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Benjamin Pike Jr.

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Benjamin Pike Jr. (1809 – May 7, 1864) was a businessman and manufacturer of philosophical and optical instruments. He was the eldest son of Benjamin Pike Sr., whom he joined in business from 1831-1841 under the name Benjamin Pike & Son, before going on to create his own successful firm.[1][2]

Benjamin Pike Jr.
Born1809 (1809)
New York City, New York, U.S.
Died (aged 53)
Astoria, New York, U.S.
OccupationOptician
Spouse
Frances Matilda Hope
​
​
(m. 1838)​
FatherBenjamin Pike Sr.
RelativesDaniel Pike (brother) Gardiner Pike (brother)

Early life

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Benjamin Pike Jr. was born into an English immigrant family in New York City, New York, in 1809, as the son of an optician, Benjamin Pike Sr., who immigrated from the United Kingdom to establish his own optical, scientific, and engineering business in New York, Benjamin Pike Sr.[3] Very little is known about Pike's early life, but it is known he grew up in the Pike family home on North Moore Street, Manhattan, as did his siblings.[3] It is presumed that he studied to be an optician like Pike Sr.

Career

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Benjamin Pike & Sons

Records show that in 1831, Pike Jr. joined his father in business, and in order to represent the presence of his son at the firm, it was renamed Benjamin Pike & Son.[4] However, this name would go on to change quite frequently as family members came and went from the business.[5] For example, Daniel Pike joined his brother and father in 1839, and as a result, the business was renamed Benjamin Pike & Sons.[6]

By 1840, the firm was viewed in high regard by patrons and experts alike, with Benjamin Pike & Sons going on to win a Silver Medal at the Fifth Annual Fair of the Mechanics' Institute, being commended for their "surveying and drawing instruments".[5] The Thirteenth Annual Fair of the American Institute would mark another victory for the firm after receiving a second place Diploma for "specimens of surveyors compasses and levels, beautiful finish"[7]

 
Two illustrations of the optical store owned and operated by Benjamin Pike Jr from 1848 (left) and 1856 (right), respectively.

Benjamin Pike Jr. & Co

In 1843, Benjamin Jr. separated from his family's business and formed his own firm, viewed in similarly high regard by the general public[8] known simply as Benjamin Pike Jr. & Co., located at 294 Broadway,[9][10][11] which also largely served as his family's home until 1858.[12] Benjamin Jr. had evidently learned the field extremely well as he won countless awards for both the quality and use of his many instruments including three silver medals at American Institute Fairs shortly after going into business. Two of which were for his remarkably "superior air pumps"[9][13] and one other for his innovative "electro-magnetic apparatus".[13] It was again at the American Institute Fairs that he would win two diplomas that demonstrated his firm's proficiency in both purely mathematical and scientific instruments.[14]

It is here where both Pike Jr.'s optical knowledge and marketing genius propelled his business to new heights through the 1840s through both innovative strategy and market expansion. Rather than simply restricting himself to the market of New York City and those who physically came to his Manhattan firm, Pike created and twice published a massive catalog of over 750 items, in 1848 and in 1856, both fitted with illustrations, engravings, and lengthy descriptions of countless scientific instruments manufactured by his company from telescopes to spectacles.[15][16] This marketing innovation was not only revolutionary for his business[17] but for the entire scientific world and the diaspora of its knowledge as a whole.[18] It was regarded as the most comprehensive collection of philosophical instruments to ever be conceived that acted as a near-universal catalog of countless devices and scientific products of the age.[16][19] Moreover, it was in these catalogs that Pike took the opportunity to further emphasize the quality of his products[20] and the innovative and modern nature of his designs that incorporated all the finest aspects of the age's contemporary science and engineering. He further wished to sway the favor of the United States' growing scientific community and shift their consumption from traditionally European instruments to those of his own firm, and in this goal, he largely succeeded.[21][22] Hence orders would flow in from all across the nation and even parts of Europe,[23] which brought Pike and his company to new heights of fame and prestige. He then massively expanded his business by demolishing and rebuilding a larger version of his store at the same address in 1850[24] to accommodate the new influx of customers. Leading to the further growth and development of the market reach of his firm as word spread of its utmost quality.[14]

In addition, his depictions and descriptions were so robust and unprecedented, in fact, that his engravings were used commonly for more than a century for analysis of both period and contemporary counterparts of scientific instruments.[25] By the early 20th century his work had become a fundamental basis for scientific demonstration and description in both professional and scholastic environments.[18]

With such a quantity of both patrons and corresponding fame, the Pike family desired an escape from the busy and crowded life of the city where they had been living on the upper floors of their shop for over a decade. So using the vast riches collected as a result of their massive surge in business, Pike constructed an $85,000 built a 27-room mansion in Northern Queens in what is today Astoria, New York.[26] He was seen here in the 1860 U.S. Census, and despite his famous optical firm, Pike had his occupation listed as a farmer.[27] The home was later sold to William Steinway of the piano-making Steinway family in 1870 after the death of Benjamin Pike Jr., and is today known as the Steinway Mansion.[28][29]

Personal life

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Pike married Frances Matilda Hope[30] on April 14, 1838, with whom he had a son and two daughters.[31]

Death

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Pike died suddenly and without known cause on May 7th, 1864, in Astoria, New York, around the age of 53.[32] His widow subsequently sold the mansion, which it would be bought by William Steinway in 1870. It is unknown where Pike's wife and children moved after this.

According to directories, the Pike Jr. firm was permanently closed shortly after.[33]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "Benjamin Pike, Jr. | People | The Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments". waywiser.rc.fas.harvard.edu. Retrieved 2024-07-11.
  2. ^ "Benjamin Pike Surveying Instrument Maker". compleatsurveyor. Retrieved 2024-07-12.
  3. ^ a b "Benjamin Pike". www.microscopist.net. Retrieved 2024-07-11.
  4. ^ "Benjamin Pike, Jr. | People | The Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments". waywiser.rc.fas.harvard.edu. Retrieved 2024-07-11.
  5. ^ a b "Benjamin Pike". www.microscopist.net. Retrieved 2024-07-11.
  6. ^ Institution, Smithsonian. "Protractor Retailed by Benjamin Pike & Son". Smithsonian Institution. Retrieved 2024-07-11.
  7. ^ Mason, Cyrus (1840). The Oration on the Thirteenth Anniversary of the American Institute. Harvard University. p. 50.
  8. ^ Roberts, Hilton E. (December 1941). Occupational Hazards. Vol. 4. Internet Archive. Penton Media.
  9. ^ a b "The Fair of the American Institute". Scientific American. 4 (11). New York: 82. 1848. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican12021848-82.
  10. ^ Doggett, John (1878). Broadway in 1851. Columbia University Libraries.
  11. ^ Child, Ernest (1940). The Tools of the Chemist: Their Ancestry and American Evolution. Internet Archive. New York, Reinhold Pub. Corp. p. 5.
  12. ^ "Benjamin Pike". www.microscopist.net. Retrieved 2024-07-11.
  13. ^ a b Annual Report of the American Institute, on the Subject of Agriculture. UMass Amherst Libraries. New York: American Institute in the City of New York. 1843. p. 111.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  14. ^ a b "Who Was Benjamin Pike?". www.queensbuzz.com. Retrieved 2024-07-11.
  15. ^ Maillet, Arnaud (2004). The Claude Glass: Use and Meaning of the Black Mirror in Western Art. New York: Zone Books. ISBN 978-1-890951-47-4.
  16. ^ a b McBrayer, Alan; Valenza, Thomas (2012). History on Your Face- Common Spectacles Styles before, during and after the Civil War. pp. 9–12.
  17. ^ Koch, Joe (1994-06-01). Magic Lantern Society of the United States and Canada. Vol. 6. p. 5. ISSN 1059-1249.
  18. ^ a b Quackenbos, George Payn (1871). A Natural Philosophy: Embracing the Most Recent Discoveries in the Various Branches of Physics. University of California. New York: D. Appleton and Company. p. 4.
  19. ^ Genuth, Sara Schechner (May 1987). "Book Review: Nineteenth-Century Apparatus: Pike's Illustrated Catalogue of Scientific & Medical Instruments". Journal for the History of Astronomy. 18 (2): 140–141. doi:10.1177/002182868701800215. ISSN 0021-8286.
  20. ^ Carroll, G. Danielson (1859). Carroll's New York City Directory. Columbia University Libraries. New York, Carroll & Co. p. 168.
  21. ^ Dwight, Theodore, ed. (February 1, 1849). "Scientific Instruments". Dwight's American Magazine, and Family Newspaper. 5 (2). New York: Open Court Publishing Co: 61.
  22. ^ Smart, Charles E. (1962). The Makers of Surveying Instruments in America since 1700. Internet Archive. Troy, N.Y., Regal Art Press. p. 121.
  23. ^ Henry, Joseph; Reingold, Nathan; Rothenberg, Marc (1985). The Papers of Joseph Henry. Vol. 5. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press. p. 305. ISBN 978-0-87474-123-0.
  24. ^ Pike Jr., Benjamin (1856). Pike's Illustrated Descriptive Catalogue of Optical, Mathematical and Philosophical Instruments. Vol. 1. University of California (2nd ed.). New York. p. 7. OCLC 950930228.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  25. ^ Drepperd, Carl William; Smith, Marjorie Matthews (1953). Handbook of Tomorrow's Antiques. New York, Crowell. pp. 123–124.
  26. ^ Jim Sabastian (2016-10-12). The Steinway Mansion Documentary. Retrieved 2024-07-12 – via YouTube.
  27. ^ "Benjamin Pike". www.microscopist.net. Retrieved 2024-07-11.
  28. ^ Barrette, Bill; Yau, John (1991). Big City Primer: Reading New York at the End of the Twentieth Century. New York: Timken Publishers. p. 89. ISBN 978-0-943221-13-7.
  29. ^ Brockmann, Jorg (2002). Five Hundred Buildings of New York. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers. p. 623. ISBN 978-1-60376-266-3.
  30. ^ "Married". The New Yorker. Vol. 5, no. 5. New York: H. Greeley & Co. 1838-04-21. p. 78.
  31. ^ "Benjamin Pike & Sons Opticians at Historic Camera". historiccamera.com. Retrieved 2024-07-12.
  32. ^ "Who Was Benjamin Pike?". www.queensbuzz.com. Retrieved 2024-07-11.
  33. ^ "Benjamin Pike". www.microscopist.net. Retrieved 2024-07-11.

Further reading

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  • Genuth, Sarah Schechner (1987). "Book Review: Nineteenth-Century Apparatus: Pike's Illustrated Catalogue of Scientific & Medical Instruments". Journal for the History of Astronomy. 18 (2): 140–141. doi:10.1177/002182868701800215.
  • Greenslade, Thomas B. (2021). "American Nineteenth-Century Manufacturers and Importers of Philosophical Apparatus". Physics in Perspective. 23 (4): 202–230. doi:10.1007/s00016-021-00273-5.
  • Pike Jr., Benjamin (1856). Pike's Illustrated Descriptive Catalogue of Optical, Mathematical and Philosophical Instruments. OCLC 14844633.
  • Pike Jr., Benjamin (1848). Pike's Illustrated Descriptive Catalogue of Optical, Mathematical and Philosophical Instruments. OCLC 950930228.
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