A plaque remaining from the Big Apple Night Club at West 135th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem.

Above, a 1934 plaque from the Big Apple Night Club at West 135th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem. Discarded as trash in 2006. Now a Popeyes fast food restaurant on Google Maps.

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Entry from June 13, 2006
By Hammer and Hand All Arts Do Stand (Mercantile Library)
"By Hammer and Hand All Arts Do Stand" symbolizes the Mercantile Library. Its logo features an arm and hammer.

The "by hammer and hand" slogan has been used in New York City trades since at least the 1700s, and it was used in England before that.

http://www.mercantilelibrary.org/index.html
17 East 47th Street, New York, NY 10017
Tel. 212.755.6710
Fax 212.826.0831
.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
A membership library and literary center made for the public.

http://www.mercantilelibrary.org/history.html
The mission of The Mercantile Library of New York is to promote the reading, writing, study and enjoyment of literature. To accomplish this, the Library acquires works of fiction and related non-fiction and circulates these works to its members, provides low-cost work-space to individual writers and non-profit literary organizations, and produces and presents programs of literary interest.

The Mercantile Library of New York was founded in 1820 by merchants and their clerks before the advent of public libraries. By the mid-nineteenth century, it was thriving as one of the foremost cultural institutions in the United States, with an extraordinary collection of books in the humanities, and a popular lecture program that featured such renowned speakers as William Makepeace Thackeray, Frederick Douglass, and Mark Twain. The Library offered classes on many subjects and was considered a meeting place for social and educational pursuits.

The Library currently focuses on collecting and lending fiction, both literary and popular, presenting literary programs for the general public, and renting low-cost space to writers and other literary organizations. It has developed one of the best collections of fiction in the United States and had benefited from six National Endowment for the Humanities grants for literary programming in the past ten years.

The Mercantile Library of New York is a not-for-profit institution classified by the Internal Revenue Service as a public charity under the statute 501 (c) 3. Contributions to the Library are tax-deductible to the extent provided by law.

http://www.correctionhistory.org/html/chronicl/ny1816-60/oct05a.html
Mercantile Library ("By hand and hammer all arts do stand") is at 17 E. 47th St. between Madison & 5th Aves. (212) 755-6710

(Google)
Early English Books Online Text Creation Partnership By hammer and hand all arts doe stand. Bossuet, Jacques Bénigne, 1627-1704. Exposition of the doctrine of the Catholique Church in the points of ...
www.lib.umich.edu/tcp/eebo/ New_Text/New_Texts_December2003_full.html - 183k - Cached - Similar pages

http://www.oldandsold.com/articles32n/northumbria-20.shtml
They left only because quickening trade made demand on the shore. In a street called the Side - a real Northumbrian name - is the house in which Lord Collingwood was born. Only a public-house now, it is remembered for the sake of Nelson's friend and a national hero. In Low Friar Street is a building of the greatest historic interest. It is the Smiths' Hall, and bears over a door the motto:
By hammer and hand
All Artes do stand.


http://www.americancollegeofheraldry.org/TANAPR04.htm
Some mottos are so long that to place them on a ribbon or scroll prompts the artist to consider alternatives. That of the Worshipful Company of Blacksmiths of the City of London is By hammer and hand all arts do stand.

http://flag.blackened.net/ksl/bullet2.htm
Premises were secured near the old city wall of Newcastle, at a spot which had endured Scottish sieges, the hall of the old Smiths' Guild. Above the arched door were the carved stone arms of the Guild, a shield bearing the motto "By hammer and hand do all things stand".

http://www.trocadero.com/dennbks/items/372659/item372659store.html
1798 New York City Mechanics and Tradesmen Directory

(Mechanics). THE CHARTER AND BYE-LAWS OF THE GENERAL SOCIETY OF MECHANICS AND TRADESMEN OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK. ALSO - THE RULES OF ORDERS WITH A CATALOGUE OF MEMBERS NAMES. New York: Printed by Geo: Forman, No. 64, Water-Street, Between Coenties and the Old Slip, 1798. 8vo, rebound in mottled cloth, paper title label on spine, book plate (detached of Frieda Lowinson). 24pp. Two-thirds of spine cover missing. Sporadic foxing to the interior pages. A very sound copy.
"The General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen was founded on 17 November 1785 and was incorporated by the state of New York on 14 March 1792. Membership was limited to craftsmen who were at least twenty-one years of age. The by-laws also required that a candidate be proposed by two members who could attest to his "industry, honesty, and sobriety" and be approved by two-thirds of the membership. There was an initiation fee of five dollars, and monthly dues were twelve and a half cents. The address used at the initiation ceremony urged that new members "let sobriety, industry, integrity, and uprightness of heart continue to be the ornaments of your name."

The aims and organization of the General Society were typical of the craft benefit societies that flourished during this period. These groups combined the functions of a private charity with the camaraderie of a fraternal lodge. Normally craftsmen in a particular trade would band together and pay dues into a common fund. Members or ther dependents would then be entitled to assistance in times of economic distress. Before the days of insurance companies, pensions, and government relief, craft benefit societies were an important source of aid during the recurring depressions of the early nineteenth century. Although the society was permitted to loan money to members and nonmembers, its "leading motive" was to "relieve the distressed of its members that may fall in want by sickness, or other misfortunes." Four "overseers of the indigent" were elected annually to appropriate aid to destitute members or the widows and orphans of deceased members. In an apparent reference to these appropriations, the initiation address required that new members of the society "on its private transactions be as silent as the grave."

The General Society during this early period celebrated the mutuality and centrality of the craft community. Besides its charitable activities, the society played a prominent part in the festivities that marked patriotic holidays, carrying banners emblazoned with its slogan 'by hammer and hand all arts do stand.' Members considered the craft system of production to be the embodiment of republicanism. Although republicanism is inherently difficult to define outside of a specific historical context, its central tenets were moderation, simplicity, reciprocity, and civic virtue. The ideal citizen conducted his affairs with due regard for the public weal and guarded the republic against the corrupting influences of the greed and luxury associated with commercialism. The craftsman's workshop, in which the master was a fellow worker as well as an employer and was bound to his workers by reciprocal obligations, was a microcosm of the ideal polity. Members of the society during these early years so conflated the values of the craft community and the virtues of the republic that, in the words of Sean Wilentz, "as far as they were concerned, republicanism and the system of 'the Trade' were so analogous as to be indistinguishable from each other." (Glynn, Tom. Books for a Reformed Republic: The Apprentices' Library of New York City 1820-1865. Libraries and Culture, Vol. 34, No. 4, Fall 1999.) (3213)

http://www.ashp.cuny.edu/video/d-liberty.html
"By Hammer and Hand All Arts Do Stand." The artisan's symbol adorns an announcement in New York's General Trades' Union newspaper, The Union, calling for a demonstration to support union tailors convicted of conspiracy in 1836.

http://www.jackbrubaker.com/info/process.html
The Process of Forging Metal
The hammering of metal—by hand and with mechanical hammers—has been practiced for over two thousand years. The Old Testament phrase "By hammer and hand all arts do stand" is believed to be a reference to the importance of blacksmithing in making tools for the other trades. For hundreds of years every town, village, and neighborhood supported a local "smithie" that supplied and repaired various necessities ranging from wagons and plows to elegant architectural ironwork for palaces and cathedrals. Although these local smithing shops are rare today, their one-time predominance in our world lingers linguistically in such expressions as "strike while the iron is hot" and "too many irons in the fire."

http://www.wpi.edu/Academics/Library/Archives/TechBible/songs.html
Worcester Tech! Our Alma Mater! Proud are we to sing thy fame.
Vision, Faith, at last triumphant! Honor, glory to thy name!
John Boynton's sons are scattered now on mountain, plain and shore.
Ten thousand men from Worcester Tech have roamed the planet o'er.
"By hammer and hand, all arts must stand" on this foundation sure
Their works shall be his monument, his dream shall rest secure.

http://www.rocinante.demon.co.uk/klhg/tullkirk/tull2.htm
The crown and hammer is the symbol of the Hammerman's Guild. The motto was "By Hammer and Hand, All arts do stand" and its membership embraced all crafts which used a hammer on metal.

18 October 1851, The Albion, pg. 495:
The hammer and civilization go together, and

By Hammer and hand
All arts do stand!

18 April 1999, New York Times, pg. NJ18:
Gustav Stickley was a furniture maker, a businessman, a publisher and one of the leading forces of the American Arts and Crafts movement. A favorite maxim of his -- "By hammer and hand do all things stand," from a blacksmith's song -- epitomizes his approach to his life's work.
Posted by Barry Popik
Names/Phrases • Tuesday, June 13, 2006 • Permalink


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