Episodes Nearest to February 21, 1848: 1 through 25 of 25

  1. Antebellum Abortion
    date February 21, 1848map JEFFERSON, Mississippitags African-Americans, Health/Death, Race-Relations, Slavery, Women

    In modern society, it is commonly accepted as a rule of the profession that doctors remain cool and detached from their patients in order to provide them with the best medical care possible, unobstructed by emotional thoughts, feelings, or actions. The diary of Dr. Walter Wade proved that even in the mid-nineteenth century that this concept was not a foreign one. A large percentage of his journal...

  2. Hawkins, the Horse Thief
    date February 29, 1848map ROCKBRIDGE, Virginiatags Crime/Violence, Health/Death, Government, Law

    On Thursday, February 29, 1849, The Valley Star of Lexington, Virginia reported that the infamous horse thief, Hawkins, while in jail, slit his own throat with a straight razor. The guards allowed the inmates razors and stood outside the cells as the prisoners shaved. According to the article, Hawkins turned to the guard, said, Good-bye, and promptly slit his throat. Being near at hand, we ran to...

  3. A Reflection on the Ongoing War with Mexico
    date March 4, 1848map Washington City, District of Columbiatags Health/Death, Government, Law, Migration/Transportation, War

    Daniel Webster, leading American statesmen and established Whig Senator during the antebellum period, sent a letter discussing the war with Mexico to his dear son on March 4, 1848. He expressed his disgust for the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and its architect, Nicholas Trist. This letter comes near the end of Webster's career, and the letter revealed that fatigue from a long career in politics...

  4. The Scarcity of Salt
    date January 25, 1848map JASPER, Georgiatags Agriculture, Economy, Migration/Transportation

    In 1848 Walker I. Brookes sent a letter to his father from his plantation in Jasper and Jones counties, Georgia. In the letter he discussed many problems he was facing on the plantation. The troubles he wrote about included having to postpone planting, having to buy animals and having to deal with a fire in a field that burned a fence. He began the letter by discussing a delivery of materials by...

  5. The Black Enchanter
    date January 15, 1848map MIDDLESEX, Massachusettstags Blackface, Minstrel Show

    “The Black Enchanter…”  functions as the comic relief in a play titled John-Donkey’s Prize Plays. This actor was one of many white actors in a black face minstrel show in the period before the Civil War. This black character is portraying the “court jester” of  this time period, entertaining white people in old torn clothes with his over exaggeration of black features:  broken...

  6. Abraham Lincoln’s view on James K. Polk and Mexican Territory
    date January 12, 1848map Washington City, District of Columbiatags Abraham Lincoln, Mexican Territory, James K. Polk, Mexican-American War

    On January 12, 1848 Abraham Lincoln, a Whig congressman from Illinois, gave a speech questioning the Mexican-American war that he believed was “unnecessarily and unconstitutionally commenced.” A month earlier Lincoln, as a freshman member of the House of Representatives, introduced the “Spot Resolutions” that asked President Polk to submit evidence that the initial cause and the first battle...

  7. African-American Traveler Jailed Despite Documents
    date January 5, 1848map WAKE, North Carolinatags African-Americans, Law, Slavery

    Sherriff Willie Pope incarcerated the black man calling himself Sam Fary just three days after Christmas. Though Sam claimed himself a free man, Pope placed a front page advertisement in the local paper requesting Fary's owner to come forward, prove property, pay charges and take him away, or he will be dealt with as the law directs. The newspaper notice included a small cartoon of a running...

  8. New Cotton Factory
    date April 12, 1848map RANDOLPH, North Carolinatags Agriculture, Economy, Urban-Life/Boosterism

    The burgeoning village of Franklinville boasted its new cotton factory in 1848. Sitting on the banks of the Deep River, the new Island Ford Manufacturing Company directly faced the Randolph Manufacturing Company. In less than a year the handsome three-story building sprang up with capital of 14,000, and the company began by running 528 spindles. It is no surprise that the local paper enthusiastically...

  9. Casual Affection: An Explanation of Duality between Affection and Dominant Ownership.
    date December 28, 1847map ORANGE, North Carolinatags Plantation Life, Cameron family, Slavery

    How can one person treat another as both indispensable and an object to be purchased? Frances Cameron writes to Duncan Cameron, “A man servant who formerly belonged to my mother is about to be sold, and has applied me to buy him [...] I am particularly desirous of purchasing him [...] But a good male servant in my establishment, is indispensable ...” (series: 1.3.3, box: 43, folder: 1023, date:...

  10. Maintaining a Gender Hierarchy
    date April, 1848 to 1848map MIDDLESEX, Massachusettstags working women, Lowell, hierarchy

    Eliza Jane Cate was an unmarried woman who worked in the Lowell mills for several years and contributed a great number of moralistic essays to the New England Offering during the late 1840’s. Although Cates essays in the Offering were fictional, Cate presented realistic morals and views based on her experiences in the Lowell factories. She begins her essay “Duties and Rights of Mill Girls”...

  11. Shipwreck of the Steam-Packet Home
    date October 10, 1847 to 1847map CURRITUCK, North Carolinatags Church/Religious-Activity, Health/Death, Migration/Transportation

    On Saturday afternoon, John D. Roland left New York on the steam-packet Home bound for Charleston. His trip quickly took a turn for the worst. By Monday morning, the ship encountered a violent hurricane in the waters around Cape Hatteras and was taking on water. All hands were at the pumps, women included, bailing out water, but the leak continued to increase. After water reached the engine,...

  12. A English tourist documents his travels from Liverpool, England to New York.
    date June, 1848map KINGS, New Yorktags Transportation/Migration, Crime/Violence, Economy, Law, Slavery, Urban Life/Boosterism

    In 1848, Archibald Prentice composed “A tour in the United States” during his journey from Liverpool, England to New York. In his letters, Prentice recorded observations of his experiences throughout his tour of America.

    During his stay in the Astor House in New York, Prentice wrote about what he observed after touring Brooklyn. He was particularly fascinated by the working man of America....

  13. Zachary Taylor Grapples With the Wilmot Proviso
    date 1848map SUFFOLK, Massachusettstags Politics, Slavery, Law

    As soon as the Mexican War ended and the Mexican Cession granted the United States even more land for the nation, a common contemporary issue posed the question: would these new territories be free soil or allow slavery? David Wilmot, a Democratic representative from Pennsylvania at the time, added a proposal of how to settle the slavery question once and for all, known as the Wilmot Proviso. The...

  14. Fall Illness on the Greene County Plantation - Flu or Yellow Fever?
    date September 28, 1847 to October 26, 1847map GREENE, Alabamatags Illness, Yellow Fever, plantation, Slavery

         In the “Cameron Plantation Letters” there are numerous references to the health of the slaves living on the Greene County Alabama plantation.  There are one hundred or so letters in the University of North Carolina collection that are catalogued on the website ‘The Plantation Letters, Interpreting Antebellum Plantation Life’. I found thirty-five that directly referenced the health...

  15. Alabama Citizen Addresses Need for Diversity of Labor in Southern States
    date October 1, 1847map AUTAUGA, Alabamatags Agriculture, Economy

    Daniel Pratt, Alabama's first industrialist, published an address to the people of Alabama establishing the advantages to be had from a diversion of labor. Tennessee reviewers agreed with Pratt, stating that “cotton is the article on which the South ought to commence manufacturing.' Logically, “the larger the crops, the more negroes, the more negroes the more land is cultivated,...

  16. Plantation Owner Seeks Compensation From Incompetent Overseer
    date June 22, 1848 to August 9, 1848map HOUSTON, Georgiatags Agriculture, Law

    On June 22, 1848, plantation owner John Powers filed a petition against his overseer, William Ingram, in the Inferior Court of Houston, Georgia. Powers sought reimbursement for financial losses resulting from the overseer's poor and irresponsible work, asserting that half of his cotton and corn crop was lost due to bad management, want of industry and misconduct of the defendant. His plantation...

  17. Washington Receives News of General Scott's Victories
    date September 17, 1847map Washington City, District of Columbiatags War

    In the late summer of 1847, General Winfield Scott began his march towards Mexico City and the decisive series of battles that destroyed the Mexican army and ultimately the abdication of the presidency by Santa Anna. Beginning with the Battle of Contreras on August 19 and the Battle of Churubusco on August 20, the Americans suffered losses of less than a hundred men while the Mexicans had a five...

  18. Greene Springs School for Boys Opens
    date September, 1847map GREENE, Alabamatags Education

    Professor Henry Tutwiler, a professor from LaGrange College and the University of Alabama, opened the Greene Springs School for Boys for its first term in 1847. The school was situated in Greene County near Havana (now known as Hale County). It quickly became one of the most famous academies in Alabama, recognized for the high caliber education provided by Tutwiler, who remained the principal...

  19. Gradual Abolition of Slavery in Western Virginia
    date September, 1847map ROCKBRIDGE, Virginiatags Economy, Government, Slavery

    In 1831, the issue of slavery came to the forefront of political debate following Nat Turner's rebellion in Southampton County, Virginia. President of Washington College and slaveholder Dr. Henry Ruffner delivered an address in 1847 that outlined the evils of slavery and proposed the gradual eradication of slavery from western Virginia. In correspondence to Messrs. Moore, Letcher, &c, Ruffner...

  20. The American Highlanders Storm Chapultepec Castle
    date September 15, 1847 to September 16, 1847map CAMBRIA, Pennsylvaniatags Seige, Militia

    The American Highlanders stormed Chapultepec Castle on September 15, 1847, a strategic and crucial battle that helped to begin the US Campaign in Mexico. In General Geary's Report of September 15, at which time he commanded the 2nd Pennsylvania, he detailed his own experience of the battle and that of each of his companies. Geary was struck with grape shot early in the battle and could not...

  21. A Peek at Things to Come: Whig Disunion
    date September 15, 1847map EAST BATON ROUG, Louisianatags Government, Politics

    The Whig convention, nicknamed the rough and ready convention after prominent Whig Old Rough and Ready General Zachary Taylor, failed to nominate a candidate for the Third Congressional District. The convention consisted of a declaration of the opposition of the members to all caucuses, and a resolve not to make a nomination for any one for Congress. Five people were appointed to a committee who...

  22. Sarah C. Owen Addresses the Rochester 1848 Woman’s Rights Convention
    date August 2, 1848map MONROE, New Yorktags Seneca Falls Convention, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Frederick Douglass, Elizabeth McClintock, Amy Post, woman's rights, woman's suffrage

    A little less than a month after the Seneca Falls Convention, the Convention that sparked the woman’s rights movement, a Woman’s Rights Convention was held on August 2, 1848 in Rochester, New York at the Unitarian Church to continue the work done at Seneca Falls. The Woman’s Rights Convention in Rochester was planned by Amy Post, Sarah Hallowell, Sarah Fish, and Sarah C. Owen because there...

  23. Yellow Fever Epidemic in Louisiana
    date August 3, 1847 to October 18, 1847map ORLEANS, Louisianatags Health/Death

    In the summer of 1847, New Orleans became victim to another regular widespread epidemic of yellow fever. On Tuesday, August 3rd, The Daily Picayune stated that the Board of Health apprised the public that New Orleans was on the eve of an epidemic. They called for “the unacclimated who remain with us to heed the counsel of the board and avoid such exposure and imprudence as may increase their...

  24. Washington Learns that the Armistice Called Between America and Mexico Fails
    date September 6, 1847map Washington City, District of Columbiatags War

    On the evening of the 20th, a white flag came out from the city, and on the morning of August 21st, the two enemies called upon an armistice for peace negotiations. The Daily Union of DC reprinted the text of communications on the same page that told of the failure of said negotiations and the resulting Battle of Molino del Rey. Nicholas Trist, “an able, firm, and truly patriotic...

  25. Whig Reaction to the Mexican War
    date July 17, 1847map ALBEMARLE, Virginiatags War

    As the Mexican War continued through 1847, Americans expressed a growing amount of opposition to a war that originally promised as an easy victory was growing into a drawn-out costly endeavor. In July 1847, former Whig Senator William Cabell Rives spoke at the University of Virginia against the war. He emphasized that the US had no right to “interfere with the institutions of other countries'...