Today in History

The annual parade of "New York's Finest" was filmed on June 1, 1899 in Union Square. At the turn of the century, the New York City Police Department (NYPD) was still recovering from scandals and allegations of corruption that tarnished its reputation in the 1890s. Four years earlier, the state Senate created a committee to investigate the department. The Lexow committee issued a scathing report detailing serious criminal activity within the organization. The New York Municipal Police was founded in 1845 with an initial force of 900 men. Nearly 400,000 people lived in New York City at that time, and the municipality was overwhelmed by expanding slums, a high rate of crime, and frequent rioting. Looking toward London for solutions to its policing problems, the city adopted reforms similar to those Sir Robert Peel had instituted in 1829. In 1845, uniformed officers operating under a chain of command, replaced the outdated constable system the Dutch established in seventeenth-century Manhattan.

However, immense challenges remained. Police officers served only one-or-two-year tours of duty, and order and continuity suffered accordingly. Jobs as police officers, like almost all public service work in nineteenth-century New York, were awarded based on cronyism and political patronage. Meanwhile, the social problems that prompted the 1845 reforms increased as the population swelled pass the million mark in the 1870s.

With public disapproval of the force running high, the annual police parade was cancelled in 1895. That same year, Theodore Roosevelt was appointed president of the police commission. He initiated strict and effective reform measures that helped restore public confidence in the department. Roosevelt recruited 600 officers based on their ability to serve rather than their political loyalties. In addition, the first women and ethnic minorities were hired under Roosevelt's tenure.

Today, the NYPD is among the largest municipal police departments in the United States. Its jurisdiction encompasses New York City's five boroughs, and covers an area of about 320 square miles. Now, over 38,000 uniformed officers -- thirty-nine percent of whom are women and minorities -- work to keep the megapolis safe.

Use American Memory to learn more about New York at the turn of the twentieth century:

Explore forty-five films of turn-of-the-century New York City. Browse the title list of the collection Life of a City: Early Films of New York, 1898-1906. Move On and New York Harbor Police Boat Patrol document the police in action.

Learn the comic song "The Finest Police in the World!" Search the collection Music for the Nation: American Sheet Music, 1870-1885 on police to find this tongue-in-check air.

Take a virtual tour of turn-of-the-century New York City. Search the collection Touring Turn-of-the-Century America, 1880-1920 on New York City to view era photographs of the metropolis.

View specially delegated New York City mounted police guards in 1919 at Theodore Roosevelt's Funeral in Oyster Bay, New York. This film is from Theodore Roosevelt: His Life and Times. To see more search that collection on the keywords police or New York and find, for example, Teddy Roosevelt in 1917 as he Reviews and Addresses Troops and Rides in an Auto Parade.