For more than one million people, greater Rochester is home. A foreign exchange student recently asked me what our city is known for. Certainly, we can claim the garbage plate and Kodak, but the truth is we are living in the birthplace of many other innovative people and ideas. You might be surprised to learn what else was made right here in the (585).
Did you know the first-ever business franchise was not a fast-food restaurant, but a beauty salon? Martha Matilda Harper used her life savings of $360 to open the first beauty salon in our region in 1888. Before her salon at 517 Powers Building opened, it was commonplace for hairdressers to make home visits to their customers. Harper developed her own hair tonic, and her floorlength hair was featured in advertisements for her products. In 1891, Harper eventually expanded to more than 500 locations and was the first woman to join Rochester’s Chamber of Commerce. A former domestic servant, Harper made sure the first 100 salons went to women living in poverty. The next time you’re sitting in a salon recliner getting a shampoo, think of Harper, as she invented those too. She emphasized customer care, offering scalp massage, childcare, and evening hours. Her most famous customers included Susan B. Anthony, Woodrow Wilson, Jaqueline Kennedy, and Ladybird Johnson.
Most of us are well aware that the white hot was invented here, but you might be surprised to learn that its perfect condiment started in Rochester, too. French’s mustard was developed by the French brothers in 1904 and headquartered at 1 Mustard Street. The mustard was sold in nine-ounce jars with a wooden serving paddle and cost just ten cents. It became an overnight success when it was served on hot dogs at the St. Louis World’s Fair in 1904.
Rochester is also home to the very first statue in the U.S. memorializing a Black American. The Frederick Douglass Monument was commissioned by activist John W. Thompson and sculpted by Sidney W. Edwards. The statue was located in front of the train station at St. Paul Street and Central Avenue, and is now installed in Highland Park’s Frederick Douglass Memorial Plaza. Included in the memorial is a sculpture symbolizing the North Star, the name of the anti-slavery newspaper published in Rochester by Douglass.
Frederick Douglass is buried at Mount Hope Cemetery, which holds the record as the very first municipal Victorian cemetery in the United States (see our September/October 2022 issue for a full article on the cemetery’s history and design). The cemetery was built in 1838 to improve quality of life and to be a public attraction for joggers, bikers, and even skiers. It is listed on the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom. To this day, voters visit the final resting place of Susan B. Anthony and other suffrage leaders after casting their ballots. A truly special place, this landscape features nearly 200 acres of hills, valleys, and a beautiful esker shaped by retreating glaciers.
French’s and Zweigle’s were major sponsors of another history maker, the Rochester Red Wings baseball club. The Red Wings is America’s oldest operating franchise in minor league baseball. The team was founded in 1899 and is in the record books for playing the longest professional baseball game in history. The 1981 game, which included Cal Ripken Jr. and Wade Boggs, lasted thirty-three innings and almost nine hours.
Famous (585)-ers
Susan B. Anthony Social reformer and women’s rights activist
Frederick Douglass Social reformer, abolitionist, writer, and most influential Black American of the nineteenth century
Abby Wambach Two-time Olympic gold medalist, Women’s World Cup Champion, and alltime highest scoring international soccer player
Jen Suhr Pole vaulter and 2012 Olympic gold medalist
Robert Wegman Chairman of Wegmans (founded by his father) for forty years
Lou Gramm Lead singer of the rock band Foreigner and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee
Ross Barnes First home run hitter in Major League Baseball
Kate Gleason The first female in Cornell’s engineering program and a pioneer for women in mechanical engineering
Many of us remember growing up with the American candy retailer named after a celebrity chef. At its peak, Fanny Farmer candy was the largest manufacturing retailer of candy in the country, offering butter creams, maple walnut, almond bark, and orange creams. The first shop was opened in 1919 and was located on East Main Street in Rochester. The last three local stores closed twenty years ago.
In 1932, William Tuttle and Charles Stickel invented the very first eyelash curler, called “Kurlash,” right here in Rochester. Before their invention, women used tweezers, thread, and hot spoons to curl their lashes.
In 1913, Edward Maurice Trimble invented a baby bed completely enclosed with screens.
The “Kiddie-Koop” was very popular in South America and other tropical locations.
Rochester is also home to the first and largest technical college in the United States for deaf and hard-of-hearing students. The National Technical Institute for the Deaf was founded in 1965 at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Our area is highly deaf-accessible, as we have the largest per-capita deaf population in the country.
From singer and bandleader Cab Calloway to hip hop producer DJ Green Lantern, many musicians started here. David Hochstein was a virtuoso violinist who was killed during World War I. The Hochstein School of Music was created in his honor to bring music education to children in Rochester.
Rochester is home to a few famous actors as well. Phillip Seymour Hoffman grew up in Fairport, and Kristen Wiig graduated from Brighton High School. John Lithgow was born in Rochester before moving to Ohio. It’s no surprise, as our area is full of acting studios for all ages and the Rochester International Film Festival is the world’s oldest continuously held short-film festival.
Inventions from the (585)
Zweigles Food manufacturer of hot dogs, sausages and deli products founded in 1880
Guglielmo’s Homegrown marinara sauce made by a local family
Stever’s chocolates Confectioner founded in 1946 where chocolates are made fresh daily
Fee Bros. This iconic purveyor of bitters and other flavoring has been a Roc staple for 160 years
Gleason Works Machine tool builder founded in 1865, specializing in gear manufacturing
Jell-O Everyone’s favorite geletin dessert was invented in Le Roy in 1897
Xerox Photographic paper and equipment manufacturer founded in 1906
Bausch and Lomb Founded in 1853 producing monocles, expanded to microscopes, eyeglasses, camera lenses, and more
Genesee Brewing Company Brewery founded in 1878 located along the Genesee River
Kodak Film photography company founded in 1892 by George Eastman; innovations include the digital camera, flexible roll film and affordable Kodak Brownie camera
Dr. James Caleb Jackson of Dansville invented the very first whole-grain breakfast cereal in 1863, which he named “Granula.” Jackson was a farmer, nutritionist, and active abolitionist who believed that illness had everything to do with diet. He ran a health spa and invented cold cereal when he was experimenting with cures for illness. The New York Times Magazine reported that he baked graham flour into brittle cakes, which he then crumbled and baked again. As you can imagine, it was neither successful nor edible. Another health spa owner heard about it and started making his own “granula,” until Jackson sued him. That owner was John Harvey Kellogg, who then renamed his cereal “granola,” and the rest is history.
Regina Brooks is an award-winning literary agent, as well as being a popular author and blogger herself. She was raised here and graduated from School of the Arts. She represents a huge list of award-winning authors and was named Woman of the Year by the National Association of Professional Women.
James Sargent designed the first successful key changeable combination lock and the first time-delay combination lock. He founded a railway signal company and developed signals to warn engineers when another train or object was on the tracks. He lived at 98 East Avenue and is buried at Mount Hope Cemetery. His company still exists and is based in Kentucky.
Would you believe that Champion—the inventor of the iconic hoodie— was first opened here in Rochester in 1919? According to the website: “Champion designed and developed the hooded sweatshirt for use as a warmup or ‘sideline’ garment for athletes to wear in-between game time or practice sessions.” The hooded sweatshirt covers the head and neck and was originally made for warehouse workers here during the winter months. Decades later, hip hop culture and the blockbuster film Rocky greatly contributed to the burgeoning success of the hoodie.
Rochester native Julia Collin Davison became a household name as co-host of America’s Test Kitchen and Cooks Country on PBS. She attended SUNY Albany and then the Culinary Institute at Hyde Park. She went from washing dishes in the test kitchen to creating bestselling books, a podcast, and a reality show. Julia’s favorite local restaurants include Dinosaur Bar-B-Que and India House. This author thinks it is very fitting that she grew up in the “Flour City” around so much delicious food.
How lucky are we to be surrounded by all of this innovation and imagination? One has to wonder who or what will be made in the (585) next!
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