Troy: Collar City (nickname)
Troy was known for its Arrow shirt factory and its detachable collars. It acquired the nickname "Collar City." There is a "Collar City Bridge" there today.
"THE Troy Times complains of the extravagance of the fire commissioners of the shirt and collar city" was printed in the Rochester (NY) Democrat and Chronicle on August 30, 1880.
Wikipedia: Troy, New York
Troy is a city in the US State of New York and the seat of Rensselaer County. Troy is located on the western edge of Rensselaer County and on the eastern bank of the Hudson River. Troy has close ties to the nearby cities of Albany and Schenectady, forming a region popularly called the Capital District. The city is one of the three major centers for the Albany-Schenectady-Troy Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA), which has a population of 850,957. At the 2010 census, the population of Troy was 50,129. Troy's motto is Ilium fuit, Troja est, which means "Ilium was, Troy is".
(...)
In addition to the strong presence of the early American steel industry, Troy was also a manufacturing center for shirts, shirtwaists, collars and cuffs. In 1825, a local resident Hannah Lord Montague, was tired of cleaning her blacksmith husband's shirts. She cut off the collars of her husband's shirts, since only the collar was soiled, bound the edges and attached strings to hold them in place. (This also allowed the collars and cuffs to be starched separately.) Montague's idea caught on, and changed the fashion for American men's dress for a century. Her patented collars and cuffs were first manufactured by Maullin & Blanchard, which eventually was absorbed by Cluett, Peabody & Company. Cluett's "Arrow shirts" are still worn by men across the country. The large labor force required by the shirt manufacturing industry also, in 1864, produced the nation's first female labor union, the Collar Laundry Union, founded in Troy by Kate Mullany.
NYS Historic Newspapers
1 June 1877, The Sentinel (Ticonderoga, NY), "Question Box -- Geography" by Joseph H. Dyer, pg. 4, col. 5:
36. Name a collar city.
Newspapers.com
30 August 1880, Rochester (NY) Democrat and Chronicle, "Current Topics," pg. 2, col. 4:
THE Troy Times complains of the extravagance of the fire commissioners of the shirt and collar city.
Newspapers.com
16 May 1886, Sunday Truth (Buffalo, NY), pg. 4, col. 1:
From Troy comes the Clarion, the official organ of the K. of L. in that district, and the workingmen and workingwomen of the collar city are to be congratulated on the ability with which it is edited and the evident certainty that it has come to stay.
3 December 1891, New York (NY) Times, pg. 1:
Senator Michael F. Collins came down from Troy with a couple of legal defenders in the persons of Judge Whitman and Corporation Counsel William J. Roche of the Collar City.
3 March 1894, New York (NY) Times, pg. 5:
Troy Election Inspectors Bill Being
Defective, the Governor Will Not
Sign It - Scheme to Rush a Bill
Through Monday Night Which
Shall Do for Rochester, Newburg
Ithaca, and Cohoes What Has Been
Proposed for the Collar City.
"THE Troy Times complains of the extravagance of the fire commissioners of the shirt and collar city" was printed in the Rochester (NY) Democrat and Chronicle on August 30, 1880.
Wikipedia: Troy, New York
Troy is a city in the US State of New York and the seat of Rensselaer County. Troy is located on the western edge of Rensselaer County and on the eastern bank of the Hudson River. Troy has close ties to the nearby cities of Albany and Schenectady, forming a region popularly called the Capital District. The city is one of the three major centers for the Albany-Schenectady-Troy Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA), which has a population of 850,957. At the 2010 census, the population of Troy was 50,129. Troy's motto is Ilium fuit, Troja est, which means "Ilium was, Troy is".
(...)
In addition to the strong presence of the early American steel industry, Troy was also a manufacturing center for shirts, shirtwaists, collars and cuffs. In 1825, a local resident Hannah Lord Montague, was tired of cleaning her blacksmith husband's shirts. She cut off the collars of her husband's shirts, since only the collar was soiled, bound the edges and attached strings to hold them in place. (This also allowed the collars and cuffs to be starched separately.) Montague's idea caught on, and changed the fashion for American men's dress for a century. Her patented collars and cuffs were first manufactured by Maullin & Blanchard, which eventually was absorbed by Cluett, Peabody & Company. Cluett's "Arrow shirts" are still worn by men across the country. The large labor force required by the shirt manufacturing industry also, in 1864, produced the nation's first female labor union, the Collar Laundry Union, founded in Troy by Kate Mullany.
NYS Historic Newspapers
1 June 1877, The Sentinel (Ticonderoga, NY), "Question Box -- Geography" by Joseph H. Dyer, pg. 4, col. 5:
36. Name a collar city.
Newspapers.com
30 August 1880, Rochester (NY) Democrat and Chronicle, "Current Topics," pg. 2, col. 4:
THE Troy Times complains of the extravagance of the fire commissioners of the shirt and collar city.
Newspapers.com
16 May 1886, Sunday Truth (Buffalo, NY), pg. 4, col. 1:
From Troy comes the Clarion, the official organ of the K. of L. in that district, and the workingmen and workingwomen of the collar city are to be congratulated on the ability with which it is edited and the evident certainty that it has come to stay.
3 December 1891, New York (NY) Times, pg. 1:
Senator Michael F. Collins came down from Troy with a couple of legal defenders in the persons of Judge Whitman and Corporation Counsel William J. Roche of the Collar City.
3 March 1894, New York (NY) Times, pg. 5:
Troy Election Inspectors Bill Being
Defective, the Governor Will Not
Sign It - Scheme to Rush a Bill
Through Monday Night Which
Shall Do for Rochester, Newburg
Ithaca, and Cohoes What Has Been
Proposed for the Collar City.