The Five Nations of the Iroquois hunted, fished, and foraged for minerals in the Genesee River region until 1779, when, weakened by the destruction of their villages by Revolutionary War General John Sullivan, they were induced to sell to speculators a large tract of land known as the Phelps and Gorham Purchase. Part of this tract was the site of a flour mill acquired by Nathaniel Rochester of Maryland in 1803. More flour mills were built, powered by the Genesee River and its falls; by the time the Erie Canal reached the area in 1825, Rochester's concentration of flour mills caused the settlement to be dubbed Flour City. The pioneering horticultural efforts of George Ellwanger and Patrick Barry, begun in the 1840s, brought the city international recognition; many beautiful parks and gardens were developed, and Rochester's nickname became Flower City.
Rochester has been home to a remarkable collection of Americans. In 1853 John Jacob Bausch and Henry Lomb opened a small optical shop there; today the company they started, Bausch & Lomb, is a world leader in optics and health care. In 1888 George Eastman introduced the camera he had developed in his mother's Rochester kitchen. Susan B. Anthony, a prominent suffragist, made Rochester her home for the last 40 years of her life. Frederick Douglass, escaped slave, abolitionist orator, and newspaper publisher ( The North Star ), lived in Rochester for 25 years until his home burned down in 1872.
Throughout the nineteenth century Rochester was a thriving commercial center. The men's clothing industry there was given a boost by the Civil War of 1861 to 1865 and by the subsequent demand for ready-made suits in the West; eventually this industry ranked second only to flour milling in importance. In 1866 the Vacuum Oil Company, which later became Mobil Oil, was founded in Rochester, and in 1906, the Haloid Company, now known as Xerox Corporation, began in a loft above a shoe factory.
While these new industries were developing, music and art were flourishing in Rochester, assisted greatly by the philanthropy of George Eastman, whose Eastman Kodak Company was expanding rapidly. But industrial growth was taking its toll on the Genesee River; by the early twentieth century this once beautiful resource had become little more than an open sewer lined with decaying industrial buildings.
The increasing attainability of the automobile in Rochester prompted a middle-class exodus to the suburbs. By the 1950s the city's population consisted largely of the poor and jobless. Rochester's reputation was tarnished by violent race riots in 1964. In response to those riots and the forces behind them, city leaders began major renovations of the downtown area. The long-neglected Genesee River was cleaned up. The expansion of Eastman Kodak, Bausch & Lomb, and Xerox Corporation protected upstate New York from the economic problems that beset many other industrial cities in the 1970s. In recent years many middle- and upper-income residents of the suburbs have been lured back to the city, which today thrives as a high-technology center and a cosmopolitan oasis surrounded by outstanding natural beauty.
Rochester is currently implementing a comprehensive renewal strategy called Rochester 2010: The Renaissance Plan. Affordable health care, attractive neighborhoods, progressive public schools, and an appealing downtown are just a few target of this ambitious campaign; the goal is to transform Rochester into a world-class cultural, social and economic center by the end of the decade.
Historical Information: Rochester Historical Society, 485 East Avenue, Rochester, NY 14607; telephone (585)271-2705. City historian Ruth Rosenberg Naparsteck, Office of the City Historian, 115 South Ave., Rochester, NY 14604-1896; telephone (585)428-8095; fax (585)428-8098