jon on Nostr: “Williams’s composite test scores placed him at the top of a list of hundreds of ...
“Williams’s composite test scores placed him at the top of a list of hundreds of applicants, but his appointment remained uncertain due to his race. All candidates were required to present three letters of recommendation and were then subjected to the department’s “selection process.” While almost all Blacks lacked the political clout to move beyond this point, Williams’s father managed to secure reference letters for his son from former president Theodore Roosevelt as well as Cardinal Patrick Hayes. Yet in the world of Tammany-controlled patronage politics, perhaps his most crucial letter of support might have come from florist and real estate mogul Charles Thorley. Thorley owned and operated the famed Thorley’s House of Flowers, served as J. P. Morgan’s personal florist, and provided extremely expensive arrangements for the city’s elite. Thorley, for many years, employed a number of African Americans in his shop, including Williams’s father during the 1890s and Langston Hughes for a brief period in 1922. Thorley bought and sold a number of real estate holdings in Manhattan, including the parcel of land that the New York Times purchased to build its headquarters. As a millionaire and active member of Tammany Hall, Thorley made frequent and substantial donations to the machine, which gave him tremendous power and sway. “It was Thorley,” Williams recalled, who “let the fire commission of the City of New York understand that regardless of how they felt about it, I was going to stay in the fire department.”
— Black Firefighters and the FDNY: The Struggle for Jobs, Justice, and Equity in New York City (Justice, Power, and Politics) by David Goldberg
https://a.co/aZ9UOC9Published at
2025-02-08 20:11:01Event JSON
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"content": "“Williams’s composite test scores placed him at the top of a list of hundreds of applicants, but his appointment remained uncertain due to his race. All candidates were required to present three letters of recommendation and were then subjected to the department’s “selection process.” While almost all Blacks lacked the political clout to move beyond this point, Williams’s father managed to secure reference letters for his son from former president Theodore Roosevelt as well as Cardinal Patrick Hayes. Yet in the world of Tammany-controlled patronage politics, perhaps his most crucial letter of support might have come from florist and real estate mogul Charles Thorley. Thorley owned and operated the famed Thorley’s House of Flowers, served as J. P. Morgan’s personal florist, and provided extremely expensive arrangements for the city’s elite. Thorley, for many years, employed a number of African Americans in his shop, including Williams’s father during the 1890s and Langston Hughes for a brief period in 1922. Thorley bought and sold a number of real estate holdings in Manhattan, including the parcel of land that the New York Times purchased to build its headquarters. As a millionaire and active member of Tammany Hall, Thorley made frequent and substantial donations to the machine, which gave him tremendous power and sway. “It was Thorley,” Williams recalled, who “let the fire commission of the City of New York understand that regardless of how they felt about it, I was going to stay in the fire department.” \n\n— Black Firefighters and the FDNY: The Struggle for Jobs, Justice, and Equity in New York City (Justice, Power, and Politics) by David Goldberg\nhttps://a.co/aZ9UOC9",
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