Episodes Nearest to February 21, 1870: 1 through 25 of 25

  1. The First Enforcement Act is Presented in Congress
    date February 21, 1870map Washington City, District of Columbiatags Race-Relations

    The first of a long series of Enforcement Acts passed through Congress on February 21, 1870. The Enforcement Acts were designed to enforce the 15th Amendment throughout the South during the elections. The elections of 1870 were plagued by violence throughout the South exerted primarily by members and sympathizers of the Ku Klux Klan. Their tactics of lynching, bombing, and otherwise exerting violence...

  2. Tennessee Freedmen happy despite poverty and disease
    date February 24, 1870 to February, 1870map COFFEE, Tennesseetags African-Americans, Health/Death

    On a blustery winter day in 1870, a woman traveling through Tennessee surveyed the freedmen preparing their gardens for the early vegetable season atop a bluff along the Elk River. From the bluff she could see freedmen sharecropping cotton for a wealthy doctor who lived in the area. Even though the blacks were desperately poor, she noticed that they were so happy and satisfied with their condition....

  3. Boy Murdered in Norfolk County
    date February 12, 1870map NORFOLK CITY, Virginiatags African-Americans, Crime/Violence, Economy, Law, Urban-Life/Boosterism

    A young black boy living at Wood?s farm in Norfolk County was employed to go to the grocery store and buy a dollars worth of pork by a black family named Seguine. The family gave the young boy a ten-dollar note to buy the pork. The boy set off to the store down the road and bought the dollars worth of pork for his employers. On the way back from the store the young boy misplaced the change from...

  4. Conquoror of Diseases
    date January 29, 1870map JACKSON, Mississippitags Health/Death, War

    In January 1870, there was an advertisement in The Weekly Mississippi Pilot for Doctor Porter, the great medical electrician, electric physician, and conqueror of diseases. This doctor claimed to have visited states and major cities all around the United States and was extremely successful in curing all diseases, especially ones that were chronic, long lasting, and that have not been able to be...

  5. Tennant farmers settled with Mr. Bills after the harvest
    date January 26, 1870map HARDEMAN, Tennesseetags African-Americans, Agriculture, Economy, Race-Relations

    On a cold Wednesday morning in February, tenant farmers Captain Bishop and the African Americans Coleman, Sandy, and Sam Watkins settled their rent with wealthy Tennessee planter John Houston Bills. The total crop for the year for all four men was worth 2,033 dollars Mr. Bills took 515 dollars for rent, or twenty five percent of the four men's total crop. These landless tenants had no choice...

  6. Emergence of the New Women in the Reconstruction South
    date January, 1870map JEFFERSON, Kentuckytags African-Americans, Government, Law, Politics, Women

    "Susan B. Anthony is the Bismarck; she plans the campaigns, provides the munitions of war, organizes the raw recruits, sets the squadrons in the field," read the first lines of an article entitled "The Women Who Dare: Short Patent Sketches of Prominent Revolutionists" in the Courier Journal. The article continued to compare Anthony, the leader of the women's suffrage movement,...

  7. Thomas Peterson Casts the First Vote
    date March 30, 1870map MIDDLESEX, New Jerseytags Right to Vote, Thomas Peterson, Fifteenth Amendment

    In the wake of the defeat of the Confederate States of America, the United States instituted the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments.  The first African American to take advantage of the new right to vote was Thomas Mundy Peterson.  Peterson cast his historic vote on March 31, 1870.  The iconic vote was cast in a local election in Perth Amboy, New Jersey for the town’s charter. ...

  8. Missouri Rebels Regain Civil Liberties
    date April 12, 1870map ST. LOUIS, Missouritags African-Americans, Government, Law, Politics

    Late in the summer of 1870, Missouri's State Republican Committee addressed its members and suggested they reinstate all rights to those who rebelled against the Union. The Republicans of Missouri, taught by a sublime religion, remember that while to err is human, to forgive is divine. The Civil War had been over for over five years, but former rebels in Missouri still could not fully participate...

  9. Governor William H. Smith of Alabama Issues a Proclamation
    date April 13, 1870map MONTGOMERY, Alabamatags Crime/Violence, Race-Relations

    On April 13, 1870 Governor Smith of Alabama issued a Proclamation to be circulated to all citizens of Alabama. It stated, “if the lawlessness continues in these counties [Greene, Morgan, and Tuscaloosa] or shall manifest itself to the same extent in other counties' (Montgomery Advertiser April 13, 1870, 2), Governor Smith would ask the Congress to pass tax in order to raise a state militia....

  10. Importance of Religion in Old South
    date April 12, 1870 to April 27, 1870map HALIFAX, Virginiatags Church/Religious-Activity, Women

    On April 12, 1870, Frederick W. Page wrote to his daughter Annie Nelson Page to let her know how pleased he was she was being confirmed. He was recently informed that a priest was planning to visit Annie's town. He emphasized the importance of truly accepting god in her own heart and mind. Also, Frederick wanted his daughter to be confirmed for the right reasons. He stressed to Annie that she...

  11. Disease Ravages Pulaski County
    date April 22, 1870map PULASKI, Virginiatags Health/Death, Migration/Transportation, Women

    When Typhoid fever and other diseases hit Appalachia, they hit hard. In 1870, Ella Painter wrote her Aunt Lena many letters from Dublin, Virginia, with updates and inquiries about Lena's new husband and children. On her fourteenth birthday, Ella wrote her Aunt a lengthy letter which she felt was long overdue. Ella's love and admiration for her Aunt is clear as she nearly begs her to come...

  12. Klan Murders Senator Stephens
    date May 24, 1870map CASWELL, North Carolinatags Crime/Violence, Health/Death, Race-Relations

    Three days passed before the news of Senator Stephens? assassination reached Maria Massey Barringer. On May 21, 1870, Republican Senator John W. Stephens was murdered at the Caswell County Courthouse by members of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). On account of his political principles, Stephens was stabbed, choked, and left dying on a woodpile in a rear room of the courthouse. Prior to his murder Stephens...

  13. Post-War Virginia
    date June 1, 1870map CAMPBELL, Virginiatags Agriculture, Economy, Slavery, War

    The aftermath of the Civil War was destructive to the morale of many Southerners as it imposed economic, agricultural, and social devastation. A Campbell County, Virginia resident, Sarah Miller Payne, wrote a series of letters to her Northern cousin, Mary, regarding the difficulties she faced after the war. Although these two relatives lived in regions with opposite political views, Sarah made it...

  14. Economic Disparity in the South after the Civil War
    date November 12, 1869map PAGE, Virginiatags Economy, Migration/Transportation, War

    The Page Courier newspaper, on November 12, 1869, submitted a request to some of their clients in the county. The newspaper declared Wood-Wood-Our wood paying subscribers will remember that we will freeze without fire. The Page Courier Newspaper had previously set up a method of payment with its poorer clients to exchange newspapers with firewood. BRING IT IN the Courier begged. This desperate...

  15. White Power and Black Wage Labor
    date 1870map GLYNN, Georgiatags African-Americans, Agriculture, Race-Relations

    Francis Leigh Butler ran her plantation on her own. As a white woman, she earned respect from her neighbors for her abilities to oversee the completion of day-to-day work done by her hired black laborers. Butler considered the hired hands to be loyal workers-almost a part of her family. To her dismay, she overheard that one of the men, Peter Track, who had been a favorite had tried to leave the...

  16. Welcome to West Virginia
    date 1870map WOOD, West Virginiatags Agriculture, Economy, Migration/Transportation

    Seven years after its creation, West Virginia continued to be less populated than its older, more widely settled eastern counterpart. According to the Encyclopedia of the South, at the end of the Civil War West Virginia was an undeveloped and rural state with a population of only about 400,000, or about one-third that of contemporary Virginia. In part to attempt to counteract this imbalance, as...

  17. In Faded Fabric: The Preservation of Immigrant Identity
    date 1870map COOK, Illinoistags Italy, Marriage, Immigration

    The Kingdom of Italy had secured its territorial integrity, seizing Venice from Austria 1866 and ending Rome’s Papal autonomy by conquering the Eternal City four years later. Nestled in the mountains of southern Italy laid the village of Montefalcone. In 1870, the town was awash with celebration—not from its kingdom’s recent conquests but from a single wedding. Fiorita Corso was betrothed...

  18. The Young Lady's Guide is a guide on how women should live and conduct their lives according to Gods will.
    date 1870map NEW YORK, New Yorktags Christianity, 19th century youth, family values

    The Young Lady’s Guide, written in 1870, is a book on how women should live and conduct their lives according to God's will. One of the guide’s goals is to get young women to look at the broader picture and to forget the distractions in their daily lives and instead focus on God.  The guide is split in several different sections with each section written by a different author who is experienced...

  19. Something from Nothing: How Kate Drumgoold Directed Her Own Future
    date 1870map CHESTERFIELD, Virginiatags Education, Slavery, Women, African-Americans

    Kate Drumgoold walked through the door of the school room, the fee for her education in one hand and a Bible in the other. The funds her church had raised to put her through school had been stolen from her, but her passion had not been taken along with it. Saving up her earnings to pay for her schooling had been difficult, but her dream of one day being able to teach fellow former slaves to read...

  20. QUIET AT THE PLAINS: Race Relations, Violence and the Ku Klux Klan in Alabama
    date July 11, 1870map CALHOUN, Alabamatags African-Americans, Church/Religious-Activity, Crime/Violence, Race-Relations

    The morning of July 11, 1870, was much like any other in Patona, Alabama: quiet. The city's two main roads were still, the farms and fields hot with the summer sun; the rural environment uninterrupted. The only sound for miles was that of a train barreling down the Rome and Dalton railroad.

    The events both inside and outside of the train did not reflect the peace and quiet that lent itself...

  21. Martial Law Declared in North Carolina
    date June 8, 1870 to November 10, 1870map CASWELL, North Carolinatags Crime/Violence, Race-Relations, War

    The Ku Klux Klan began its attempts to undermine the formulating North Carolina state government in 1868. Their attempts to destroy Reconstruction efforts and institute white supremacy created a state of lawlessness and violence in the state of North Carolina. It was pattern that followed the Ku Klux Klan throughout the South. In this the heyday of the Klan, it found support even in the highest...

  22. Train Crash in Clarksville, Tennessee
    date August 14, 1869map MONTGOMERY, Tennesseetags Health/Death, Economy, Government, Migration/Transportation

    Eight miles outside of Clarksville Tennessee, a train shattered into splinters. The railroad bridge the train intended to pass over collapsed and the train plummeted thirty feet below into Rudd's creek. The impact was so severe that it killed four people and wounded forty to fifty people. The locomotive, caboose, express and baggage car, two passenger coaches, and one sleeping-car all burned...

  23. Republican Party Splits at Republican Convention
    date September, 1870map JEFFERSON, Missouritags Government, Politics

    Just five years after the end of the Civil War, tension was already brewing within the majority Republican party of Missouri. Because of the newly drafted Missouri Constitution of 1865, the term for the governor was reduced to two years and thus Governor Joseph McClurg was faced with having to win reelection in 1870. A staunch protectionist and prohibitionist, Governor McClurg was strongly in...

  24. Mrs. Robert E. Lee Recalls Her Husband's Last Days
    date September 28, 1870 to October 12, 1870map ROCKBRIDGE, Virginiatags Health/Death, Civil War

    On the morning of Wednesday, October 12, 1870, General Robert E. Lee passed away from pneumonia while surrounded by his family at home in Lexington, Virginia. General Lee gained celebrity from his service as a general in the Confederacy during the Civil War. The pneumonia followed a stroke that had occurred two weeks earlier. Despite death looming, Lee maintained composure that he accumulated over...

  25. Encouraging Immigration to Alabama
    date January 1, 1869 to December 31, 1869map MONTGOMERY, Alabamatags alabama, Immigration

    “A state favored by nature in every way” boasted a booklet created by the state of Alabama. Published in 1869, this 22 page document contained a detailed list of the states assets. “No part of the United States offers so many and such striking inducements to the immigrant as Alabama.” It was an effort to entice foreign immigrants to come and establish their roots in Alabama. It covered every...