Episodes Nearest to September 17, 1835: 1 through 25 of 25

  1. The Observer's Slave Clothing Debate
    date September 17, 1835map ST LOUIS, Missouritags African-Americans, Slavery, Urban-Life/Boosterism

    Elijah Lovejoy, a staunch abolitionist living in Missouri, published and owned the St. Louis Observer. As part of his weekly papers, Lovejoy printed national and international news on a variety of subjects, most frequently the debate on slavery. Lovejoy printed one of these hotly debated articles on September 17, 1835, when Asa A. Stone's editorial article on the clothing condition of slaves...

  2. Foreign Goods are Southern Delights
    date September 11, 1835map HENRICO, Virginiatags Arts/Leisure

    Elite southerners adorned themselves in European imports as a means of showing ones status. Using the term, planter aristocracy James and Dorothy Volo explored elite antebellum planters and their perceptions of heritage and prestige. According to the Volos', Americans prized every connection to European nobility and believed that old American families should receive the same prestige as those...

  3. Christianity as a Justification for Slavery
    date September 29, 1835map CHARLESTON, South Carolinatags African-Americans, Church/Religious-Activity, Race-Relations, Slavery, Urban-Life/Boosterism

    Slave owners had many justifications for why holding people in bondage was acceptable. From the idea that African Americans were a lesser race who needed taking care of by white patriarchs to the economic justification, slave owners were always trying to find new ways to dispute those who disagreed with their choice to hold others in captivity. Charleston slave holders were no exception in attempting...

  4. Anti-Abolitionists are Antagonized in The Herald
    date August 31, 1835map ONTARIO, New Yorktags Economy, Politics, Slavery, Abolition

    When residents of Geneva, New York acquired their daily copy of the Herald on August 31, 1835 they had no idea they were about to read a prophetic vision of the United States’ future. After acknowledging an anti-abolition meeting that had taken place in the town just a few days prior, the anonymous author of the front-page article went on to denounce the meeting as foolish and to predict...

  5. Easter Hudson Becomes a Member of the Brushy Creek Baptist Church
    date October, 1835map GREENVILLE, South Carolinatags African-Americans, Church/Religious-Activity, Race-Relations, Slavery

    Easter Hudson appeared in the Brushy Creek Baptist Church records as early as 1831, but she became a member of the church on October of 1835. Easter, along with six other black members were listed with the surname of Hudson and were present in the new members list of 1835.There were two white members named Millie and Albert J. Hudson that also became members of this Baptist church at the same time....

  6. The Gentlemen Here Are Very Polite. What about the women?
    date July 21, 1835map FAUQUIER, Virginiatags Arts/Leisure, Migration/Transportation, Urban-Life/Boosterism, Women

    Ms. Mary Peace of Philadelphia made a point to express her views on the society of Warrenton, Virginia, in a letter she wrote during her visit there to her brother, Master Washington Peace. She noted that the the gentlemen here are very polite and offer their horses and attendance to the women. However, Mary did not develop as fond of an opinion for Warrenton's women. She expressed a specific...

  7. Raleigh State of the Art
    date November 16, 1835map WAKE, North Carolinatags Health/Death, Women

    The Raleigh Theatre was the grandest in the land. After attending the grand-opening, all the men and women of the city agreed that they had never seen their own theatre surpassed in beauty and style. The curtain drapery over the hollow wooden windows and stage doors was fitted with precision, and the walls were no longer glum and drab but instead featured variegated colors trimmed in gold. The...

  8. Violence in Mississippi
    date July 15, 1835map MADISON, Mississippitags African-Americans, Crime/Violence, Race-Relations

    In the summer of 1835, violence swept through the Mississippi landscape. A Mississippi man's letters include harrowing murders, vigilante activity and a purported slave insurrection. Rattled by the violence, the Mississippian, James Carlson, in a letter to his former schoolmate, Virginian Robert Whitehead, detailed the events with fear and warning. Lawless men brutally murdered a mutual friend...

  9. An Unpredictable Mail System
    date July 14, 1835map RICHMOND, Georgiatags Government, Politics, Migration/Transportation

    James L. Stratton was traveling through the South on business in 1835. While stopped in Augusta, Georgia, he wrote to his wife Eliza at their home in Philadelphia. In his letter he complained of the many difficulties he faced during his trip. In particular, he was frustrated that he had not been receiving letters from her. He reported that he had expected to receive a letter from her while in Monroe,...

  10. Jabez Jackson and Defense of Union
    date July 7, 1835map BALDWIN, Georgiatags Government, Law, Politics

    After the resignation of James M. Wayne from the United States House of Representatives, the Jacksonian Party of Georgia desired a strong unionist to represent the Milledgeville Congressional District in Congress. On July 6, 1835, a convention of Union Party delegates nominated Jabez Jackson to fill this void. Jabez Jackson himself wrote to the Central Committee of the Union Party of Milledgeville...

  11. Female Education
    date July 6, 1835map BIBB, Georgiatags Education, Women

    On July 6, 1835, the Georgia Telegraph published an editorial from the June edition of the Knickerbocker in regards to the brooding controversy about whether or not women should be educated. After heartily endorsing the editorial, the Telegraph ran the entirety of the article.

    The Knickerbocker began by reviewing the failure of male education and, thus, the necessity...

  12. Birth Control Practices in Missouri and the Abortion Act
    date 1835map ST LOUIS, Missouritags Health/Death, Government, Law, Politics, Women

    By the early half of the nineteenth century, Victorian views of sexuality in the South dictated that women and men remain virginal until marriage. Others held the view that sex after marriage had procreative purpose only. However, many so-called free thinkers such as Charles Knowlton, Abner Kneeland, and Samuel Thompson recognized that Victorian ideals clashed with the reality of everyday life....

  13. The Dutch Ferryman
    date 1835map RAPIDES, Louisianatags Agriculture, Church/Religious-Activity, Economy, Migration/Transportation, Native-Americans

    Presbyterian Reverend Timothy Flint had been settled with his family in Alexandria, Louisiana for 10 years when he set out at the age of 55 to explore the Red River and the people who lived along it. Commissioned by the Missionary Society of Connecticut in 1815 to preach Christianity to the masses of emigrants moving west, Flint was no stranger to such exploration. He ministered in the Ohio Valley,...

  14. James Foreman Trial
    date 1835map WILLIAMSON, Tennesseetags Law, Native-Americans

    Cohabitation with Indians, that is to say leaving in former Indian lands and with Native-Americans, was not easy in Tennessee, and also in the United States. In 1835, James Foreman, an Indian, was sued for murder and he was probably guilty. But, he was acquitted because the law of the state was not constitutional due to the Worcester V. Georgia case in which the United States Supreme Court held...

  15. An experience on the Allegheny Portage Railroad
    date 1835map CAMBRIA, Pennsylvaniatags Hollidaysburg

    Before the construction of the Horseshoe Curve, the Allegheny Portage Railroad acted as the most efficient form of transportation over the steep Allegheny Mountains. Finished in the spring of 1834, the Allegheny Portage Railroad cost the Commonwealth almost two million dollars and cut a three day journey into six hours. Philip Nicklin braved the treacherous voyage a year after the railroad's...

  16. Singin' Billy Walker
    date 1835map SPARTANBURG, South Carolinatags Religion, music

    In a time of intense religious revival and a relatively low literacy rate, the need for easily learned music was quickly becoming necessary. Shape note singing is a type of musical notation that was used commonly throughout the rural south during the nineteenth century as a way to assist with congregational and revival hymn singing to help with just that. Ministers were becoming increasingly uneasy...

  17. Catholicism's Impact on Religion and Politics in St. Louis
    date December 17, 1835map ST LOUIS, Missouritags Church/Religious-Activity, Government, Politics

    While American historians often focus on the millions of immigrants that moved through Ellis Island, many of these same people traveled west and ended up in St. Louis. The city became a locus of immigrant activity, both religious and cultural. However, negative changes often accompanied positive ones with the large influx of immigrants. The greater influence of Catholicism, the dominant immigrant...

  18. Graves of Their Fathers
    date June 18, 1835map INDIAN LANDS, Mississippitags Migration/Transportation, Native-Americans

    In 1835, an army physician traveled to the newly settled Choctaw territory in Arkansas and Oklahoma. In a letter to his father, Burton Randall discussed his journey and most significantly, displayed empathy for the precarious handling of American Indians by the United States government. Concerned with the forced removal of the state's indigenous population, Randall bewailed how the American...

  19. Fire Destroys Wall Street
    date December 16, 1835 to December 17, 1835map NEW YORK, New Yorktags Urban Society, Urban-Life/Boosterism, Health/Death

    In the evening hours of Wednesday, December 16, 1835, smoke billowed above the downtown Manhattan skyline. At the time, no one knew exactly where the sparks had ignited and the fire begun, but by Thursday afternoon, the flames had engulfed approximately seventeen square blocks on and surrounding Wall Street. An article in the magazine The Albion indicated that by Thursday evening between 700 and...

  20. Clay's Grief
    date December 25, 1835map Washington City, District of Columbiatags Health/Death, Government, Urban-Life/Boosterism

    Christmas day, 1835, was a most miserable day for Henry Clay. One moment he was laughing and joking with friends; then his life changed drastically. He received a letter from home. Upon opening it, he fell directly to the ground, as if he had been shot. The first words he managed to utter, Every tie to life is broken He had received new of his daughter's death. Although he became more composed...

  21. Sugar Plantations
    date December 28, 1835map ASCENSION, Louisianatags African-Americans, Economy, Slavery

    During the nineteenth century Louisiana was one of the country's largest producers of sugar. The sugar plantations contributed to the American economy and although they were not always the wealthiest of ventures, the proved to be objects of mystique to travelers passing through southern Louisiana.

    One such visitor to Louisiana was William Gray Fairfax of Virginia. Gray was on his way...

  22. Frederick Douglass escapes
    date January 1, 1836map BALTIMORE, Marylandtags African-Americans, Slavery

    In Chapter XIX of Frederick Douglass's My Bondage My Freedom, he talked about how he was fed up with not being a free man and began to devise a plan to escape. At this point in Douglass's life he worked for Mr. Freeland, and even though he considered him a friend, the idea of being enslaved his entire life gave Frederick the drive to escape. It was the beginning of 1836, and Fredrick...

  23. John Dewery in Prison
    date January 7, 1836map CLARKE, Alabamatags African-Americans, Crime/Violence, Law, Migration/Transportation, Slavery

    John Dewery, a bright mulatto...nineteen or twenty years old, found himself in a precarious situation. As he was sitting in the Clark County Jail in Alabama on January 7, 1836, the Mobile Commercial Register published an announcement about his capture and arrest as an escaped slave. This was problematic because he swore in vain that he was a freed person. Nevertheless, the paper reported that if...

  24. The Call for Prohibition by Missouri Temperance Society
    date January 21, 1836map ST LOUIS, Missouritags Health/Death, Urban-Life/Boosterism

    Though a large religious presence existed in Missouri, its inhabitants succumbed to a great number of vices, including alcohol abuse amongst men. The widespread alcohol abuse in St. Louis, the gateway to the West, caused many that passed through the city to comment on the wicked city containing an excessive number of deists and infidels. Some cited alcohol abuse as a result of the growing population...

  25. Alexander Campbell and John Thomas Debate Reimmersion
    date February, 1836map BROOKE, Virginiatags Church/Religious-Activity

    As Alexander Campbell promoted his restoration movement, one of his colleagues questioned him on the issue of baptism. In 1836, he entered into a debate with Dr. John Thomas in the Millennial Harbinger, Campbell's own religious journal. At first, their ideas corresponded well with one another, as they both required immersion to attain salvation. Their concurrence did not last long,...