Episodes Nearest to January 1, 1853: 1 through 25 of 25

  1. Calvin H. Wiley Serves as North Carolina's First State Superintendent of Common Schools
    date January 1, 1853map WAKE, North Carolinatags Education

    While serving as North Carolina's first State Superintendent of Common Schools, Calvin H. Wiley revolutionized the educational system. The Common School System, as North Carolina's first statewide publicly supported education system, sought to educate all white boys living within the state. In his first address to the residents of North Carolina, he appealed to them and tried to convince...

  2. The Tobacco Trade in Virginia
    date January 1, 1853map RICHMOND, Virginiatags Economy

    As an appointed Commission Merchant of Virginia, William Brown was responsible for reporting on many markets. However, in 1850's Virginia, there was really only one market that was truly booming, and that was tobacco. His analysis of the Virginia tobacco trade was the most important aspect of his job, as the economic prosperity of Virginia walked hand in hand with the fortunes of the tobacco...

  3. Twelve Years a Slave
    date January 2, 1853 to January 4, 1853map Washington City, District of Columbiatags African-Americans, Agriculture, Crime/Violence, Law, Migration/Transportation, Race-Relations, Slavery

    The memoirs of Solomon Northup vividly portrayed the descent of a former New York freedman into the harsh system of slavery faced by many African Americans living in the antebellum South. Few people probably recalled January 4, 1853, as a significant day in the history of the United States. However, on this day a very important meeting was being held in the small town of Marksville, Louisiana, and...

  4. North Carolina Slave Uprising Plot
    date December 23, 1852 to December 24, 1852map HALIFAX, North Carolinatags Crime/Violence, Slavery

    Around the time Christmas 1852, a furor erupted in a rural county of North Carolina over the uncovering of the alleged plot of 17 slaves to murder their master's overseer and ignite a larger slave rebellion. Josiah Collins, the slaves' master, promptly removed the culprits from his plantation, effectively “selling them down the river.' However, word of the averted insurrection...

  5. The Launch of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad
    date January 10, 1853map BALTIMORE, Marylandtags Migration/Transportation

    On July 4, 1828, Baltimore first began its construction of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. On January 10, 1853, the city finally celebrated the opening of the line. The occasion called for two special train cars carrying the Legislatures of Maryland and Virginia, the city council of Baltimore, the press, and other influential citizens of the area approximately 500 people altogether on an inaugural...

  6. Meeting of the American Colonization Society
    date January 18, 1853map Washington City, District of Columbiatags African-Americans, Race-Relations

    During its thirty-sixth annual meeting on January 18, 1853, the American Colonization Society delivered its annual report at the “Four and a-half street (Presbyterian) church.' The gathering was opened with prayers and it was announced that, “a general review of our operations the past year is calculated to produce the conviction that the Society is growing in usefulness with every...

  7. Edward Everett Extolls Civilizing Liberia
    date January 18, 1853map Washington City, District of Columbiatags African-Americans, Migration/Transportation, Slavery, Race-Relations

    At the thirty-sixth annual meeting of the American Colonization Society (ACS), the main concern for US Secretary of State Edward Everett was whether it was possible to maintain a civilization in Africa and whether or not the ACS was successful in attempting it. In his speech, Everett discussed the reasons for the ACS, such as stopping the slave trade, and discusses their inspirations which include...

  8. Farming Tips from a Farmer
    date November 18, 1852map ROANOKE, Virginiatags Agriculture, Slavery

    "Give the boys tools of the best kind and where practicable, let them be adopted in size to their strength and capacity for handling them." This was just one of the many tips presented in a farming advice column in the Roanoke Beacon on November 18, 1852. The newspaper contained many other written editorials that expressed people's opinions. The advice in this column, however, was...

  9. Forced Immigration
    date February 23, 1853map ORANGE, Floridatags Immigration, Native-Americans

    The increasing immigration of America by Europeans forced the nation to begin expanding the land it needed. The idea of Manifest Destiny was prevalent throughout the citizens of the US, and each wanted his/her piece of land so they could start living out their lives. Florida was one the most lush and fertile areas in the country, and was prime location for more settlers who wanted to acquire property...

  10. Jefferson Davis Named As Pierce's Secretary of War
    date March 4, 1853 to March 7, 1853map Washington City, District of Columbiatags War

    Jefferson Davis accepted his post as Franklin Pierce's Secretary of War. Born in Kentucky and living in Mississippi for much of his life, Jefferson Davis developed a strong conviction that the Constitution protected the practice of slavery and was an advocate of states' rights. As part of Pierce's administration, he encouraged and induced Pierce to favor the interests and views of southerners...

  11. Marriage in the Church
    date October 26, 1852map DINWIDDIE, Virginiatags Church/Religious-Activity

    On October 26, 1852 William T. Walker and Susan Josephine Sampson were married in a small church in Petersburg, Virginia. The announcement of their marriage described the beauty and elegance of the event. Many people were present and most of these were family and friends who lived in the nearby area. It is interesting to note, however, that Bible verses were listed on the announcement and the...

  12. A Family of Slaves Torn Apart?
    date April 13, 1853map AUGUSTA, Virginiatags African-Americans, Slavery

    One of the horrors associated with the institution of slavery was that it constantly tore families apart because slaveholders would sell off members of black families to different and often distant locations. While this was a common occurrence, the benevolence of a significant portion of slaveholders who tried to keep slave families together is often ignored. The sale of a family of slaves by a...

  13. William Rufus King Dies
    date April 18, 1853map BLOUNT, Alabamatags Health/Death

    Former Alabama Senator William Rufus King was inaugurated as the Vice President of Franklin Pierce on March 24, 1853 in Cuba, where he had gone supposedly to recover his failing health. However, his presence in Cuba gained additional meaning as a secret document that came to be known as the Ostend Manifesto was leaked in the later years of the Pierce administration. The President had sent diplomats...

  14. The Tragedy of Slave Trade
    date September, 1852map POLK, Tennesseetags African-Americans, Crime/Violence, Health/Death, Slavery, Women

    It was a grave tragedy. An enslaved African American woman of Polk County, Tennessee put an end to the lives of her children and then took her own life one September night in 1852. Authorities confirmed that the woman killed all four of her children by slitting their throats while they slept. After the gruesome deed had been carried out, she too ended her life in the same manner. When questioned...

  15. Vardy McBee
    date September, 1852map GREENVILLE, South Carolinatags Vardry McBee, De Bows Review, Railroad

    Vardry McBee is a Greenville, South Carolina celebrity; with everything from streets, buildings, and residence halls erected in his name, there is no doubt McBee had an impact on Greenville, SC. McBee’s name does not have the same resonance outside of this South Carolina city today, although in 1852 McBee gained national recognition in the southern agricultural magazine De Bows Review....

  16. Temperance Convention in Mississippi
    date May 4, 1853 to May 5, 1853map JEFFERSON, Mississippitags Church/Religious-Activity, Crime/Violence, Health/Death

    The Temperance Convention in Jackson, Mississippi of 1853 denounced alcohol as “the root, the fountain, the parent of every other evil, vice, crime, or disease.' The Convention viewed the consumption of alcohol as a social evil that was even responsible for “the crimes committed by [the] slave population,' declaring that, “colored people are everywhere diseased, polluted and...

  17. Cotton Planters' Convention in Alabama
    date May 15, 1853 to May 17, 1853map JEFFERSON, Mississippitags Agriculture, Slavery

    The Cotton Planters' Convention of 1853 featured a three-day gathering of 160 planters from all over the South. Conventions similar to this one span 1850s. In many ways, the 1853 Convention was typical of its type, beginning with registration of arrivals and election of officers and including agricultural presentations and speeches appealing to Southern nationalism. <br /><br />George...

  18. North Carolina General Assembly of 1852
    date March, 1852 to December, 1852map MECKLENBURG, North Carolinatags Migration/Transportation

    Following the Democratic sweep of the North Carolina governorship and both houses of the state legislature in 1850, the majority Democratic General Assembly convened in 1852 to begin enacting its insurgent, reformist platform. Similar to the reformist laws passed in Louisiana, North Carolina appointed a Superintendent of Public Schools. The General Assembly also passed laws guaranteeing the equitable...

  19. Memphis Convention of Southern States
    date June 6, 1853 to June 9, 1853map SHELBY, Tennesseetags Agriculture, Economy, Education

    The Convention meeting in Memphis elected William Causby Dawson, a senator from Georgia, to preside over its proceedings. It addressed issues relevant and common to the southern states, including the construction of a railway from the Mississippi river to the Pacific Ocean, opening up commerce with the valley of the Amazon, the importance of the cotton interest a subject of instructions in foreign...

  20. A Liberty Party Leader Assists A Fellow Abolitionist
    date July 27, 1852map NEW YORK, New Yorktags Politics, Anti-slavery

    Gerrit Smith was a prominent abolitionist and leader of the early Liberty Party during the 1840s and 1850s. He worked to help slaves and promote abolitionism in his lifetime, including spending his own money for the cause. In a letter to a friend, Smith described how he had posted bail on different occasions for a man named Chaplin, who was being punished for enticing slaves away from their southern...

  21. The Election of 1852 Comes to Alabama
    date July 25, 1852map LIMESTONE, Alabamatags Government, Politics

    Four months before the presidential election of 1852, Thomas J. McClellan wrote to his friend Patrick Ragland, informing him of his views on the state of the Whig Party and the upcoming election. McClellan emphatically told Ragland that he intended to support the Whig nominee, General Winfield Scott, and the platform upon which he would run for the presidency. McClellan also expressed feelings of...

  22. Rumors of Slave Insurrections in New Orleans
    date June 13, 1853map JEFFERSON, Floridatags African-Americans, Crime/Violence, Race-Relations

    Rumors of an intended slave insurrection alarmed whites living in New Orleans as well as throughout the South as the news of the supposed insurrection travel through newspapers published around the country. On the night of June 13, a free black man reported to the local police about a plot for insurrection in New Orleans. Soon after, James Dyson, white man who was a teacher of a school for free...

  23. The Hypocritical Admirers of Harriet Beecher Stowe
    date June 18, 1853map WAKE, North Carolinatags African-Americans, Migration/Transportation, Race-Relations, Slavery

    Editors of the Raleigh Register reprinted stanzas of a poem published in New York that criticized what Raleigh's editors considered the hypocritical nature of aristocratic British support for Uncle Tom's Cabin in 1853. They applauded the satiric criticism as the severest and most truthful against Stowe and her British supporters. The poem was written as if by a British...

  24. Fighting Back, Lola Montez
    date July 15, 1852map NEW YORK, New Yorktags Nineteenth Century, Prostitution

    In July of 1852, Lola Montez opened a copy of the New York Daily Times and came face to face with column after column of slanderous comments directed at her. Defamation of character is probably one of the most challenging things that one person can go through. People expressing half-truths without actually knowing the real story is a battle most people will face at some point in their lives....

  25. Full Steam Ahead; Coming to America on a Steamship – How the Steamship and the Industrial Revolution Changed America.
    date June 22, 1852 to July 29, 1852map NEW YORK, New Yorktags Migration/Transportation, Economy

    On June 22, 1852, Edmund Patton took off upon a massive steamship from London on a voyage to America.  He noted the scene upon leaving within the pages of his book, “One of these noble ships leaves the port of London weekly; they are fitted up to carry several hundred emigrants, who are glad to leave Europe, in the hope of improving their condition in the New World, which offers a fair prospect...