The Garbage Cart

William P. Chappel

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

For the first two centuries of New York’s history, anyone who wanted to transport anything—goods, building materials, even garbage—had to rely on one of the city’s licensed cartmen. New York could not function without the ubiquitous white-smocked cartmen who were awarded freeman status and a monopoly on intra-city transportation. The numerous regulations placed on the carting business included rates, cart size, and speed limits. According to its inscription, this scene, at the intersection of Pump (now Canal) and Elizabeth Streets, likely features the carter Thomas Palmer around 1807, bell in hand, executing his mandatory biweekly garbage collection.

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The American Wing's ever-evolving collection comprises some 20,000 works of art by African American, Euro American, Latin American, and Native American men and women. Ranging from the colonial to early-modern periods, the holdings include painting, sculpture, works on paper, and decorative arts—including furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass, silver, metalwork, jewelry, basketry, quill and bead embroidery—as well as historical interiors and architectural fragments.

Metropolitan Museum of Art