Episodes Nearest to May 17, 1875 to May 17, 1876: 1 through 25 of 25

  1. Missouri's Third State Constitution Adopted
    date October 30, 1875map JEFFERSON, Missouritags Government, Law

    For the second time in less than 10 years, Missouri had written a new State Constitution

    which was up for ratification by the citizens of the state. The New York Times reported that

    the third Missouri Constitution was well on its way to passing by a wide margin with 8,245 votes

    for the Constitution and 1,042 against it in the city of St. Louis alone. For close to twenty towns...

  2. Turncoat at the Mollie Trials
    date September 3, 1875 to March 26, 1876map CARBON, Pennsylvaniatags Labor Union, Murder, Trial

    In 1876 the New York Times published an article describing the murder trial of John P. Jones , a mine boss of the Lehigh and Wilkesbarre Coal Company. It was widely believed that Jones murderers were members of the secretive and violent Irish labor union called the Molly Maguires. During this time stories of the Mollies murdering mine bosses that crossed the group were very common.

    A very...

  3. The Wedding of Dolly Burge's Daughter
    date December 16, 1875map NEWTON, Georgiatags Women

    Dolly Burge recorded in her diary feelings about events that happened in her life and impacted her. Her daughter's departure for college completely devastated Burge. Since her husband had died, it meant that she was living without her family. When her daughter decided to get married, it devastated her even more. She wrote about how upset she was in her diary entries. Burge felt that she had...

  4. Sixty-Sixth Annual Meeting of Amercian Board of Commissioners
    date October 6, 1875map COOK, Illinoistags Missionaries, Religion

    The American Board of Commissioners met on October 6, 1875, to discuss foreign religious missions. The meetings were held every day and lasted for about one week. The committee consisted of 207 members, of whom 116 were clergymen and ninety-one were laymen. Inside the Board there was another committee that handled all expenses and missionary affairs. That committee was called the Prudential...

  5. Women's Inheritance Rights
    date July 1, 1875 to 1875map ALBEMARLE, Virginiatags Agriculture, Law, Women

    In July 1875, Judith Page Rives wrote her last will and testament in which she left two thirds of her twelve hundred acres to her son Alfred and four hundred acres to her daughter Ella. She also gave Ella all of her jewelry and clothing, including a diamond brooch valued at 14,000 dollars. Mrs. Rives also left Ella her stocks. If Ella never married, Mrs. Rives wished for her to live with one of...

  6. Aint whistlin Dixie no more
    date January 1, 1876map Washington City, District of Columbiatags Crime/Violence, Government, Health/Death, War

    The pictures of men from Auschwitz still loom in the minds of many Americans; however, our historical memory has lead us to forget the horrors we inflicted upon our own brothers during the Civil War. "No," was the common response to Confederate requests to trade Union and rebel POWs. The result was the needless deaths of thousands of men on both sides due to malnourishment, lack of medical care,...

  7. Townsmen Pledge to End the Sale of Liquor in Central Virginia
    date May 13, 1875 to February 9, 1876map LOUISA, Virginiatags African-Americans, Church/Religious-Activity, Law

    Dr. Baldwin Buckner, a physician from Louisa County, Virginia, was a determined and resolute man. He held fast to his beliefs in spite of outside pressures that urged him to do otherwise. Buckner refused to give his son, Horace, any extra funds besides those that were sufficient to cover his boarding expenses while he was teaching. In letters that Horace wrote in 1875 and 1876, he made a desperate...

  8. The Proper Influence of a Woman
    date January 18, 1876map NORFOLK CITY, Virginiatags Church/Religious-Activity, Women

    Armed with biblical justification found in the book of Genesis, Reverend W. E. Edwards preached at length to a great crowd at the Granby Street Methodist Church, concerning the proper role of women. He claimed Eve's involvement in the first human sin left her with certain characteristics that trickled down to even the women seated there before him. In all women, Edwards claimed one found a...

  9. Hired Laborers on the Farms of Central Virginia
    date January 24, 1876map FLUVANNA, Virginiatags Agriculture, Economy

    In 1876, Dr. Cary C. Cocke, the owner of a large plantation in Fluvanna County, Virginia, was concerned about the security of one of his major investments, his crops. On January 24, 1876 Cocke received a letter from a store in Richmond, Virginia; the author of the letter regretfully informed Cocke that the wheat received from Cocke's farm fell short of the desired weight. At the time that...

  10. Mississippi Democrats enact the “Mississippi Plan'
    date May, 1875 to November, 1875map JACKSON, Mississippitags African-Americans, Race-Relations

    Led by James Z. George and L.Q.C Lamar, Mississippi Democrats made plans to drive the local Republicans from office. The plan was to lure freedman with promises of protected civil rights and to threaten those who remained faithful to the Republicans. By the summer of 1875 the Democrats had created extralegal militias to encourage conversion by means of violence and intimidation. <br /> This...

  11. WANTED
    date July 31, 1875map JACKSON, Mississippitags African-Americans, Crime/Violence, Government, Law, Slavery

    A wanted ad for a man named Jeff Williams appeared in The Daily Mississippi Pilot?s reward section. Williams was a convict who escaped while under lease to a family and working on the Noxubee river levee. The Governor of Mississippi offered 50 dollars for someone to arrest and take Williams to the state penitentiary. The description of the man at large was listed. Along with including his height...

  12. Educational Improvements in North Carolina
    date March 8, 1876map CASWELL, North Carolinatags Church/Religious-Activity, Education, Women

    Mary Graves never imagined that she would be offered a teaching position in Caswell County when she visited as a guest preacher to local Presbyterian congregations from her Leesburg, Virginia home in 1876.Yet, Mary was offered a teaching position, and to her own surprise, left her home in Leesburg and moved to Caswell County to begin her teaching career. She accepted the position on the basis that...

  13. Raleigh Baptist Answers the Call of the Holy Spirit
    date March 5, 1876 to March 12, 1876map WAKE, North Carolinatags Church/Religious-Activity

    The Baptists of Raleigh overflowed in the street outside the meeting house where Elder F.M. Jordan preached the gospel that night. The following day, March 6, 1876, the Holy Spirit called J.S. Allen, one of Jordan's followers, to build a meeting house to hold all of his Brother and Sister Baptists who wished to worship. Mrs. Hufman, a fellow Baptist, relayed the Holy Spirit's message to...

  14. Professorship at The University
    date July 25, 1875map ORANGE, Virginiatags Economy, Education

    Ambition ran high for distinguished men of wealthy Virginia families. For these men, there were relatively few jobs besides running a plantation that were suitable for those in their station. One of these jobs was to be a professor at a prestigious university. On July 25th, 1875, John Jaquelin Ambler wrote his brother from Lynchburg about an open professorship at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville,...

  15. Professorship at The University
    date July 25, 1875map ORANGE, Vermonttags Education

    Ambition ran high for distinguished men of wealthy Virginia families. For these men, there were relatively few jobs besides running a plantation that were suitable for those in their station. One of these jobs was to be a professor at a prestigious university. On July 25th, 1875, John Jaquelin Ambler wrote his brother from Lynchburg about an open professorship at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville,...

  16. Manufacturing in post-War Mississippi
    date July, 1875map ADAMS, Mississippitags Agriculture, Economy, Race-Relations

    Did we learn anything from the War? The Natchez Weekly Democrat, a local newspaper located in Natchez, Mississippi, asked this question of its readers in more polite terms. In July, 1875, the newspaper lamented the lack of economic development in the form of manufacturing over the previous years in the surrounding area. Southerners in all parts of the former Confederacy were aware that...

  17. Near Death at the Hands of the Ku Klux Klan
    date January 9, 1875 to 1875map POWELL, Kentuckytags African-Americans, Crime/Violence

    Race relations during and after Reconstruction were tense. Many whites had never dealt with free blacks and many free blacks had never been free. White Anglo-Saxon Protestant groups such as the Ku Klux Klan were formed in an attempt to maintain the status quo that had arisen over the past two centuries. Through acts of violence and intimidation, Ku Klux members aimed to scare free blacks into adopting...

  18. Limbs for Sale
    date March 29, 1876map YAZOO, Mississippitags Health/Death, War

    In a March edition of The Weekly Clarion in 1876, there was an advertisement for artificial limbs. Chas M. Evans was the supposed manufacturer of artificial limbs of the best quality. He had just recently lowered the prices of the limbs along with other enticements to show his southern patronage to former Confederate soldiers and citizens. Evans claimed that he would allow each customer...

  19. Lee Sarcophagus Moved to Lexington
    date 1875map ROCKBRIDGE, Virginiatags Education, War

    Showing great dedication and remembrance of General Robert E. Lee, who died in 1870, the administration of The Virginia Military Academy and the local government of Lexington, Virginia made a grand affair of the arrival of his sarcophagus. <br /> It seemed the trend of the year to be remembering the man, as similar action happened at Washington and Lee University, where he was buried. The...

  20. Hitting Shore With a Vengeance
    date 1875map SOMERSET, Marylandtags Agriculture, Arts/Leisure, Church/Religious-Activity, Crime/Violence, Health/Death, Economy, Urban-Life/Boosterism

    Haynie Bradshaw thanked God every time he arrived back on shore. Oystermen were reputed to be daring and unscrupulous men, who regard[ed] neither the laws of God nor the laws of man, but Bradshaw was a devout Methodist who sometimes led services on Sunday. As an oysterman, Bradshaw dredged the Chesapeake Bay aboard one of the infamous bugeye boats. It was a terrible living. Crews received one third...

  21. African American Religious Communities
    date 1875map LIBERTY, Georgiatags African-Americans, Church/Religious-Activity, Education, Race-Relations

    Old Midway Church in Liberty County, Georgia served as a place where both whites and blacks came together to worship in antebellum society. A Congregational polity, its members opposed secession, but the rising tensions brought on by the Civil War resulted in the termination of communication between the Church and its fellow congregations in the North. During Reconstruction, a white Congregational...

  22. Importance of Education
    date 1875map RICHMOND, Virginiatags Education

    A focused, open-minded man capable of sound reasoning and clear expression- these, according to John Broadus, were the characteristics distinguishing an educated man. The Baptist minister was a fierce advocate of higher education and lamented the fact that many young men attended schooling in their younger years, but, when about to enter the potential peak of their intellectual growth, chose to...

  23. Vogue:  Women’s Nineteenth Century Fashion
    date 1875map NEW YORK, New Yorktags Women, Arts/Leisure

    The changing role of nineteenth century women from a worker on the farm to a woman of society was reflected in fashion transformations, with fashion magazines that spoke directly to women, stating that “every lady loves it.”  Magazine stressed the novelty and desirability of the clothing pictured.  MME Demorest’s Illustrated Portfolio of the Fashions was a popular biannual women’s magazine,...

  24. An Experience of Mutual Criticism
    date 1875map MADISON, New Yorktags Religion, Utopian Societies

    Beginning in 1846 John Humphrey Noyes began to gather around him a group of “perfectionists” which would soon become the Oneida Community. This communistic, utopian society was based in the idea that true holiness came from communal living and the termination of monogamy with a focus on studying the Bible and becoming better individuals. The Oneidas believed that the second coming of Christ...

  25. The Great Democratic Procession
    date June 26, 1875map WARREN, Mississippitags Arts/Leisure, Politics, Women

    In the summer of 1875, Jane Pryor of Vicksburg, Mississippi wrote a warm letter to Caroline Kiger of Warren County in anticipation of the coming week's political events. Encouraging Mrs. Kiger's husband to come to Vicksburg, Pryor wrote: tell him to try and be here 24th in the Great Democratic procession at 6 o'clock in the afternoon that will be tomorrow & we will show him the elegant...