by the name of Elizabeth Grandin.
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RYAN: Elizabeth Grandin was born in 1889 in Clinton Township. Her path to becoming a well known artist paralleled that of Anna Case, even though they came from very different backgrounds. Elizabeth Grandin was born into an old aristocratic family in Hunterdon County. Her father was a physician in the area. Which meant that Elizabeth’s artistic talent could be nourished by private education.
ELIZABETH GRANDIN VOICE ACTOR: “My art interest was started at a tender age with the present of a box of water colors. When I was sent to a boarding school in Morristown at the age of 9, the only bright spot in my long and tiresome day was being permitted to work in the studio between classes.”
RYAN: As a young upper-class woman in the early 20th century, Elizabeth’s parents expected her to complete her education at Vassar College. But Elizabeth had other ideas.
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RYAN: In 1905, at the age of sixteen, she moved to New York City to continue her art studies with the famous American impressionist William Meritt Chase at his school.
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ELIZABETH GRANDIN VOICE ACTOR: “I was in his class for a month before he even saw me. The first time he spoke to me he said, Madam, can’t you stand up? I was terrified, a small girl of 16, a pink checked apron, a big bow on my hair and a birdseye maple palette in my hand. Being fresh from boarding school I thought he meant I should stand up when the teacher entered the room. I was perched on a high stool, and he felt that was no way to paint.”
RYAN: Despite her feelings of shyness in Merritt Chases’ studio, Elizabeth’s work apparently showed promise. The following year she became a pupil of yet another famous American painter, Robert Henri. In 1911 Elizabeth did something Anna Case famously never did: she moved abroad to continue her training in Europe.
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RYAN: At age 22 Elizabeth arrived in Paris. For the next two years she studied at the Academie Moderne, learning the techniques of Paul Czeanne.
ELIZABETH GRANDIN VOICE ACTOR: “When I was exposed to the more advanced ideas of the modern painters then coming into prominence in France, I was drawn in two directions. The impact of the French painters was strong, there was no Henri to take me by the hand and guide me, and I had to think things out for myself.”
RYAN: Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, Elizabeth Grandin was a stable if not high profile presence in New York City. But her most important work didn’t come in the form of a painting. It was in her advocacy of fellow female artists.
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RYAN: The roaring twenties, with its speakeasies and jazz music and gangsters, was still a pretty tough time to be a woman. And being a female artist was even more challenging. Women had only recently gained access to the top art schools that men attended, and only a few galleries in New York City were willing to showcase their work. Success in the art world often depended on joining private clubs, studying nude models, and spending late nights in the studio socializing and drinking. These were activities that women were largely excluded from. So in 1925, Elizabeth and 12 other women founded the New York Society of Women Artists - an organization that still exists today.
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RYAN: But, just like Anna Case, New Jersey remained a big part of Elizabeth Grandin’s story. Even during her most successful years in New York, Elizabeth returned home every summer to the family farm near Clinton. In the early 1930s she made a ca reer-ending decision to move back home to New Jersey permanently to help take care of her ailing half-sister, Sara Todd. She purchased her first home in Clinton in December 1931.
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ELIZABETH GRANDIN VOICE ACTOR: “I found it rather difficult to keep up with all the New York activities, so many of them had to be dropped. I missed, however, the close contact with the art world in a large city. At the time there was no interest around here in the arts.
RYAN: Back in Clinton, Elizabeth faded from the public eye. But while she may have left her fame behind in New York, she became known in Clinton for promoting artistic education in Hunterdon County.
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ELIZABETH GRANDIN VOICE ACTOR: “I have rented the large space where they used to have the printing press for my studio. It is going to make a fine workshop, also a place where I can show my work. I am also planning for a small class one day a week, preferably Saturday afternoons. I hope not only to teach the fundamentals of art, but an understanding and appreciation of art. Rather a large order, but one can only strive to do the best one can, and trust my little class will derive pleasure and benefit from working with me.”
ELIZABETH GRANDIN VOICE ACTOR: “Now I am definitely in Clinton for the rest of my days, and New York only for visits though I was there for some months last winter. But New York is not the same, and I think more and more artists are seeking the country, and trying to work in peace, and hoping they will run across a few kindred spirits that speak the same language.”
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RYAN: In the early 1950s, Elizabeth established a local art school for young adults. Throughout the next two decades she gave talks at the Hunterdon County Art Center and Hunterdon Art Alliance.
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RYAN: She also continued to paint recognizable scenes of Clinton from her home on Center Street. Its spot on the banks of the South Branch of the Raritan, looking over towards the Clinton United Methodist Church gave her some of the best views of her new hometown.
But her biggest impact on Clinton had almost nothing to do with painting. When Elizabeth died in 1970 at age 82, she left her entire estate, which included 270 oil paintings, pastels and sketches, to the Clinton Library Endowment Fund, ensuring the cultural legacy of Clinton would live on.
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RYAN: In 1889, the very same year Elizabeth Grandin was born, the Edison Electric Illuminating Company of New York hired one of its earliest engineers: a man named Isaac Krall.
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RYAN: At the time Krall went to work for Edison he and his wife lived in Jersey City. But they would soon become well known figures in Clinton.
RYAN: For many years the Kralls spent their summers in Lebanon Township, in Hunterdon County. It became their custom, on Sunday afternoons, to take a drive through neighboring towns for recreation. On one of those Sundays while they were riding through the streets of Clinton, Isaac Krall noticed that the old stone mill on the east side of the Raritan River (not the famous Red Mill) was for sale, and he made up his mind to buy it.
RYAN: So why did Krall have an interest in the mill? Krall grew up one of 11 children, including nine boys, in York County Pennsylvania. He was an apprentice millwright when the Civil War broke out and before long he joined the Pennsylvania Volunteers. After the War, trained to become an engineer. That's when Thomas Edison found him.
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RYAN: Edison was in the middle of trying to make his invention of electricity go commercial. His first electric power plant on Pearl Street in New York City opened in July of 1882.
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MALE VOICE 2: “When the illumination was begun Mr. Edison stood in the workshop of the central office of the first district, at No. 257 Pearl Street, in his shirtsleeves, superintending the work. Through the machinery the men flitted about busy as bees. Messengers came speeding in to say all was ready, and then the complicated apparatus was set going, and in a twinkling the area bounded by Spruce, Wall, Nassau, and Pearl Streets, where the incandescent lamps had been introduced, was in a glow. There had been scientists who claimed the lighting of such a space by such a method was impossible. But the result proved the contrary. Edison was vindicated and his light triumphed.”
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RYAN: By 1889, Edison had several power stations up and running in New York. Krall had worked at Edison for over a decade when rumors cropped up that the company might re-organize and hire only college graduates to fill top roles. That worried Krall, since he had little formal schooling. So Krall began to look around for something to fall back on. And that led him to the mill in Clinton.
RYAN: In the end, Krall wasn’t let go from Edison Electric. But he had grown so fond of the mill and the town of Clinton, that he decided to keep it.
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RYAN: Not long before Krall purchased the old mill, Clinton was undergoing its own introduction to Edison’s invention of electric light.
RYAN: In October of 1889 the Clinton Electric Light & Power Company was formed. By May of 1890, a dynamo generated by water power was installed at Gulick’s mill. The problem started when the power was switched on:
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MALE VOICE 3: “On May 29, 1890 the order was given ‘Let there be light” and there was light. But, like the departed flame of a snuffed candle, its brilliancy was instantly displaced by the former darkness, when about 80 globes, having a capacity of 100 volts each, were shattered as the full force of the dynamo’s 110 volts was turned into them.”
RYAN: Apparently, Clinton still had a lot to learn about Edison’s shocking invention. Luckily, the town would soon have a bona fide Edison engineer on hand to troubleshoot any future problems - and to modernize Clinton’s oldest mill.
RYAN: From 1910 on, Krall commuted from Clinton to New York to work as Edison’s engineer. But during the weekends he was frequently seen at his home on West Main street or working in and around his mill, covered in flour and tinkering with its machinery.
RYAN: During WWI Krall’s milling business was in peak demand. The mill kept going day and night at top capacity. From Clinton the flour was taken by truck to Paterson, New Jersey and Brooklyn for shipment abroad.
RYAN: At the same time Krall’s position with his employer was strengthening. In 1918, a group of 37 early Edison employees came together to form the Edison Pioneer Club, an organization made up of the oldest associates of Thomas Edison. Krall was soon included as a member, ensuring his place as one of Edison Electric’s most valuable engineers. He occupied a place of respect and affection in his circle of co-workers, who knew him as “The Chief”.
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RYAN: In February 1928, the Edison Pioneer Club held a luncheon at the Hotel Astor in Krall’s honor. Krall was 84 years old and a bit too frail for the journey. So Edison sent his own personal car to Clinton to pick up the guest of honor from his home.
MALE VOICE 4: “The guest of honor at the Pioneer luncheon this year was Mr. Isaac Krall, still actively connected with The New York Edison Company at eighty-four years of age. Mr. Krall is the only living and the last ex-chief engineer of the old Pearl Street Station…”
RYAN: In the forty years Krall worked with Edison he saw the development of electrical power rise from its infant stage to near ubiquitous use. But he was best known in Clinton as Mr. Krall, respected citizen, and the smartest man in town.
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RYAN: Anna Case, Elizabeth Grandin, and Isaac Krall were one of a kind figures in Clinton at the turn of the 20th century. At a time when business and manufacturing were valued above all else, these three cultural trendsetters showed the people of Clinton that it could be more than just a milling town. And Clinton was receptive. Today you can find many artists, filmmakers and musicians calling Clinton home. The town boasts not just one but two respected museums. Its main street is dotted with boutiques and artsy coffee shops. It hosts annual festivals, parades and concert series.
Clinton’s industrial history is what put this town on the map and led people to first move here. But its cultural history is what keeps people drawn to Clinton, like a magnet. Sure, they might go to New York City or travel abroad to expand their horizons, but they inevitably return to their hometown, the cultural heart of Hunterdon.
Next week on Hometown History, the story of how the town of Clinton got it’s name.
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This episode was written and produced by Ryan Ross and Katie Feather. It was mixed and edited by Katie Feather. Our theme music is La Danse Timide by Howard Harper-Barnes. Voiceover work in this episode performed by Rachel Boutin, Katie Hammond, Patrick Williams and Matt Giroveanu. Special thanks to Dave Harding at the Hunterdon County Historical Society and Peter Osborne at the Robert Henri Museum and Art Gallery.
For more information on Elizabeth Grandin, you can check out Osborne’s book: Elizabeth Grandin: A Clinton Treasure.
Information on Anna Case’s life in New Jersey came from research done by Hillsborough historian Greg Gillett. You can find more of his work on the blog “Gillett on Hillsborough.”
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