Episodes Nearest to August 1, 1832 to August 31, 1832: 1 through 25 of 25

  1. McCormick’s Improved Reaper Takes to The Fields
    date August, 1832 to 1832map ROCKBRIDGE, Virginiatags Agriculture, Science/Technology

    Cyrus McCormick gave a public demonstration of his newly improved Reaper near the little town of Lexington, Virginia in 1832. Around 100 people were present to watch the twenty-three year-old innovator’s contraption take to a field of grain. Herbert N. Casson explained in his book, Cyrus Hall McCormick: His Life and Work, that the crowd included “several political leaders of local fame,...

  2. The Elite South are Immune
    date September 7, 1832map HENRICO, Virginiatags African-Americans, Health/Death, Race-Relations, Urban-Life/Boosterism

    A cholera epidemic struck the United States in 1834, affecting southerners in every social standing. However; elitism and negative racial attitudes ultimately influenced perceptions about the transmission of the disease. Todd Savitt, a historian specializing in nineteenth-century medicine and disease stated that white Virginians often related high morals, clean living and orthodoxy to immunity during...

  3. Tariff of 1832 Passed
    date July 14, 1832map Washington City, District of Columbiatags Agriculture, Economy

    While President Andrew Jackson dealt with the Bank War, another economic debate engulfed Congress. They debated a new tariff. This act would be a close relation to the Tariff of 1828, which was benevolently called the Tariff of Abominations. The new bill was a protectionist tariff, attempting to protect local producers from foreign competitors by setting the tariff on imported goods, or using some...

  4. President Jackson Vetoes Bill for Re-chartering the Second Bank of the United States
    date July 10, 1832map Washington City, District of Columbiatags Economy

    The Bank of the United States was a sensitive issue from its outset. The First one expired indifferently in 1811, and the Second Bank was chartered five years later, in 1816. This new edition was meant to be an independent bank, a specie paying bank, a stead and cautious, not a speculative bank. But, it had an inauspicious start, with a case sent before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1819. This case,...

  5. Cholera Outbreak in Richmond, Virginia
    date September 24, 1832map HENRICO, Virginiatags Health/Death

    When cholera swept through Richmond in the fall of 1832, it was an unfamiliar disease with no cure. Originating in India in 1826, the world's first cholera epidemic traveled over trade routes and down polluted waterways - spreading through Asia, Europe, Canada, and the northern United States in the span of just a few years. Unable to identify a cause much less a cure, doctors were powerless...

  6. Mr. Clay comes to Staunton, Virginia
    date July 27, 1832 to November, 1832map AUGUSTA, Virginiatags Government, Politics, Urban-Life/Boosterism

    Augusta County, Virginia was clearly Whig Country come the election of 1832. The Annals of Augusta County, a historical record, speaks of an imposing and influential political convention in 1832. Attended by people from all over the State, the delegates called themselves National Republicans and adopted resolutions which called for Henry Clay for president. Four years earlier, the Staunton...

  7. Carey Advocates Liberia as the Solution
    date 1832map PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvaniatags Slavery, American Colonization Society

    Nat Turner's methodical slaying of white civilians in Southampton County, Virginia during August of 1831 caused anxiety and concern for whites throughout the country. Although he was captured within months, his rebellion had unintended consequences. It added fuel to an already growing fire – the movement to send free blacks to Liberia.

    Arguing on behalf of the American...

  8. Charles Knowlton and The Fruits of Philosophy
    date 1832map NEW YORK, New Yorktags sex, contraception, Health/Death

    Charles Knowlton was one nineteenth century doctor who was not afraid to talk about sex. Despite prosecution and jail time he stood behind the ideas of his 1832 work Fruits of Philosophy. The book was deemed obscene for its discussion of sex for pleasure and birth control methods. Knowlton saw sexual desire as a passion that started in the nerves of the genital organs and extended to the...

  9. Southern Reaction to the Nullification Threat
    date June 28, 1832map HENRICO, Virginiatags Government, Law, Politics, War

    It was the summer of 1832, and tension hung over Richmond like a thick fog. National unrest had been building throughout the United States for quite some time, and sectional pressure between the North and South was nearing its boiling point. Those people living in Virginia's capital sensed the impending conflict more than most. Mere months before the South Carolina nullification crisis erupted,...

  10. Random Crime Shocks Charleston
    date October 29, 1832map CHARLESTON, South Carolinatags African-Americans, Crime/Violence, Government, Race-Relations, Slavery, Urban-Life/Boosterism

    Today's well intended celebrations of Halloween were nothing compared to the horrors that took place one haunting October in 19th century Charleston. On a Saturday night in late October 1832, Joseph Wienand, the manager of the Neptune Hotel in Charleston, was murdered. Apparently, he was in possession of between 200 and 300 in cash. His murder was discovered by his African-American female servant...

  11. President Andrew Jackson Wins Re-Election
    date November 2, 1832map Washington City, District of Columbiatags Economy

    After Andrew Jackson lost the close presidential election of 1824, he focused on defeating John Quincy Adams four years later. Jackson easily succeeded, becoming the first president to hail from a state other than Virginia or Massachusetts. This distinction can help symbolize the expansion of the United States during his eight years in office. Originally, the Democrats had not anticipated Jackson's...

  12. Reaction to Nullification
    date November 4, 1832map WILKINSON, Mississippitags Government, Law, Politics

    In 1832, Sophia Hunt, a Democrat living in Woodville, Mississippi, received a letter from her father in South Carolina describing the recent crisis of his state. The Nullification Crisis threatened to hurl South Carolina into warfare with the rest of the country. In her November 4 reply, Sophia expressed her sorrow upon hearing this news, as well as her doubt that South Carolina would be successful...

  13. Ad in Charleston Mercury Offers Ladies Benefits of an Academy Education
    date November 17, 1832map CHARLESTON, South Carolinatags Arts/Leisure, Education, Urban-Life/Boosterism, Women

    On Saturday, November 17, 1832 an ad appeared in the Charleston Mercury for a "Young Ladies' French and English Academy" which had just opened in Philadelphia. Such ads for girl's academies were not uncommon in the 1830s, for over the span of the early 1800s there was a growing trend for families to send their daughters to one of these schools if they could afford it. The popularity...

  14. South Carolina Legislature Passes the Ordinance of Nullification
    date November 24, 1832map RICHLAND, South Carolinatags Economy

    After his re-election, President Andrew Jackson faced an immediate attack at the authority of the government of the United States. The economic deeds of the summer of 1832 did not prevent Jackson's return to office, but, at the same time, they did not go unnoticed. A huge movement against the Tariff of 1832 was headed by the state of South Carolina. The state believed that this tariff was extremely...

  15. Threat to the Union: Thomas Grimke on Nullification
    date December 1, 1832map CHARLESTON, South Carolinatags Government, Law, Politics

    Angered by a set of tariffs passed by the Federal Government that protected the interests of northern merchants without benefitting the South at all, the South Carolina state convention met in Columbia on November 19, 1832 and adopted a statement declaring the tariffs of 1828 and 1832 "null and void" within South Carolina. Former state senator Thomas GrimkÉ felt this action was completely uncalled...

  16. A Plea for Peace Within the Union
    date December 1, 1832map LEXINGTON, South Carolinatags Government, Politics, War

    Thomas GrimkÉ wrote a letter to John C. Calhoun to persuade him to calm southerners as tensions were rising between north and south. He tries to flatter Calhoun with his many titles, Congressman, Senator, Vice-President, and he tells Calhoun that the south will listen and reason with him, "They are, in the estimate of the Union, at least, but the invisible satellites of your superior station and...

  17. The Interstate Slave Trade
    date December 3, 1832map ALEXANDRIA CITY, Virginiatags African-Americans, Agriculture, Economy, Migration/Transportation, Slavery

    The Alexandria Gazette, a newspaper of Alexandria, Virginia, published a small advertisement for "200 Negroes" on December 3, 1832. This ad placed by slave traders Franklin and Armfield, requested slaves between "12 to 25 years of age, field hands, also mechanics of every description;" they were "determined to give higher prices for slaves than any (other) purchasers..." This small...

  18. Nullification Frowned Upon By Richmond Newspaper
    date December 4, 1832map RICHMOND, Virginiatags Economy, Government, Politics

    On December 4, 1832, The Richmond Enquirer devoted several pages of its newspaper to discussion of the recent nullification crisis. In one of the articles, the editorial staff of the Enquirer expressed their feelings about nullification. The editorial staff of the Enquirer stated that although "from the moment this paper saw the light, it has been the devoted friend of the Rights of the States,"...

  19. Reverends Discuss Death and Religion Before Politics
    date December 5, 1832map ABBEVILLE, South Carolinatags Church/Religious-Activity, Health/Death, Politics

    On December 5, 1832 Reverend James M. Chiles wrote a letter to fellow South Carolinian Reverend James C. Furman detailing the health of Chiles' family and the surge of religious revival in his area. Chiles began the letter with an apology that it had taken him so long to respond offering the explanation that he had been close to death and his youngest sister had died. Joy and sorrow flowed...

  20. The Outcast of Virginia
    date December 8, 1832map LOUISA, Virginiatags Government, Law, Politics

    "A Voice from Louisa" wrote to the Richmond Enquirer in December 1832 with the hope that a man like John Tyler would not be elected as a United States Senator once again. Instead, the writer expressed the importance of knowing the "political creed" of the candidates, as this was the only way to ensure the election of a senator who truly supported President Andrew Jackson and...

  21. Virginia in the Nullification Crisis of 1832
    date December 10, 1832map CAMPBELL, Virginiatags Economy, Government, Law, Politics

    "They have gone so far, that it is even more difficult to recede than go on; and they had rather see the Union dissolved tomorrow than that their own proposition should be accepted," proclaimed the Lynchburg Virginian in reference to South Carolina's actions in December 1832. It all began in 1828 when Congress enacted the so-called Tariff of Abominations. Many Southerners thought the highly...

  22. President Jackson Responds to Nullification
    date December 10, 1832map Washington City, District of Columbiatags Economy, Government, Law, Politics

    The crisis threatened to tear the nation apart. This crisis was the passage of the Nullification Ordinances by the South Carolina State Assembly in November of 1832. The unity and survival of the nation depended upon President Andrew Jackson's response. On December 10, 1832, President Jackson presented his response to the Congress, arguing that the justification for state nullification...

  23. Radicalism vs. Rationality
    date December 15, 1832map SPOTSYLVANIA, Virginiatags Economy, Government, Politics

    On Saturday, December 15, 1832, the Virginia Herald expressed its grief over the Nullification Crisis with the words, "alarming as the crisis...is, we cling to the hope, that for the sake of humanity and the honor of our country and her institutions, that means of averting the impending storm may yet be devised..." While regretting the approaching conflict, the Virginia newspaper never...

  24. Liberation in Liberia
    date December, 1832map PASQUOTANK, North Carolinatags African-Americans, Church/Religious-Activity, Migration/Transportation, Race-Relations, Slavery

    According to the Elizabeth City Star, the proposal to send free blacks to the colony of Liberia was a "scheme entirely Utopian." This North Carolina newspaper praised the American Colonization Society's ideas about how to handle the "race problem," as they deemed the growing number of newly freed blacks in America. A group of prominent Americans convened in December 1816 and established...

  25. Nullification Controversy
    date December, 1832map ROWAN, North Carolinatags Government, Law, Politics, War

    Sectional tensions between the North and South increased following the Tariff of 1828. The tariff placed a high tax on foreign goods to stimulate domestic manufacturing, and, in turn, placed strains on the Southern economy as the British reduced their imports of cotton. Many declared the tariff unconstitutional and thought that it infringed upon the individual states' rights. To quell the...