Episodes Located: DAVIDSON, Tennessee in the 1850's

  1. The General Assembly of the State of Tennessee resolved to instruct their congressmen to gather appropriations of federal funds for the leveeing of the Mississippi on the Tennessee side.
    date November 17, 1857map DAVIDSON, Tennesseetags Urban-Life/Boosterism

    The General Assembly of the State of Tennessee resolved to instruct their congressmen to gather appropriations for the leveeing of the Mississippi on the Tennessee side. Previously federal lands had gone to Missouri, Arkansas and Louisiana for levees, and as a result the Tennessee side had aquired a greater amount of overflow “to the manifest injury of the people and the State of Tennessee'....

  2. Debate over the Lecompton Constitution rages in Kansas.
    date September 7, 1857 to August 2, 1858map DAVIDSON, Tennesseetags Race-Relations, Slavery

    Kansas began the process of beginning to apply for statehood in late summer 1857. First, the citizens had to come up with and ratify a state constitution. Proslavery forces within the state drew up the so-called “Lecompton Constitution' at a convention which Free Soil parties boycotted. Indeed, at the Convention there was never any option to vote against slavery. The proslavery forces refused...

  3. Public Schools Tax
    date February 28, 1854map DAVIDSON, Tennesseetags Economy, Education

    Governor Andrew Johnson's recommendation of a tax to support the creation of public schools in Tennessee was made law. The governor was a strong believer in mass education and forced his unenthusiastic legislature to pass the law. For the first time in its history, Tennessee had fully-operating public schools.
    In Johnson's first message to the Assembly on December 19, 1853, the governor mainly...

  4. Cholera Epidemic
    date May 26, 1854 to June 3, 1854map DAVIDSON, Tennesseetags Health/Death, Migration/Transportation, Urban-Life/Boosterism

    Nineteen people in Nashville and the surrounding area died of what doctors suspected to be cholera. Most of the deaths occurred near the city limits. The Nashville Union sought to control any possible panic by relaying information of the epidemic with this concluding sentence: This is the whole truth up to this time [original emphasis]. They reassured their readers that once the weather changed...

  5. Capitalist Enslavement
    date 1854map DAVIDSON, Tennesseetags Economy, Race-Relations, Slavery

    George Fitzhugh, a native of Brentsville, Virginia, published Sociology for the South, or the Failure of Free Society. He looked upon Africans and African-Americans as children, uniquely suited to slavery. Just as children cannot be governed by mere law ? because they are so much under the influence of impulse, passion and appetite, the negro individual had to be treated as a grown up child ? The...

  6. Sorghum Arrives in America
    date July 2, 1853map DAVIDSON, Tennesseetags Agriculture, Economy, Migration/Transportation

    Sorghum, a grass that grows in the tropical regions of the world, made its grand entrance to the South via Georgia and South Carolina in 1853. Sorghum competed with sugar in the market for sweet-tasting plants. Sugar could come from a variety of plants from several different countries such as Italy, China, and Brazil whereas sorghum mainly came from Africa. The South might have needed sugar for...

  7. Temperance Movement Debated in Tennessee
    date July 1, 1853map DAVIDSON, Tennesseetags Arts/Leisure, Church/Religious-Activity, Crime/Violence

    The fate of alcohol was uncertain during mid-nineteenth Century. Alcohol had many opponents. Protestants thought it was a great evil. Many Southern whites were afraid of keeping alcohol legal for fear that it could cause great damage if slaves gained access to it. Tennessee was very involved in the temperance movement although it had not completely banned alcohol like Maine. However, in 1853,...

  8. Bill Passed to Incorporate the Mississippi Central and Tennessee Railroad Company
    date November 14, 1855map DAVIDSON, Tennesseetags Economy, Migration/Transportation

    During 1855 there was a strong movement to expand the railroads in the southern states. Although railroads were well established in the far southeastern states, there was still a need and desire to expand into the west and into the midwestern states. During the 1850's there was a particular expansion of railroads in Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee. Railroads were also built more upon the...

  9. An advertisement for a runaway slave appears in The Republican Banner
    date August 3, 1850map DAVIDSON, Tennesseetags Slavery

    On August 3, 1850 a notice appeared in The Republican Banner for a runaway slave. A slave boy named Tom who “in appearance resembles an Indian' had run away from a Dr. Waters. (The Republican Banner, August 3, 1850) The note suggests that Tom would not be intellectually capable of escaping all the way to freedom without needing the assistance of Whites, and thus Dr. Waters published this runaway...

  10. Approximately 300 Irish workers arrive in Chattanooga to work on the Chattanooga and Nashville Railroad
    date August 25, 1850map DAVIDSON, Tennesseetags Migration/Transportation

    On Thursday, August 22, approximately 300 Irish workers arrived in Chattanooga, Tennessee to work on the Chattanooga and Nashville Railroad. Plans for the construction of the Chattanooga and Nashville Railroad began in June of 1845. The railroad was conceived for the purpose of expanding commerce in Chattanooga by reducing the time it took to travel there from Nashville and other major cities, significantly...

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